Cardinals revive
Like The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t, the Cardinals aren’t dead (yet). They combined a lot of pluck with a little luck Friday night to take the first game of the series with the Reds, surely a bellwether match for a team hoping to prove to itself that its wounds of the last couple of weeks haven’t been mortal.
The Cardinals got just enough hitting, just enough starting pitching and just enough relief to endure the first brush with death. After striking quickly with two runs in the first, the Cardinals created only 1.9 runs for the game. Starting pitcher Jaime Garcia struck out six but walked three and yielded a home run to no.-8 hitter Paul Janish, finishing with a mediocre 43 FIGS (compare to Bronson Arroyo’s 56). The Cardinals exclusively used righthanded relieving to finish up, escaping jams in the seventh and eighth, with the help of a line drive hit right at Jon Jay. In the seventh, Dusty Baker, mistakenly in our opinion, commissioned Janish to bunt after Chris Heisey led off with a ringing double. El Gato was on the ropes, and Baker’s conservative play backfired as Janish fouled off two bunts and eventually struck out. After experiencing some bad luck on the road, the Cardinals had the pendulum swing back their way, and in a close game, sometimes that makes the difference.
Some other notes:
- In retrospect, La Russa should’ve summoned a LOOGy to face Joey Votto in the eighth.
- Aaron Miles looked bad in his three-pitch plate appearance against might-have-been-Cardinal Arthur Rhodes. Why didn’t TLR turn to Felipe Lopez, who has four hits in 11 plate appearances?
- Scott Rolen’s at-bat in the eighth with Votto on first and one out was the crisis moment of the game. Kyle McClellan ultimately walked Rolen, but that was after Rolen fouled off three straight pitches with Votto running. It’s hard to consider a pitcher who walks two of the five batters he faces "in control," but K-Mac pitched carefully — on ball four to Votto, Molina demanded a curveball low, and that’s what McClellan threw.
- We haven’t seen a replay, but we thought Jay’s first-inning hit was a double and an error.
- The Cardinal fans had a lightning rod in Brandon Phillips, whom they booed heartily before, during and after each of his plate appearances. And the hometowners wanted so little to do with the Reds’ trash-talking second basemen that they even encouraged each other to throw back foul balls that Phillips hit into the crowd, something we’ve never witnessed. We do think too much was made of the impropriety of throwing balls back. Technically, it’s against the rules of the game (fans are ejected), but we appreciated the spontaneous display of emotion, heathily expressed. No one was trying to injure anyone and no one on the field appeared to be in danger — in fact, Albert Pujols appeared to be ready to catch the returned ball. It was a refreshing show of spirit in a game that has often been sterilized of rivalrous fervor.
- The Busch Stadium scoreboard flashed a message that “Section 142 wins a free Hunter hot dog.” We’re not sure how many people were in section 142, but that must be some hot dog.