ST. LOUIS – The Mets suddenly have an archenemy that looks a lot like them. The Cardinals, it turns out, did not see the memo about rolling over and playing dead in the NLCS.
Instead, with one victory at Shea Stadium in Game 2, St. Louis announced that it not only was serious about an upset, but pretty serious about mimicking the Mets game plan. The Mets were using the 2002 champion Angels as their baseball patron saints.
The blueprint was to brandish offense and bullpen to overcome substandard starting pitching.
The Cardinals, however, are reading from the same script, and the presence of David Eckstein and Scott Spiezio actually gives St.
Louis a greater claim to being the logical stepsons of the 2002 Angels.
Eckstein was hitless in the first two games of this series. But his final at-bat of Game 2, a 13-pitch odyssey against Aaron Heilman, must have unleashed painful memories for Yankees fans who remember one gnatty atbat from Eckstein after another in the Angels’ Division Series win in 2002. Eckstein fell behind 0-2, but fouled off seven pitches en route to a full count before grounding out.
In Game 2 against the Mets, Spiezio revived memories from 2002 when he tied the record for most RBIs in the postseason with 19. He tripled in two runs off Guillermo Mota to tie the score in the seventh and his RBI double off Billy Wagner in the ninth added insurance in a 9-6 triumph.
Spiezio only started because the Cardinals have a star third baseman struggling in October as much as Alex Rodriguez had been. Scott Rolen is 1-for-14 this October, 1-for-24 in his last three postseason series and nursing pain in a twice-surgically repaired left shoulder.
That moved Tony La Russa to punish his usual cleanup hitter not by dropping him to sixth in the lineup, or even eighth, but to bench him totally.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported yesterday that Rolen was not pleased with the decision and that a “fissure” exists between player and manager. It is interesting that the first time you hear anything about a third baseman being unhappy elsewhere, you wonder if there is a genesis of a trade to the Yanks to liberate them to deal A-Rod elsewhere for young pitching.
Rolen is injury-prone, has four years at $46 million left and the Cardinals have rotation needs for next year. The injury-prone Carl Pavano has two years at $22.95 million – approximately half of Rolen’s deal left. Could that be the start of a deal to get Rolen? Probably not, but it is going to be that kind of offseason around Rodriguez.
La Russa finagled the lineup to get both Rolen and Spiezio in the lineup for last night’s Game 3, with Spiezio playing in left for the struggling Chris Duncan. La Russa knows he has to see if Spiezio is really hot because he recognizes that many of these NLCS games might be about outscoring the Mets.
That reflects the general distrust of the rotations beyond their aces – Tom Glavine for the Mets and Chris Carpenter for St.
Louis. The Mets started Steve Trachsel last night and the Cardinals countered with a similar-type, mundane righty in Jeff Suppan.
The Mets start Oliver Perez today in Game 4 and the Cardinals counter with a similartype, big-arm mystery in Anthony Reyes.
That is why offenses and bullpens – the 2002 Angel formula – is so central to this NLCS. The pen was supposed to be an area where the Mets enjoyed a large advantage.
But the 2002 Angels had an October surprise in Francisco Rodriguez, and that has pretty much been the whole Cardinals pen since closer Jason Isringhausen was lost late in the year with a season-ending hip injury.
About his relievers, La Russa said, “They have moved up a stride and responded.” Adam Wainwright (no earned runs in 4 1/3 postseason innings) emerged the closer, anchoring a pen that had permitted one run in 6 1/3 innings in the first two NLCS games.
Lefties Randy Flores and Tyler Johnson were unscored on this postseason and so was Josh Kinney.
For the Cardinals, it is like a gift from angels.
