Cardinals 6, Rangers 2: The Loathsome Cardinals Win the 2011 World Series, But At Least It's Winter Now

A fifth World Series ring for the great catching Molinas

There was no way that even a genuinely remarkable Game Seven could have equaled the mad splendor of Game Six. We knew that going in, and we pretty much got what we expected all the way around: Chris Carpenter, starting on three days' rest but only starting at all because rain pushed these final games back, pitched into the seventh, the only trouble coming early on two runs in the first (back-to-back doubles from Micheal Young and the prophet Josh Hamilton); and the Rangers, as it turned out, used up all of there chances to win the World Series the night before, just like we'd figured. 


The 2-0 first-inning Texas lead evaporated later that same inning on MVP David Freese's two-run double, and Allen Craig's solo home run in the third put the Cardinals out in front for good. The game didn't feel well and truly over, though, until the sad debacle of the fifth. Reliever Scott Feldman, for whom we can only feel sympathy at this point, walked Craig, hit Pujols, and, after a Berkman ground out, was asked to put Freese aboard to load the bases with two away. A bases-loaded walk -- which is totally the worst kind -- on a close pitch brought Craig home, Washington to the mound, and C. J. Wilson in from the 'pen. With his first pitch of the game, Wilson plunked Rafael Furcal to plate another run. It was brutal


And that was pretty much that. After the best thirty-one days of baseball in my lifetime, the St. Louis Cardinals walked away with their eleventh World Series championship, perhaps the unlikeliest of them all. Good for them. You can't help but feel for the Rangers, the first team to drop back-to-back World Series since the Atlanta Braves of 1991 and 1992. Ron Washington is getting absolutely murdered in the papers and on the blogs, fairly or not, and you've got to wonder if he'll even be back after this. But there's no reason to think the Rangers can't survive the odd free agent loss and remain the class of the AL West for the foreseeable future; and with their young talent coming to the fore this postseason, and with the Brewers about to take a step back, the Cardinals look like they're going to remain relevant for a long time, too, with or without Albert Pujols. It's not inconceivable that these two teams could end up here again in a couple of years. It's almost entirely inconceivable, though, that they would be able to put together a series like this again, a seven-game thriller that featured the best single-game World Series performance in a generation, and one of the strangest and most compelling games we've ever seen. 


This one was a honey. Baseball is awesome.

KS   

Cardinals 10, Rangers 9 (F/11): Greatest Bad Game, or Baddest Great Game?

Mike Napoli, seen here dying inside, would have been World Series  MVP

Only a few short hours after the utterly ridiculous conclusion of last night's mad game, it became clear that Game Six of the 2011 World Series had joined the pantheon, and taken its place alongside all the familiar candidates for greatest game in World Series history. I mean, as soon the late innings began to take their strange shape, I was pretty sure that this was the best World Series game since at least Game Seven in 1997, and probably since Game Seven in 1991, so it's not like I needed to have that impression confirmed by outside sources, but I was struck by how widespread the agreement was, especially for a non-New York, non-Boston game, and how quickly it all came out: last night, it would seem we all agree, we probably watched one of the greatest games, if not the greatest game, in the one-hundred-and-seven-year history of the World Series. How about that! 


And what a mess it was: five errors, including balls just straight-up dropped out there; Micheal Young's continued inability to field any of the positions he is asked to field (heck of a hitter, but a true futility infielder); Matt Holiday's amazing trick of dropping an easy fly ball in left and getting picked off of third base (on a great throw by Mike Napoli and a crafty block of the bag by Adrian Beltre) at what was, at time, a crucial moment in the game and injuring himself in the process, thereby requiring the Cardinals to use up a bench player who should have been available to pinch hit; Tony La Russa running out of bench players completely, and burning two pitchers in the same at-bat, an at-bat that ended with a sacrifice bunt that was popped up and could easily have been turned into a triple play had Beltre been a shade less aggressive in his charge from third; Josh Hamilton hitting a two-run home run, his first of the postseason, in extra innings after God told him he would (nice of him to check in!); Ron Washington somehow leaving Scott Feldman in there to pitch to Berkman, which went about as well as you might expect; and a dozen other crazy things you can revisit in Steve Gardner's estimable and workmanlike live blog.   


