WORLD SERIES CHAMPS!
So yeah, it's been awhile since I've posted. Work was hitting me hard and I got lazy and complacent, actually having Cardinals games covered up here around Chicago for awhile.
This is officially the 2nd championship the Cardinals have won during my lifetime, but only the first I have any knowledge of personally, as I was 1 year old in 1982 when they last won it.
Some observations: This one has been pointed out several places, but the pitching discrepency of ERA from regular season to postseason was just amazing. From around 4.5 to 2.6.
The 4.5 actually had them as one of the worst teams in the NL in pitching this year. However, as one ESPN.com article pointed out, if you take out the games started by Marquis and Mulder and use only the stats compiled by the four pitchers used in the postseason(Carpenter, Suppan, Reyes and Weaver), the ERA drops to just a shade over 4, which would have been 2nd best in the NL. So while they pitched out of their minds, it wasn't quite as out of their minds as it may have seemed.
Big Props to Jeff Weaver. In the clincher, there were 2 bad plays behind him by Chris Duncan. The Edmonds/Duncan dropped ball in short right which should have been easy, and the misplay that allowed a double a couple innings later.
The first situation, he was taken out by Sean Casey, who was the only Tiger to show up for the Series on offense, but it was a pitch that wasn't really an easy pitch to hit out, an inside cutter, off the plate that Casey had his hands practically buried into his chest to hit.
The second situation, he bore down and got out of the jam with no damage done.
These were the situations as a Yankee, Angel and to a lesser degree as a Cardinal during the regular season that killed Weaver. It seemed like he was very fatalistic about this situations and actually let up on hitters after something bad happened behind him. This would lead to 3-4 runs in an inning, if not more.
Lastly, on the whole Game 2 incident. No one's going to criticize TLR now because they won it despite the whole Rogers mess. However, my thoughts would be, get him checked out. I know it opens up your own guys, but we'd all like to believe none of them are doing anything of that nature. If Rogers was cheating, you have to get him out of there. If he wasn't, having him checked out might have settled the Cardinals hitters enough for them to actually hit the garbage he was throwing. If nothing else, it seemed to get in the Cards' hitters heads that Rogers was untouchable because he was cheating. Either get him out of the game or at least quell those thoughts for your hitters' sake.
But anyway, this might very well be the last Cardinals writing of the year, not counting free agency movement. A more realistic post for who they can bring back and who they should get is probably in order now(sadly, we're probably saying good-bye to Jeff Suppan, who might have just gotten himself an 8M a year contract or more).
WORLD SERIES CHAMPS BABY!!
This is officially the 2nd championship the Cardinals have won during my lifetime, but only the first I have any knowledge of personally, as I was 1 year old in 1982 when they last won it.
Some observations: This one has been pointed out several places, but the pitching discrepency of ERA from regular season to postseason was just amazing. From around 4.5 to 2.6.
The 4.5 actually had them as one of the worst teams in the NL in pitching this year. However, as one ESPN.com article pointed out, if you take out the games started by Marquis and Mulder and use only the stats compiled by the four pitchers used in the postseason(Carpenter, Suppan, Reyes and Weaver), the ERA drops to just a shade over 4, which would have been 2nd best in the NL. So while they pitched out of their minds, it wasn't quite as out of their minds as it may have seemed.
Big Props to Jeff Weaver. In the clincher, there were 2 bad plays behind him by Chris Duncan. The Edmonds/Duncan dropped ball in short right which should have been easy, and the misplay that allowed a double a couple innings later.
The first situation, he was taken out by Sean Casey, who was the only Tiger to show up for the Series on offense, but it was a pitch that wasn't really an easy pitch to hit out, an inside cutter, off the plate that Casey had his hands practically buried into his chest to hit.
The second situation, he bore down and got out of the jam with no damage done.
These were the situations as a Yankee, Angel and to a lesser degree as a Cardinal during the regular season that killed Weaver. It seemed like he was very fatalistic about this situations and actually let up on hitters after something bad happened behind him. This would lead to 3-4 runs in an inning, if not more.
Lastly, on the whole Game 2 incident. No one's going to criticize TLR now because they won it despite the whole Rogers mess. However, my thoughts would be, get him checked out. I know it opens up your own guys, but we'd all like to believe none of them are doing anything of that nature. If Rogers was cheating, you have to get him out of there. If he wasn't, having him checked out might have settled the Cardinals hitters enough for them to actually hit the garbage he was throwing. If nothing else, it seemed to get in the Cards' hitters heads that Rogers was untouchable because he was cheating. Either get him out of the game or at least quell those thoughts for your hitters' sake.
But anyway, this might very well be the last Cardinals writing of the year, not counting free agency movement. A more realistic post for who they can bring back and who they should get is probably in order now(sadly, we're probably saying good-bye to Jeff Suppan, who might have just gotten himself an 8M a year contract or more).
WORLD SERIES CHAMPS BABY!!
Labels: Jeff Weaver, Kenny Rogers, World Series, Yadier Molina
posted by Matt at 9:13 AM
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