Blogs By FansC70 At The Bat
Sponsor


Cardinals_WideSkyscraper.jpg

Baseball Schedule is your best source for the latest St Louis Cardinals Schedule information as well as keeping up with division rivals including Cubs Schedule, Reds Schedule, Brewers Schedule and Astros Schedule.

Bet on the Cardinals with Sports Interaction's MLB betting lines


Slots Galore Casino Tournaments

Get your tickets from Bubba! Cheap St. Louis Cardinals Tickets and more, including tickets for the next MLB All-Star Game. Bubba's got Boston Red Sox Tickets and New York Yankees Tickets

Authentic, large selection of Cardinals memorabilia, guaranteed and certified.

Subscribe
RSS Feed

Archives

Players

Categories


Alliance tickets has an extensive inventory of St. Louis Cardinals Tickets , Colorado Rockies Tickets, San Francisco Giants Tickets and Seattle MarinersTickets.

With all of the St Louis tickets out there, Cardinals tickets and Rams tickets make for great presents. GoTickets.com can fill all of your sports tickets needs, just check out our testimonials!

Well, It's Worked Before

Posted on October 10, 2011 at 6:55 AM
Filed Under: Milwaukee Brewers | St. Louis Cardinals
The Cardinals opened the series by getting a three-run lead but blowing it, scoring six runs but losing the ballgame, and leave Game 1 down 1-0 on the road.

Haven't we been here before?

There were a lot of similarities between the opening game against the Brewers yesterday and Game 1 of the NLDS against the Phillies.  Both times, a big home run pushed the Cards out to a three-run lead.  Both times, a big blow by the first baseman took the lead back.  Yet there were significant differences as well.

The main one being that Zack Greinke, for as good as he is, really isn't the ace that the Cards need to worry about, unlike Roy Halladay.  Greinke had been very good at home and for the Cardinals to pile up six runs against him says that this was much more of a pitching fault than an offensive failure.

On the flip side, this is a seven game series instead of a five gamer.  As with the NLDS, the Cards only needed to win one game here in Milwaukee, something they still can do.  So there's definitely no reason to panic.

Where do we put the blame, then, if we are looking to do it?  Well, going into the series it was pretty obvious that if the Cardinals couldn't contain Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder, this was going to be a short outing for the Redbirds.  Yesterday proved that, as Braun and Fielder both left the yard and combined to drive in six of the runs.  The game plan for those guys has to be better going forward, and that's a possibility--Ryan Howard had a big Game 1 and then was never heard from again.  That might be a bit much to ask for, especially for Braun, but the Cards should be able to better limit the damage.

In fact, there seemed to be a great chance to do that yesterday.  There was a Twitter discussion before Braun's key third at-bat, when two were on and nobody was out in the fifth, that Octavio Dotel, who was warming up in the pen, had struck out Braun six of eight times in his career.  So if Dotel was warming up, why did he not get into the game when that situation presented itself?  Tony La Russa says that Jaime Garcia was pitching better than that and thought he could get Braun.  As inconsistent as Garcia had been, though, I'm not sure that you don't go get him.

You do hate to burn through your bullpen and you can afford to gamble a bit with Game 1, but being able to get a win in this game would have been really big.  Even if you stay with Garcia after Braun, though, you have to at least go out to the mound before Fielder bats.  Garcia looked to just rear back and throw a pitch down the heart of the plate, looking to get a strike or to overpower Fielder.  It didn't work as Fielder lost it in the swirl of white towels.  Calming Garcia down, reminding him that he still had a lead and needed to be careful, might have been a game-changing idea.  Instead, the lead--and Garcia--was gone.

The Cardinals did try to rally, but runners on the corners for Albert Pujols in the seventh became a regular-season at-bat, as AP bounced into a double play that ended the threat.  The playoff atmosphere that got to Garcia seemed to get to Pujols somewhat as well, as he expanded his zone there and the team paid.  He has to realize that a walk in that situation would have been fine, as it'd have brought Lance Berkman to the plate.  It's so easy, though, to want to do too much, especially in a hostile environment and trailing.

Some nice work by David Freese yesterday, both offensively and defensively.  Josh from Pitchers Hit Eighth was passing through town and stopped to watch the game with me, and neither one of us thought Freese's home run was going to go out.  The ball kept carrying, though, and it put the Cards back on top for a while.  Freese also turned a couple of nice double plays to keep the score within reach.

La Russa also used yesterday to see what he had out of his new roster members.  Kyle McClellan and Lance Lynn were added to the NLCS roster while Jake Westbrook and Skip Schumaker (due to injury) were taken off.  McClellan showed that there really was a reason he was left of the NLDS roster, as he gave up a run in just one-third of an inning.  Lynn put a couple of runners on in his inning, including an intentional pass to Fielder, but got Rickie Weeks to hit into one of those double plays and left unscathed.

I still think there are a lot of positives in this series for the Redbirds.  Greinke was probably their second-best pitcher and the Cards were able to get to him on his home turf, so there seems a good chance that they can get to Shaun Marcum and Randy Wolf (if they aren't befuddled by Wolf has they have been in the past).  The Cardinal rotation should be better, as they've gotten some of the first-game jitters out of the way.  If the Redbirds can keep it out of Milwaukee's bullpen late in the game and behind, they can still do this.