And of course there was David Freese, whose two-run triple with two strikes and two out in the bottom of the ninth tied the game, and whose solo shot to leadoff the eleventh won it. Should the wall-shy Nelson Cruz been able to make a play on that lined shot to right in the ninth? It looked tough but playable, that's for sure. Had he gone all out for it and missed, though, it could easily have gone for an inside-the-park home run, as Hamilton didn't seem to be backing the play up at all (Ian Kinsler probably had a better shot at it at second base, given the way it came off the wall). In the end it was fitting that it was Freese who tied and won it: earlier in the game, in the fifth, actually, a Josh Hamilton pop up bounced off of Freese's head and fell to the ground for an error. As went Jeff Freese's night, so went everybody's. There's been a lot of vague talk about theatre in the papers today, which we can probably narrow in on a little: the game started out as a baffling absurdist play where the suffering, though at times comic, seemed not just situational but existential, and it ended with Henry V-levels of righteous slaughter if you're the Cardinals and some serious gouge-your-eyes-out shit if you're not. I have thought that sentence over for exactly as long as it took to type it so I'm pretty sure it's completely right.


Anyway, to conclude: best game ever, man.


KS   

why baseball is the game of the nerds

This was in my morning paper, written by Tom Boswell (the dad from Happy Days) about this year's World Series...

The best World Series develop their themes and isolate unexpected key protagonists as they progress organically.

And sadly enough, that makes sense to me - even though there's like three "intellectual douchebag" red flags contained within. Baseball truly is the ultimate sport for wasted genius.

Rangers 4, Cardinals 2: La Russa Manages Worst Game Anyone Can Remember, Millions LOL

"oh shit that one was like a foot outside bro also hold on I am throwing out yr dude  for a sec" -- Mike Napoli

Something that keeps getting said today is that we really shouldn't let the truly unbelievably historically bad managerial performance turned in by widely celebrated baseball genius/arrogant aggravating mushmouth Tony La Russa completely obscure the fact that Ron Washington made some awfully odd moves last night, too. But my position is that we should totally let that happen, absolutely. Should Wash have put the potential winning run on with an intentional walk? Did he really need to IBB Pujols three times? Should he be batting Mike Napoli eighth? The answer to all of those questions is almost certainly no, but none of those tactical mistakes -- if that's what they are (note: yes, that is what they are) -- come anywhere close to the Bryan Clutterbuck crafted by TLR's expert hand. It was, in short, a masterpiece.


Forget sac bunting in the third inning ahead of Albert Pujols, thereby taking the bat out of the hands of the finest hitter in baseball since the gone-too-soon retirement of the gloriously enhanced Barry Bonds; that's nothing compared to what would follow. Nothing. Nuh.Thing. 


The eighth inning is where it really started to go downhill. Somehow, the game was tied at two at this point, despite C. J. Wilson walking pretty much everybody, and Chris Carpenter having pitched as well as one could have reasonably expected, really. La Russa shut Carpenter down, and brought in Octavio "Don't Ask" Dotel, a move that, in the frenzy of disapproval that has swept through the baseball internet in the last twenty-four hours (even more than usual amount!), has itself come under scrutiny, but I have absolutely no problem with bringing Dotel in at that point, none at all. Just because Michael Young doubled to open the inning, that doesn't make Dotel the wrong pitcher to have gone to in that moment, you know? I would like to know how many people thought it was nuts to bring in Dotel at the moment he was brought in; it could not have been many. La Russa did enough wrong last night -- more, in fact, than any other manager in a high profile game in living memory -- that there's no reason to make up extra stuff, in my view. Let us be content with what we have.


Anyway: a leadoff double to Young, and Dotel answers back with a big strikeout of Adrian Beltre. Then, madness. La Russa orders an intentional walk of Nelson Cruz. Really, Tony, you don't want Dotel, who has been money as hell, to go after this right-handed batter? Seems kind of crazy to put another runner on in a game this tight in this situation with Dotel on the hill, but OK! La Russa had determined that it was Rzeppin' time (he gets on extra grind when it's when it's Rzeppin' time), and it almost worked out: David Murphy hit one right back to the mound, and an excellent play by Scrabble could have turned that grounder into two outs, but instead it ricocheted away and all hands were safe. 


