Lemon in the Rough

By Marshall Adesman

Boy, did I get stuck with a lemon. This National League Championship Series isn't cool like Ozzie Guillen or hot like Jose Contreras or sexy like the whole American League Championship Series! I mean, you've got the back-story of no Yankees and no Red Sox, the first time one of those teams hasn't been playing for the pennant in three years and only the second time since 1997. Then you've got the White Sox and their post-season history - no World Series appearances since 1959, no World Series triumph since 1917. Can't forget the colorful Ozzie, who's always talking, always good for a quote. And if that wasn't enough, we now have the Game Two umpiring controversy. Yup, this October, the AL seems like the place to be.

Meanwhile, David asked me to write about that other league, the boring one. Astros and Cardinals, just like last fall. Brainy Tony LaRussa versus baseball lifer Phil Garner, yawn. All you get with this series is good pitching, timely hitting, terrific fielding and electrifying base running. This isn't a modern home run-fest, picture-perfect for ESPN. Jeez, is this 2005 or 1905?

OK, sure, you've got good pitching. Chris Carpenter proved that he's recovered from that brief tired-arm syndrome that afflicted his last four starts of the regular season (ERA over 9.00) by limiting Houston to five hits and two runs in eight innings. While his Cardinal teammates were building a five-run lead, he escaped a couple of slight jams, breezed into the seventh and easily withstood a two-run, pinch-hit home run by Chris Burke, who's 18th inning wallop had sent the Astros into this series. Carpenter looked very much like the top contender for the Cy Young Award that he is this year.

Thursday night, it was turn-about-is-fair-play as Houston's Roy Oswalt bamboozled the Cards. On a pitching staff that features future Hall of Famer Roger Clemens plus Andy Pettitte, who has won more post-season games than any pitcher other than John Smoltz, the casual fan can easily overlook Oswalt. But he has collected 20 wins in each of the last two seasons, and he proved in Game Two why he would be the staff ace on just about any other team in baseball. He was about as sharp as he could be, giving up just five hits and a run in seven innings. Frankly, from the safety of my living room, he looked absolutely unhittable as the Astros evened the series.

(Parenthetically, between them Roger Clemens [341] and Andy Pettitte [172] have won 513 regular-season games in the majors. Just thought you'd want to know.)

Let's not slight Mark Mulder, who almost matched Oswalt pitch-for-pitch on Thursday. He gave up just two runs, only one of which was earned, in his seven innings; on most nights that would be enough for the win. Not in Game Two, when Houston brought in relief ace Brad Lidge to back up Oswalt, and the flame-thrower finished off the Cards by striking out three in his two innings.

There was some hitting, of course - Reggie Sanders hit a two-run homer and David Eckstein and Albert Pujols both delivered with men on base in the opener, while Burke, getting the start against the southpaw Mulder, drove in a run and scored a pair, while Adam Everett bombed a triple and Pujols reached the seats for St. Louis' only run. And there's also small ball, with the Cardinals scoring on a squeeze play on Wednesday and Houston scoring on a ground ball after a double and a sacrifice. Ty Cobb sure would have been proud, and he probably would have stood and cheered when Reggie Sanders and Jim Edmonds made highlight-reel catches on successive nights.

Yeah, this series is just plain old-fashioned baseball, and if you think it's boring (I hope you realize I was being sarcastic at the top), well friend you might just want to turn this off and wait for Fox to get back to its regular inane programming. Because t his is great stuff, and now it's going to get real interesting. The next three games are going to be in Houston's Minute Maid Park, the "Juice Box"? where games are strongly influenced by its very short left field porch and its expansive throwback hill in dead center. Mr. Clemens will be pitching on Saturday, and if he throws the way he did when he came in out of the bullpen against the Braves, the Cardinals will be in trouble. It certainly is possible that one of these teams could win each of the next three games but I doubt it; I fully expect this series, predicated on pitching, to head back to St. Louis for an exciting wrap-up. I have been saying for much of the summer that I expected the Cardinals to end their own World Series draught of 22 years, but now I'm not sure, there seems to be something about these Astros. And by the way, if you're looking for a back-story, how about Houston's post-season history - they have NEVER reached the World Series, and they have lost three of the most exciting League Championship Series ever (1980, 1986 and 2004). You know, this may not be such a bad assignment after all, thanks, David!