NLCS: Brewers Vs. Cardinals

[Primetime]

Prince Fielder...

 

[EmpireWF]

Jeromy Burnitz...

 

[Primetime]

Derrick Turnbow...

 

[Woy]

Rough loss today. TLR's mis-management of Garcia proved to be huge. Why warm up Dotel and leave Garcia out there to face Braun, when Dotel has a great history against him? Frustrating, especially since the offense did what they needed to.

Get 'em in Game 2.

 

[Colonel Angus]

WOOOOOOOOOO 1-0!!!

 

[FirstTimer]

I wonder who W2B wants to win?

 

[Bomberooski]

2 games tonight!

Hopefully Marcum doesn't get lit up again.

 

[mcstl25]

Garcia has been horrible on the road all year. Wasn't really expecting the Cardinals to win that one yesterday going against Greinke, which made blowing a 5-2 lead even more frustrating. Jackson has been boarderline great since joining the Cards; need a win tonight.

 

[Bomberooski]

Garcia has been horrible on the road all year. Wasn't really expecting the Cardinals to win that one yesterday going against Greinke, which made blowing a 5-2 lead even more frustrating. Jackson has been boarderline great since joining the Cards; need a win tonight.

I really have no rooting interest in this one tonight but I'll put my support behind the Cardinals. Want a 7 game series

 

[FedEx227]

Derrick Turnbow...

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdqo9aO0fyo"]Metallica - Fuel - YouTube[/ame]

 

[nflman2033]

Seeing as both teams are in the same division as the Reds its hard to cheer for either. However the cards have been there a lot more and brewers havent since 82 I gotta go brewers, ill say in 6.

 

[1ke]

I thought the Crew would win in 5 in the DS.

I think the Crew are going to win in 6 in this series.

Its so cool seeing this shit in Milwaukee.

 

[Woy]

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/colu...cle_0f311a9d-5d02-5fda-98ef-3fe053bbe20a.html

MILWAUKEE • Game 1 of the NL championship series got away so fast, it left Cardinals manager Tony La Russa flat-footed in the dugout. With bombs exploding at Miller Park, with the pitching mound opening up like a pit of quicksand to swallow panicked Cardinals pitcher Jaime Garcia, the future Hall of Fame manager failed to react.

Milwaukee's fifth-inning, six-run eruption was notable for several reasons. It obliterated the Cardinals' 5-2 lead. It gave the Brewers a 9-6 Game 1 victory and a 1-0 series advantage. The setback reinforced Garcia's reputation as a road worrier. And La Russa went against his career reputation by waiting to pull a completely unhinged starting pitcher despite being armed with a rested bullpen loaded with options.

The fifth-inning carnage against Garcia was stunning. It began with a single by Corey Hart. Then a double by Jerry Hairston Jr. Another double, this from Ryan Braun, who had smashed a two-run, 463-foot homer off Garcia in the first inning. And finally, a shock-and-awe 420-foot blast by Prince Fielder for another two-run jack.

After the fireworks cleared, the Brewers led 6-5.

La Russa belatedly made his move to the bullpen, for Octavio Dotel. And I still don't believe it. La Russa skipping a chance to hustle in a reliever is like Nyjer Morgan declining the opportunity to showboat. It happens about as often as the Rams win a football game.

Some of you will be quick to point out that Dotel hardly extinguished the bonfire; he gave up a two-run homer to Yuni Betancourt to make it 8-5 Brewers. Point taken. But it's also irrelevant. By the time Dotel reached the scene, the complexion and the momentum of Game 1 had changed dramatically. So we'll never know what Dotel would have done against Milwaukee's No. 3 and No. 4 hitters.

It just wasn't the same situation. Dotel's appeal was based on specific matchups and his impressive history of suppressing Braun and Fielder. The two Milwaukee mashers are both two for eight against Dotel, with six strikeouts each. That's right; Braun and Fielder have struck out 12 times in their 16 at-bats against Dotel. This would make Dotel an attractive candidate to perform an intervention.

So why was Dotel waiting and watching in the bullpen? As effective as he's been against big boppers Braun and Fielder in his career, Dotel can't strike 'em out from beyond the right-field fence.

"Fielder was Jaime's last hitter," La Russa said. "I mean, once he starts throwing the ball in the middle and there's not much room for margin for error there, once he faces Braun, and Fielder was going to be his last hitter. Dotel was ready for the next guy."

With all due respect to La Russa — and remember, La Russa's critics accuse me of being a TLR apologist — I do not understand this.

No. 1, Garcia tends to lose it in a hurry. He's microwave popcorn out there. When the heat gets to Garcia, everything starts popping and burning in a sudden burst. This suggests it's wise to be on guard for a quick removal. Didn't we learn that in Game 3 of the NL division series, when a tilting Garcia gave up the three-run pinch homer to Philadelphia's Ben Francisco?

