The Sequel in St. Louis

By Matt Wall

Astronauts and Cardinals Seek to Fly Higher Yet
The feathers will fly fast and furiously in the Gateway City Wednesday night as the home town Cardinals seek to defend their National League crown once again against the upstart aeronauts from Houston. The sultry showdown reprises the contestants from the 2004 smack-daddy LCS brawl, which saw Tony LaRussa's nine outlast Garner's own in a monumental struggle of seven games. Last year's Astros were powered by Carlos Beltran's remarkable free agent year push, which alternated homers and base swipes to the Cards' steady battering. This year, however, the Cards' ace, the pride of Exeter, New Hampshire, Christopher John Carpenter, is healthy, as is the Baton Rouge bat-breaker, Andy Pettite, both of whom were absent without a by your leave due to injuries late in that fated year, which augurs contests with more emphasis on the hurlers' particular talents than perhaps last year's brawling might have intimated.

2005 sees both clubs with their pitching staffs intact, and last year's truants will face off as the starters in Game 1. The Cards come off a predictably easy sweep of the San Diego Padres, while Houston is in orbit following a knock-down-drag-out 18-inning affair which saw them use up every player on their roster save Pettite and the previous night's starter, Roy Oswalt. Roger Clemens' epic three-inning relief appearance was the topper of the Houston hat, but it has put the Astronauticals in a slight bind with respect to their matchups after Game 1. The Astros will have to throw out some combination of lightly-rested pitchers in Game 2 at St. Louis, whether it be Roy Oswalt on short rest, Clemens on his regular "turn", or even the relatively ineffective Game 4 LCS starter Brandon Backe, we may have to wait until the first pitch to learn. This reporter has been tipped by confidential insider sources, however, that the sphere is going to Oswalt. The Cards have their own worries in their number 2 slot, as Agent Mark Mulder is suffering from a nasty bruise on this pitching shoulder he took during the penultimate Padre game. Mulder, though black and blue, appears to have the green light at this writing. That leaves a Clemens vs. Matt Morris matchup on paper for Game 3 back in Houston, the Rocket's town as long as mission control can keep his early pitch count from entering orbit. That fastball nearly reached escape velocity against the Atlanta club, and we would never lay good United States Currency down against the veteran Clemens, much less against the mercurial Matty Mo. Jeff Suppan appears to be on tap for the Cards in the four slot, with Backe likely getting recycled at last for that game. Suppan's coming off nearly two weeks without work, while Backe labored mightily for the Astros right up until the end of their trek across the Texas plains in search of their wild card slot, and it remains to be seen if the rust will triumph over the dust.

The Cardinal bullpen, needless to say, is rested compared to that of Houston, but all is not necessarily well in Scarlet Town's pitching paddy. Key set-up man Al Reyes is lost, thanks to a ligament tear suffered during the last Cards' game of the season, while closer Jason Isringhausen struggled just a tad with the good friars of San Diego. Houston's Dan Wheeler was an instrumental part of the great victory over Atlanta, and closer Brad Lidge seems to be in mid-season tuning after a rare blown save in the final week of the season that nearly sunk the Astros' wildcard hopes. Still, the Cards have managed to extract depth out of a veteran crew in a variety of circumstances all year, and it's hard to give either club an edge here.

Of the celebrated St. Louis lineup, little remains to be writ that has not already been writ large. David Eckstein, Jim Edmonds, Albert Pujols, and Larry Walker are backed by Reggie Sanders' strong showing in the LDS, and the LaRussians managed to squeeze out some small ball runs from the bottom of their lineup, Yadier Molina, Mark Grudzielanek, and Abraham Nunez. Houston's riposte has its share of fearsome sluggers: Morgan Ensberg, the club's dark horse power leader, and the resurgent Lance Berkman were both batting the ball with dizzying velocity and frequency as the season came to a close. Veteran Craig Biggio, coming off a truly remarkable year at the age of Jack Benny, has provided fire both as fuel and in spirit. But there's a certain softness to the Astro lineup after that. Jeff Bagwell is now only a pinch-hitter. This leaves an odd outfield of rookie Willy Taveras, a slap-hitting speedster of the Brett Butler school (he, too, is often gone with the wind), and Jason Lane, a latter day Trot Nixon type, with LCS series hero Chris Burke and rookie Luke Scott waiting in the wings as understudies. Adam Everett at short completes the starting infield, with the light-hitting Brad Ausmus behind the slab. Ausmus was spelled a bit by Raul Chavez, who improbably ended up the 18-inning marathon with Atlanta as the Astro first baseman. His misplay of a handleable ball in the dirt from Jose Vizcaino nearly cost the Astros the game late.

That type of detail would seem to be a key to looking at how the clubs match up. St. Louis' game is steady across the board. It has reliable defense and does not have odd roster holes like a pinch hitter who can't play the field (sorry, Bagpipes). While the club no doubt misses Scott Rolen, Abraham Nunez has provided surprisingly solid defense at the hot corner, and the rest of the lineup surely makes up for the deficit there. After that, it's hard to give the Astros an edge anywhere in the lineup or in the field. Molina is a much stronger defensive catcher than Ausmus, and while Edmonds does not have the wheels of young Taveras, he has accumulated experience that more than compensates for raw speed when it comes to the big play. Biggio and Everett have been excellent up the middle, Eckstein and Grudzielanek a similar pairing of youngster and veteran. Albert Pujols is an outstanding first sacker now, and while Lance Berkman has done very well there this year, it is still not his natural position. On balance the St. Louis lineup, while having committed a 100 errors this year, still feels like one better-tuned to taut playoff baseball than the ever-changing Astro defense.

If we look at the regular season stats, we may have a key to looking at this matchup. The Cardinals were perfectly balanced as a team -- 50-31 on the road, 50-31 at home. The Astros were even better at home, by three games, but were a sub-.500 club on the road. The Astros lead the league in fewest runs allowed, despite their hitter-friendly home park, but the Cardinals were second. However, the Cards scored over 800 runs this season, while Houston was seven runs short of scoring 700.

Last year Houston was playing hot down the stretch, the Cards had coasted in and seemed a little rusty coming into the LCS, and on the face of things it may seem to be a similar situation this year. But there are material differences. The Cards are relatively healthy, and are playing with a lineup that has been set for the latter half of the season. The Astros are a little tired, and their lineups have been varied and occasionally desperately-composed down the stretch into the playoffs. And the Astros also have the disadvantage of their pitching rotation being slightly askew.

I have criticized Tony LaRussa in the past for overmanaging, for resorting to small ball and changes in the lineup where patience and perseverance would be strategically more optimal, and I've no doubt that LaRussa's strengths overall are hampered by this tendency to wish to appear to be the 26th player, or even the 10th. But Phil Garner is of similar stuff, an intense Type A manager, and perhaps without quite the detail of experience that the remarkable LaRussa has. All advantages and disadvantages in this department would seem to be in rough balance.

The conventional wisdom is that the Astros' pitching might carry them through this series, but my guess is that the Cards will take this series in, oh, six games. What advantages the Astros have among their Big Three starters are matched by the Cards' relative advantage in hitting, and to turn the tables, I believe the Cards' pitching outclasses the Astros' hitters by a notch. Add in better overall defense by the Cards and the home field advantage, this writer gives the Cards the nod. The scrappy fightin' spacemen of Texas, however, have provided very entertaining baseball for two seasons, and undoubtedly can triumph given the right circumstances. Seven games is still a short series in the grand scheme, and this should be an entertaining romp of a match-up.