Sunday in Houston, the Cardinals may have completed the now joyless task that Albert Pujols unwittingly began in the 2005 National League Championship Series: that of ending Brad Lidge’s career as a closer, at least for the Astros. In particular, Eckstein, Rolen, and Molina (the three greatest offensive contributors to the World Series) touched Lidge for three hits and five runs batted in. The next day, manager Phil Garner demoted him from the closer’s role, yet again.

Lidge’s tragic fall has been just one component in the demise of the greatest pitching staff in the division in recent years. Other components include the Stros’ failure to retain Andy Pettitte; Roger Clemens’ increasingly limited role; the decision to fire pitching coach Jim Hickey; and the loss of bullpen ringleader, Russ Springer.

Yet over the last couple of days in Pittsburgh, the Cardinals have suggested that they may have played an even greater role in the Lidge tragedy than people had realized. For there they made their recent habit of roughing up closers difficult to ignore. For two days in a row, they took control of the game with the Pirates’ new, yet proven, ninth-inning specialist on the mound. Last year, Salomon Torres outpitched every other reliever in the division in terms of WPA, with last year’s Pittsburgh closer Mike Gonzalez not far behind. So the heroics of Spiezio and Duncan against Torres are considerably more impressive than taking a save from, say, the 2006 versions of Derrick Turnbow or Ryan Dempster (last year’s big losers in terms of WPA among relievers league-wide). Indeed, the recent accomplishments of Spiezio and Duncan look more like So Taguchi’s unexpected bullying of Billy Wagner in the last NLCS.

To be clear, I am not prophesying the end for either Torres or Wagner, frightening closers both.

I am recognizing, however, the LaRussa Cardinals’ unique and intriguing position in regard to closers. This position has something to do with LaRussa’s dictum, “Play a hard nine,” which implicitly aims at the opponent’s closer. For it promises that, even if the Cards are trailing at the end of a game and the other guys’ closer emerges from the bullpen, the good guys will keep at it.

Yet it may mean something more for LaRussa to demand a hard ninth inning from his lineup than it does for other managers to do the same. For he and Dave Duncan effectively invented the modern closer, who specializes in protecting leads in the ninth, in the person of Dennis Eckersley. It’s almost as if LaRussa and Duncan omnipotently raise up and tear down closers; or like they suckered their opponents into investing in a new type of pitcher whose single weakness only they knew how to exploit. Mwah ha ha ha.

This entry was posted by Don Zero on Thursday, April 12th, 2007 at 12:33 am and is filed under know your enemy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.