So. Bases loaded, tie game, eighth inning, reliable lefty -- that's reliable lefty -- Mark Rzepcyznski on the mound, and slugging catcher Mike Napoli comes to the plate as one of the best lefty-mashers in baseball this season (as measured by both conventional and advanced lefty-mashing metrics). And La Russa is apparently fine with this. Fine with it! Inexplicably, right-handed fireballer Jason Motte is nowhere to be seen. I can't imagine what Rzepcyznski is thinking at this moment beyond "fuck." A lined double to centre later, the Rangers are ahead 4-2. Scrabble, who is a mensch, strikes out Mitch Moreland, and is at last pulled in favour of a right hander out of the bullpen, but it's not Motte; it's Lance Lynn, who everybody thought was unavailable for Game 5. He comes into the game, issues an intentional walk to Ian Kinsler (hell of a player), and is replaced, finally, by Motte. That's right: Tony La Russa brought in a reliever to issue an intentional walk, and then leave. The manager most responsible for the senseless shape of the modern bullpen, loathed by all who are -- quite tragically, really -- capable of loathing anyone over, you know, the shape of the modern bullpen, had finally taken things not just too far, not just beyond too far, but beyond beyond too far: he'd brought in a righty reliever to issue an IBB while another righty finished his warmup. The broadcasters were baffled. The internet was bubbling like the sea itself when Poseidon, its master, rides atop it in his golden chariot drawn by golden horses and bridled in their golden reins and whatnot (look it up). "Fuck's sake," I may have uttered aloud. 


After the game, La Russa would mumble an explanation about the wrong message being received in the bullpen: he'd asked for Motte to be warmed up alongside Rzepczynski, and it hadn't happened, etc. He'd asked for Motte twice, he claimed, and hadn't gotten him either time. This was not his fault, he made clear to us. Apparently Joe Sheehan, in his subscriber-only email newsletter that I totally meant to sign up for a couple weeks ago but didn't, strenuously made the case this morning that La Russa's story does not add up, and that he is not to be believed on any of this, and that may very well be. But I would argue that even if things unfolded exactly as La Russa claims they did, this situation is still utterly his fault. It's not the fault of his bullpen coach Derek Lilliquist, nor the fault of the bullpen phone (only days after the New York Times' piece on bullpen phones, last bastion of the land line!). It's La Russa's. And part of being the guy in charge is just going out and saying, "We didn't get the right guy out there. It's on me. We're going to get it right next time." Don't bring anybody else into it; don't even mention Lilliquist's name. Take responsibility for the situation that is obviously the manager's responsibility: which pitcher is on the mound. To do otherwise looks, just, so shitty. 


Nearly as shitty: sending Allen Craig with Albert Pujols at the plate, and running into ridiculously costly outs in the late innings of a tight game. Word is that Pujols put the hit-and-run on with a sign in the seventh, and that's a horrible call, but OK, you can't exactly pin that one on La Russa (although you can question how wise it is to allow players, even all-time great players, to be making tactical decisions like that at crucial moments -- is it true that Tim McCarver said Dick Groat had that privilege with the old Cardinals? I have read that he said it but I am not a man of FOX so I have to take it on faith). But sending Craig again in the ninth, when you're down by two, could not possibly make less sense. The word "literally" has of course taken on a figurative meaning in recent years, particularly on these very internets, but I mean it in its original and true sense when I say that there is literally no justification for sending Craig three-times in a row on that 3-2 count with Pujols batting, down by two with nobody out in the ninth. La Russa offered something about wanting to blow that inning open by starting the runner and reduce somewhat the chance of the double play, but this is absurd. It is simply absurd. Craig wasn't helped by Pujols reaching for a pitch probably a whole foot off the plate, but there is nothing about this play that allows you to say "interesting idea, poor execution." That's not what happened. This was poor execution of an idea so terrible that no one who watched it live will ever forget how awful it was. Whether you subscribe to the old school of baseball strategy or the new, whether you are pre- or post- Bill James, you instantly knew how crazy this was. There is no approach to the glorious game of baseball that allows anyone to rationalize any of these decisions. Because they are all awful.