Edwin Jackson goes tonight against Marcum.  Jackson got plenty of chances to face the Brewers after the big trade and, save for the first one, did rather well.  If the Cards can take this one and go back to St. Louis 1-1, they could theoretically put it to rest on the Busch Stadium diamond.  Perhaps the happiest flight would be the one they didn't have to take.  So while tonight's not a must win--win three in St. Louis and take either Game 6 or 7 in Milwaukee is still reasonable--it's still very big.  Here's hoping to a quick lead and some outstanding pitching from Jackson!


Leave a comment




Leave a comment




Cardinals_MediumRectangle.jpg

UCB_11_trans_dark_sm.png

Search



BallHyped Best Sports Blogs Book
This blog was featured in the Best Sports Blogs of 2010 Book!
• Pick up the limited print edition
• Free Best Sports Blogs ebook 


United Cardinal Bloggers

FRIENDS OF THE UCB


Download the iPhone or Android UCB app by clicking on the nice orange picture.
Open in Mobile App 

And check out the UCB Network over at LockerDome!
lockerdome-share_63x63.png
  



Other Cardinal Blogs

Recommended Cardinal Forum

Other Cardinal Sites

General Baseball Blogs/Sites



Heroes
Matt Holliday (5)
Matt Carpenter (4)
Rafael Furcal (4)
Carlos Beltran (3)
Jaime Garcia (3)
Jon Jay (3)
Kyle Lohse (3)
Lance Lynn (3)
Yadier Molina (3)
David Freese (2)
Adam Wainwright (2)
Lance Berkman (1)
Allen Craig (1)
Shane Robinson (1)
Fernando Salas (1)
Jake Westbrook (1)

2011 Top Hero: Lance Berkman (24)
2010 Top Heroes: Matt Holliday and Albert Pujols (24)
2009 Top Hero: Albert Pujols (28)
2008 Top Hero: Albert Pujols (25)

Goats
Matt Holliday (4)
Carlos Beltran (3)
David Freese (3)
Jaime Garcia (3)
Jason Motte (3)
Marc Rzepczynski (3)
Adam Wainwright (3)
Rafael Furcal (2)
Tyler Greene (2)
J.C. Romero (2)
Fernando Salas (2)
Mitchell Boggs (1)
Matt Carpenter (1)
Tony Cruz (1)
Daniel Descalso (1)
Jon Jay (1)
Erik Komatsu (1)
Kyle Lohse (1)
Victor Marte (1)
Eduardo Sanchez (1)
Jake Westbrook (1)

2011 Top Goat: Ryan Theriot (12)
2010 Top Goat: Brendan Ryan (14)
2009 Top Goats: Rick Ankiel and Todd Wellemeyer (13)
2008 Top Goat: Troy Glaus (13)

2012 Happy Flights
Happy Flights: 7
Happy Flight Opportunities: 12
Happy Flight %: 58%

Through 5/20

    Cardinal Nation Approval Ratings (March 2012)
    Adam Wainwright 91.9% (down 2.8%)
    Chris Carpenter 90.1% (up 3.2%)
    Lance Berkman 88.6%
    Tony La Russa 88.2% (up 17.4%)
    Yadier Molina 87.4% (up 3.7%)
    Matt Holliday 87.3% (down 3.8%)
    David Freese 85.5%
    John Mozeliak 85.4% (up 13.3%)
    Mike Shannon 85.3% (up 0.4%)
    Jose Oquendo 84.7%
    Derrick Goold 82.8% (down 5.0%)
    Mark McGwire 82.6% (up 20.1%)
    John Rooney 81.5% (down 2.8%)
    Mike Matheny 81.1%
    Bill DeWitt 79.8% (up 8.8%)
    United Cardinal Bloggers 78.9%
    Skip Schumaker 73.3% (up 9.2%)
    Jim Hayes 71.9% (down 4.2%)
    Jon Jay 71.1%
    B.J. Rains 69.5% (down 0.9%)
    Kyle Lohse 68.9% (up 13.8%)
    Dan McLaughlin 68.0%
    Joe Strauss 67.7% (up 10.2%)
    Ricky Horton 67.5% (down 1.6%)
    Al Hrabosky 66.4% (up 3.2%)
    Albert Pujols 54.9% (down 45.5%)
    Colby Rasmus 46.5% (down 35.3%)

    2011
    Dave Duncan 87.9% (up 0.9%)
    Matthew Leach 85.5%
    Pop Warner 76.7%
    Ryan Franklin 72.8% (up 3.1%)
    John Vuch 68.9%
    Jeff Luhnow 66.4%
    Dan Lozano 58.7%

    2009
    Rick Ankiel 83.9%
    Chris Duncan 69.1%


    Looking for St. Louis Cardinals Tickets?  TicketCity is your source for New York Yankees Tickets and World Series Tickets.

    Looking for Cardinals tickets? Stop by OnlineSeats. We’ve got Blues seats and even Rams games. Go to the coasts as well and catch a Celtics game or get Dodgers tickets.

    Referrals