DOWN 1-0 in the series, down one premium starter, one closer and one star third baseman, Chris Carpenter managed to get the Cardinals down by scores of 3-0, 4-2 and 5-4 – not what they needed. Tony La Russa’s best pitcher, the best pitcher in the National League in 2005, couldn’t get his curveball over, and it looked all but over for the Redbirds, going home to put their trust in Jeff Suppan for Game 3, then maybe facing elimination with rookie Anthony Reyes.
Down 6-4 in the sixth, the Cardinals were in deep against the Mets’ mighty – or supposedly mighty – bullpen. They were down to seven outs when Albert Pujols, who had not yet come to the plate in the NLCS with a man on base, singled, Jim Edmonds walked and Guillermo Mota tried an 0-2 fastball to Scott Spiezio after having fooled him with two changeups.
Spiezio hit a flyball that kept carrying, off the glove of leaping right fielder Shawn Green and off the top of the wall, to score two runs and tie the game. Nobody saw it coming, but then nobody saw the Cardinals – a team that lost its second best starter, Matt Morris; its regular second baseman, Mark Grudzielanek; and its left fielder, Reggie Sanders, in a financial downsizing and had replacement outfielder Larry Bigbie play only 15 games – being 1-1 in the NLCS.
The Cards now also have no Mark Mulder, no Jason Isringhausen. They have Jim Edmonds playing with a body soon to be donated to science. They are manned by a bullpen of kids and have a bunch of position journeymen you would expect to find on an 83-win team, down from a 100-win team a year ago and 105 the year before that.
But although they almost blew the seven-game division lead they had on Sept. 20, the Cardinals refuse to go away, having already disposed of the Padres in the divisional round. So Taguchi, No. 99 on his back, close to the last guy on a team that has been patching itself since Roy Oswalt closed them out in Game 6 of the last NLCS, worked Billy Wagner to a 3-2 count in the ninth and then homered. The Cardinals tacked on two insurance runs and went home with a 9-6 win.
“One of So’s qualities is he plays well late in the game,” said La Russa. “Give him a clutch at-bat and you can expect a great effort, if not really a homer.
“Jim [Edmonds, who hit a two-run homer in the third to tie it at 4-4] has a history of rising to occasions, you just have to get him healthy.”
Spiezio, after last night’s two hits, is now 14-for-20 lifetime with runners in scoring position in the postseason, numbers La Russa had in mind when he decided to use the veteran at third last night because he didn’t like the way Scott Rolen – off shoulder surgery, still waiting for a cortisone shot to kick in – was swinging. Rolen, nevertheless, went back in for defense to make a diving stop and throw out David Wright in the ninth.
Everything La Russa did worked, as a renovated bullpen that last night gave up its first run of the postseason (by Josh Hancock in the sixth) went five deep to out-pitch the Mets’ mighty pen.
“Our [relievers] have picked it up and it’s been fun to watch,” said La Russa. “They don’t have much experience but they have good arms and they are excited.”
Carpenter, 4-0 in the postseason and the Cardinals 5-0 in his playoff starts, seemingly was the man to do for his team and its frayed rotation last night what Tom Glavine did for the Mets in Game 1: Make sure his game didn’t get away.
It got away from Carpenter three times, and still the Cardinals came back. The last week of the season, this would have been very hard to see coming. Now, it’s impossible for the Mets to miss, now that they are up to their eyeballs in this series.
