Padres - Cardinals Playoff Series Wrap

Padres Slip Gently Into the Night

...and we mean that literally, as East Coast viewers (both of them), as consequent to the 8:09 local time appointment for the start of what proved to be the final contest in this series, it was on towards 2:15 in the Ay of Em when the Friars softly puffed their last breath of 2005. The Cardinals administered the last rites in a timely fashion, and although they perhaps were a bit unseemly in hovering over the stricken patient for so long, allowing false hopes of a rally back to life among the faithful family and followers of the San Diegans, in the end the passing came peacefully enough.

As followed the pattern in the previous two games, the Cards jumped out to a lead, and watched the Padres peck away at the lead like so many dawdling dodo birds, trying to catch up before they were made extinct. Padre starter Woody Williams faced only 14 batters in a bit less than two innings, giving up the traditional first-inning run on an Albert Pujols double, then surrendering a two-run blast to scrappy shortstop David Eckstein in the second. This theme of twos continued as the inexorable Reggie Sanders totted two more RBI with a double, chasing Mr. Williams, and topping off Sanders' LDS record at 10 RBI -- in merely three games. Yadier Molina of the Molina boys added a two-run single in the fifth to give the scarlet avians a healthy seven-run lead.

The good brothers of San Diego came right back out in the bottom of the fifth with a couple of runs on a double by Joe Randa followed by singles by Eric Young and Mark Loretta. Starter Matt Morris did not look pained enough to lift prior to qualifying for a victory -- always seemingly a consideration for Tony LaRussa -- and got out of it with no more damage inflicted. In the seventh, Morris gave way to Brad Thompson, who let flyweight Dave Roberts loft one in a hurry to right field and over the fence for a run-scoring potato trot. Julian Tavarez saw to match Thompson's largesse in the eighth with another meaty beaty big and bouncy pitch to catcher Ramon Hernandez, who obliged his guest's hospitable gesture by smacking the ball to kingdom come (as we think that warehouse in left field at Petco might've been known in another day). Alas for the friars, they ran out of innings and into Jason Isringhausen in the ninth, who retired the heart of the Padre order (murmuring as it may be) but not before allowing on a couple of baserunners. Both Brian Giles and Ryan Klesko, the Padres "power" hitters this season (15 and 18 homers respectively), had chances to tie it, but Giles watched the pill float by on strike three while Klesko sputtered a soft roller back to the pitching slab, where an eager Izzy gained control of the sphere and lofted it in a lazy parabolic arc to first for the final out of the series.

The Cardinals have returned to Saint Louis for an early evening tonic of warm milk and Grandma's home-made cookies, put on a pair of warm fuzzy slippers by the fire, and will rest up in the comforts of the Gateway City for several days before their re-match with last year's LCS opponents, the Astronauticals of Sam Houston's namesake ville. As for the Southern Californian Clerics, they indeed managed to finish the season just below the waterline of .500 -- 82-83, counting their post-season mismatch against their ecclesiastical superiors, the scarlet-robed monsignors of Missouri -- and now gently fade into the off-season that eventually awaits us all in our mortal coils. Ask not for whom the bells of AC/DC toll, Trevor Hoffman, they toll for thee.