It was the worst managerial performance in a World Series game in my lifetime. And it made me so happy.

WHO COULD HAVE KNOWN???

KS

Rangers 4, Cardinals 0: OMG Game Five Is Already Underway And I Have Not Yet Shared Feelings RE: Game Four So This Will Have To Be Quick

DEREK HOLLAND'S MUSTACHE EIGHT-AND-A-THIRD MIKE NAPOLI GO WASH I HATE TONY LA RUSSA


KS

Cardinals 16, Rangers 7: I Think I Hate Narrative

guess where this one's going

So, after Game 2, which apparently St. Louis totally lost because Albert Pujols made a whisper of an error cutting a ball off on a bad throw from right in the ninth, Pujols, along with a couple of other Cardinals veterans, declined to speak with the media. This meant we were in for a couple of days of the dumbest possible stuff, if you are foolish enough to read the papers, which apparently I am. Here are the two things I learned about Albert Pujols in the last few days: (i) he is selfish, and (ii) he is definitely not a leader. These things we now know, because Albert Pujols did not make himself available to answer "how did it feel when you . . .?" questions after an awesome game where everybody should have had more than enough to write about. The biggest unanswered question coming out of all of this, in my view, has nothing to do with why Pujols misplayed the cutoff; it's why anybody would ever want to ask Pujols about anything in the first place, since he is amazingly uninteresting even by the lofty standard of uninteresting set by professional athletes. He's a proselytizing evangelical who is sure as can be that "everything happens for a reason," which is all well and good for him, I suppose, except that it means that there is only really one answer to every single question the man has ever been asked, and at this point we've heard it. "Albert, talk about [thing that occurred in a baseball game]," he is invariably asked, to which he reliably replies, "Well, everything happens for a reason and [brushes off rest of question]." And that's fine. I don't care that he's a bad interview. I don't care that he espouses a worldview that I do not share or that he spoke at Glenn Beck's big stupid thing. None of that matters to me in the least for one simple reason, and that reason is dingers (or, if you prefer, taters); he hits them, and they are awesome. 


And last night, of course, Pujols dingers were in glorious abundance, but it is clear that we are not going to be allowed to just enjoy those dingers qua dingers, but instead as part of a narrative unfolding between Albert Pujols and the media, in which media members themselves now get to be part of the story, which seems to run like this: "Albert Pujols was silent after his decisive error in Game 2, but his big bat spoke volumes to us last night and answered many of the questions we had about him and so maybe he is indeed a leader of some kind even though we were sure a minute ago that he wasn't and that he was instead a fraud of some type PS this is still totally about us." Please note that in the previous sentence I am at once quoting both nobody and everybody. Even my main man (well, he is certainly among my mainest of men) Dan Shulman couldn't avoid this kind of nonsense last night on the ESPN Radio broadcast, which was a little dispiriting (though I will not hold it against him, and in fairness he did preface the matter a couple of times with words along the lines of "not everybody will care about any of this, but . . ."). Anyway, there's nothing interesting here, really. I don't know why I'm carrying on. Sportswriters have long been the worst; they continue to be the worst; here they are being the worst, etc. 



But hey, how about Albert Pujols! Before last night, nobody in World Series history had ever had four hits, two home runs, and five runs batted in the same game. Pujols, last night, went 5-6 with 3 HR and 6 RBI. The only other players to ever hit three home runs in a single World Series game are of course Babe Ruth, who did it twice, and Reggie Jackson with his cool glasses and earflapless batting helmet, as well you know. It was easily the most amazing single-game World Series performance by a batter in my lifetime, and it totally felt that way while it was going on. It was still totally a game until Pujol's three-run shot in the sixth, too: 8-6 is workable, whereas 11-6 is entirely not. So while this was not Jackson's three home runs on three pitches in a 4-3 game, it wasn't an utterly empty three-homer World Series game (if such a thing is even conceivable). And fourteen total bases? Totally a record (wordplay).