No. 2, Garcia is not exactly Spartacus on the road. His road ERA this season (including postseason) is 4.97. He's allowed a .314 road batting average, a .479 slugging percentage and 158 baserunners in 99 2/3 innings. He's been pounded for 25 road doubles and 11 road homers. This also indicates the need to be on full alert for a quick removal.

No. 3, Braun's first inning homer off Garcia traveled so far, Donald Driver could have caught it had the Packers been playing in Green Bay on Sunday night. Dotel seemed ready when Braun stepped up in the fifth. But even if Dotel needed a couple of extra warm-up pitches, how many times have we seen La Russa go with stall-ball delaying tactics to give relievers a little extra time? He's good at it.

No. 4, after Garcia gave up the two-run double to Braun, the Cardinals still had a 5-4 lead. Under no circumstances did it make sense to let Fielder take a swing at the free-falling Garcia. And Garcia flipped in an 87 mph slider, straight over the plate, just pleading to be pulped. And Big Prince didn't miss. Fielder's home-run shot traveled 119.2 miles per hour, which made it the highest-velocity HR hit in 2011, according to ESPN Stats and Information.

La Russa said, "only when I saw him throw the ball up the middle to Braun, I said 'that's enough.' And he tried to make a pitch to Fielder and it's a two-run homer."

OK, if the bad slider to Braun convinced La Russa that it was "enough" for Garcia, then why did he allow Garcia to confront Fielder? The Cardinals didn't use their bullpen Friday. They were off Saturday. They have another off day on Tuesday. This bullpen is amped to go. And speaking of that ...

No. 5, La Russa decided to go with an extra pitcher on the roster for the NLCS. The Cardinals are carrying 12. That's even more of a reason to be aggressive with your bullpen. If you're going to hesitate before rescuing an overwhelmed Garcia, then what's the point of having eight relievers in the bullpen?

No. 6, La Russa was concerned about Garcia. La Russa had the bullpen warming in the Brewers' two-run first. And he had Dotel hurrying to get ready in the fifth. If you are clearly so worried about Garcia handling this environment, then why let him stay in there to get punched out?

And that's the overall point here: After building a 5-2 lead on Milwaukee starter Zack Greinke, after being in such favorable position to secure Game 1, you can't waste it by letting Braun and Fielder bully an unnerved young pitcher. And especially not inside the Brewers' home playpen, where they've won 61 of 85 games this season, including the postseason. It's an intimidating venue.

Garcia is in his second season. And yes, maybe Garcia should be mentally tougher by now. But he isn't. And I the manager has to be extra aggressive about keeping the game under control when a vulnerable pitcher sinks into deep and irreversible trouble.

"It's a tough loss," right fielder Lance Berkman said. "Stating the obvious, every one of these games are very important. And if you have a chance to win it, you better do it. We'll come back out Monday and see what happens."

No panic here. This should be a long series. If the Cardinals can come back from losing Game 1 at Philadelphia in the five-game NL division series, they surely can rebound in this seven-game NLCS. If the Cardinals can come back from a 2-1 deficit in the NLDS to win two in a row over Philly, they can bounce back against the Brewers. This St. Louis team has reaffirmed its competitive character many times over in 2011.

It's also true that the Cardinals will need to win a game or two at Miller Park. And rapidly evaporating starters aren't going to hold up against the Brewers in this yard. So if anything, La Russa must be on his toes and attack the Brewers with his relievers. And if the bullpen isn't good enough, then the Cardinals weren't going to win the NLCS, anyway.

La Russa calls in relievers about as often as a teenager hits the 'send" button on a text message. Multiple generations of baseball writers have needled TLR for personally creating the three-hour (plus) game with his frenetic bullpen maneuvers.

La Russa is guilty of overmanaging, some say. Well, I wish we would have seen some overmanaging of the St. Louis bullpen on Sunday at Miller Park.

Pretty much a deeper description of what I mentioned in my previous post. TLR's mis-managing of Garcia, like NLDS Game 3 against PHI, might have cost the Cards another game.

 

[Goober]

Pujoled.

 

[Slateman]

Pujols is a monster

 

[Woy]

Alberta's not that bad, huh? :smughard:

Glad to get out of Milwaukee with a split. Carpenter/Gallardo will be a lot of fun to watch.

#happyflight

 

[1ke]

Well that got ugly fast....

 

[Anthony]

MILWAUKEE – The jester never should call out the King. This has been fairly obvious since feudal times, and the moment Nyjer Morgan decided to unleash his Tony Plush routine on the world, he needed to adopt it as his ultimate tenet. Have fun. Joke around. But don’t ever forget who you are and who really runs this racket.

Somewhere along the way, the Milwaukee Brewers’ winning emboldened the clown. He made Albert Pujols(notes) the object of his mockery, calling him “Alberta” on Twitter. And whether it was this year or next, Morgan set in motion a certainty: Pujols, baseball royalty, would sharpen the guillotine and do what monarchs do.


