A Star-Crossed Opening Night
Judging by the post-game wrapups — and, of course, the final score — the Mets dominated the Cardinals in last night’s season opener at Busch. But, considering some sabermetrics and a few moments of "luck," the game was much closer than fans might have observed or read about. Take, for instance, a few plays that broke the Mets’ way:
- A Met pitcher executed a bunt, a Cardinal didn’t.
- A few Met ground balls found holes in the infield, while the Cardinals’ were turned into double plays
- A Met leftfielder makes an outstanding catch, while a Cardinal doesn’t make a routine one.
- A Met outfielder perfectly executed a foolhardly throw while Cardinal outfielders failed to execute smart ones.
While Chris Carpenter didn’t have a dominant outing in terms of runs allowed, he actually outpitched Glavine in terms of what he was able to control. That the Mets scored five runs on his watch was largely attributable to his defense’s ability — or lack thereof — to turn batted balls into outs. Let’s look at the sabermetric pitching lines:
| New York | IP | FIP | K/9 | HR/9 | K/BB | DER |
| Glavine | 6 | 3.14 | 3.00 | 0.00 | 2.00 | .684 |
| Feliciano | 1 | 6.19 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | .667 |
| Smith | 1/3 | 4.88 | 27.00 | 0.00 | 1.00 | .000 |
| Heilman | 2/3 | 3.30 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 1.000 | |
| Wagner | 1 | 3.30 | 0.00 | 0.00 | .600 | |
| Total | 9 | 3.60 | 3.00 | 0.00 | 1.00 | .655 |
| St. Louis | IP | FIP | K/9 | HR/9 | K/BB | DER |
| Carpenter | 6 | 2.89 | 4.50 | 0.00 | 3.00 | .583 |
| Johnson | 1 | 1.01 | 9.00 | 0.00 | 1.000 | |
| Flores | 1 | 3.30 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 1.000 | |
| Thompson | 1 | 3.30 | 0.00 | 0.00 | .400 | |
| Total | 9 | 2.82 | 4.00 | 0.00 | 4.00 | .618 |
Though he pitched well himself, Glavine benefited from a Defense-Efficiency Ratio (DER) of an entire .100 better than Carpenter did. And on the game, the Mets — led by Moises Alou’s dramatics, Jose Reyes’s flashiness and some seeing-eye infield grounders — bettered the Cardinals on defense and in fortune:
- Glavine reached on a clunker to left field (and later switched spots with LoDuca, who scored on Delgado’s two-out double).
- Beltran got hit-by-pitch on an 0-2 count (scored on Delgado’s hit).
- Green ground-ball singled through infield in 4th
- LoDuca ground-ball singled through infield in 4th
- Beltran ground-ball singled through infield in 4th (granted, it was a hard-hit grounder, but it bounced on the mound).
On the other hand, the Cardinals didn’t catch many breaks:
- With Eckstein on first, Wilson grounded sharply into DP in 1st.
- With YaMo on first, Edmonds grounded sharply into DP in 5th.
- With Edmonds on first, Kennedy grounded into DP in 5th.
- With the bases loaded, Rolen grounded sharply into DP in 8th.
TLR’s dubious decision to start Wilson in right field was perhaps offset by a smart at-bat by pinch-hitter Aaron Miles in the 8th. But then there was the ill-advised squeeze bunt with Carpenter in the third. Guess the spring-training hit-and-run didn’t fool anybody.
So while the Cardinals were outplayed by the Mets last night, the team’s 2007 opener wasn’t exactly a good-old-fashioned rout. Tom Glavine’s postgame comment about the 2006 NLCS — "It could have very easily been us, but it wasn’t." — could have also served as the postgame response from the Cardinals on Game 1 of the 2007 season. Whereas the Mets found out that "luck" may not even out in the playoffs, it usually evens out over the long season. Perhaps for the Cardinals, the bad type of the stuff will happen at the beginning of the season rather than at the end of it this year.