Hey, you know who had an awful night? Mike Napoli: a swipe tag at first that should have been a double play had Ron Kulpa not missed it (great call on the Kinsler slide in Game 2; horrible call here), a two-run throwing error, and thrown at the plate (click here to see that play, and watch the clip all the way through to see Ron Washington, like gallop in sympathy and anticipation). That sucks.   


Finally, tremendous propers to ESPN Radio's Bobby Valentine, who mentioned early on, when Pujols was hitting but lowly singles, that Albert looked totally dialed in and was right on the ball. Valentine was of the opinion that sooner or later, Pujols was probably going to hit one out last night. Good eye, Bobby V!


KS

Rangers 2, Cardinals 1: While It Is Never Appropriate To Bite One's Nails, There Were Extenuating Circumstances Here In My View

You've got that right, second base umpire Ron Kulpa!

I loved this game, loved it. Good pitching and even better defense (especially up the middle by Kinsler and Andrus) kept things scoreless until the bottom of the seventh, when the Cardinals eked out a run on an Allen Craig pinch hit off of Alexi Ogando (if this sounds familiar to you, this is with good reason). In the top of the ninth, the gloriously bearded Jason Motte came on in Scrabble's place, and got in trouble immediately: Ian Kinsler, who is in fact one hell of a player, singled on a ball barely pushed out of the infield. Kinsler then stole second despite a pretty much perfect throw by Yadier Molina, and I kind of can't believe Ron Kulpa got the call right: it was a tough one at a crucial moment in the game, and he was not swayed by the incredibly engaged crowd, so good for him. When Elvis Andrus singled up the middle, moving Kinsler to third, Andrus took second on a missed cutoff by Albert Pujols, who was charged with an error on the play, which I totally understand, because you have to account for that extra base, but yikes, that's a tough one. I must admit to having been a little surprised that La Russa pulled Motte and went to Arthur Rhodes at this point -- maybe leave Motte in and walk Josh Hamilton? I don't know. But what I should know is that Tony La Russa will take every opportunity to make a pitching change, so I should not have been surprised. Anyway, sac fly Hamilton, sac fly Micheal Young, and that was that. Neftali Feliz made things a bit worrisome with a leadoff walk in the bottom of the ninth, but it was, in the end, no trouble. 


A couple of other photographs before I take my leave of you. First, there is sad Jason Motte:

And a couple of images from Game One that I have been slow to attend to, both of which have come to me by way of the Getting Blanked blog. First, a closed caption for the ages:

Finally, we've got Wash throwing some BP.

I honestly had no idea what was going on under Ron Washington's cap and frankly I am frightened.


KS

Cardinals 3, Rangers 2: So I heard you liked pitching changes

Adrian Beltre feels that he fouled the ball of his foot in the ninth; home plate umpire Jerry Layne  is of the view that he grounded ineffectually to third.

A heck of a game! Admittedly, ten pitchers is kind of a lot, but I was feeling this one nevertheless, possibly because of a nasty case of World Series Fever that I seem to have contracted. Lots of little "well, that's baseball" moments in this one, not the least of which was Lance Berkman's two-run single in the fourth that chopped its way over first: he barely touched the thing, and yet, baseball. Mike Napoli got a little more of the two-run shot he hit to the opposite field in the next inning, and so we were knotted (as they say) at two when pinch hitter Allen Craig knocked in the go-ahead run off of Alexi Ogando in the sixth. The ball was just out of Nelson Cruz's sliding reach, and were it not for a kick-save-and-a-beauty stop with his left foot, that's probably a triple.

From there, it was bullpens bullpens bullpens, which, I mean, get used to it.

KS 

Washington, Washington

from left to right: cocaine, Ron Washington, Josh Hamilton

Because the medium through which we are communicating with one another is the internet, you are already well familiar with the original, and so why belabour it? Here is another one. Enjoy.




Furthermore . . .

In summation, if, when thinking about this year's World Series, you even for a second prefer Tony La Russa to Ron Washington, you are incorrect.


KS