Now that the deed is done, gone is the Brewers’ home-field advantage and their sheen of invincibility at Miller Park. Gone, too, is the grip they held on the National League Championship Series. With four swings of varying wrath and similar damage, Pujols lifted his St. Louis Cardinals to a 12-3 victory Monday night in Game 2 of the NLCS, a bloodbath that swung the pendulum back to the Cardinals as they head home for the series’ next three contests.

Never did Pujols play the game into which Morgan tried goading him. He sat back, his teammates said, soaked in the insult, internalized his anger and promised to answer with a Newtonian rejoinder. That the second of Pujols’ playoff-record-tying four extra-base hits happened to flummox Morgan and cause him to crash into the center-field wall was the whipped cream atop the chocolate sauce, to which he’d later add some sprinkles and a cherry.

By the end of the night, Pujols had set postseason career-highs in runs batted in, total bases and pests silenced. He vanquished a 47-at-bat homerless streak in the postseason with a first-inning shot off Brewers starter Shaun Marcum, whose inside fastball found itself over the left-field fence almost as quickly as it took to travel from Marcum’s hand to Pujols’ bat. After admiring his handiwork for a moment, Pujols went into a home run trot that he savored. His next three at-bats went double, double, double, like an In-N-Out order taken one step too far, and when Pujols grounded out in his final plate appearance, the lifeless crowd at Miller Park arose for one final cheer, of the Bronx variety, before returning to lament what Pujols had done to their Brewers.

“He’s a special player,” Morgan said. “Can’t keep a guy down the whole time. He’s going to bust out of it eventually.”

Morgan had turned off his alter ego, Tony Plush, for a few moments. This was embarrassing – for the Brewers and for him. The risk of having a big mouth is getting punched in it, and Pujols was Mike Tyson to Morgan’s Peter McNeeley. He sprayed balls to all fields – left, then center, then right-center, then a ground-rule double down the right-field line, which was the first of six consecutive hits off Brewers reliever Kameron Loe in the four-run seventh inning that turned a 7-2 advantage into a blowout.

 

[Woy]

Just some tidbits about Pujols's performance last night.

MILWAUKEE -- In the light of day, the carnage created by Albert Pujols' Monday night demolition of the Milwaukee Brewers remains impressive. His four hits and five RBI only partially tell the story of an historic breakout that muscled the Cardinals to a 12-3 win over the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 2 of a deadlocked NL Championship Series.

A few leftover touchstones:

-- Pujols' first-inning home run and three subsequent doubles made him only the third player in LCS history to amass four extra-base hits in a game. The Pittsburgh Pirates Bob Robertson did so in 1971 and the New York Yankees' Hideki Matsui accomplished the feat in 2004.

-- Pujols' nine NLCS home runs broke a tie with Steve Garvey for most ever. He is tied with George Brett and Billy Williams for second in overall LCS play, trailing only Manny Ramirez (13).

-- Pujols now owns 14 postseason home runs -- six coming in the first inning -- tying him wiht David Justice for eighth all-time and only one behind Babe Ruth. Of course, the Bambino and all others who played before 1969 did not enjoy the benefit of a multi-tiered postseason format.

-- Pujols' five RBI Monday matched his output for his previous 23 postseason games. Monday's flurry moved him past Jim Edmonds for most all-time by a Cardinal. Pujols has 42 career postseason RBI. So does Edmonds, but one came while with the Anaheim Angels.

-- In possession of 23 LCS RBI, Pujols tied John Olerud for sixth-most all-time. New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, the so-called Mr. November, stands one above Pujols.

-- Four hits ties Pujols with numerous others for most in NLCS play. San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey accomplished the feat during last October's NLCS Game 4 against the Philadelphia Phillies.

-- Pujols became the first player ever to amass two games with at least three extra-base hits apiece within the same postseason. He also became one of only three players to have multiple four-hit games within the same postseason. The Kansas City Royals' Brett (1985) and the Brewers' Robin Yount (1982) had previously accomplished the feat. Both men wound up facing the Cardinals in World Series play.

-- Pujols elevated his average to .414 this postseason. He also owns six doubles, Monday's home run, five runs and six RBI. His career LCS average stands at .347 with 23 RBI and 23 runs. Monday's five RBI left Pujols one shy of the franchise postseason single-game record. Reggie Sanders piled on the San Diego Padres for six RBI in the opener of the 2005 NLDS.

 

[Woy]

http://www.stltoday.com/entertainme...tml?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay has a selection of Philadelphia craft beers coming his way thanks to a bet he won when the Cardinals secured the National League Division Series from the Phillies.

Now that the Cards are locked in a battle with the Milwaukee Brewers for the NL Championship, it would seem obvious for the mayors of these two historic beer towns to wager some suds. Instead, Slay and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett on Monday announced their agreement to make a Rotary Club donation based on the outcome of the best-of-seven series. Bor-ing.

In the spirit of sportsmanship, we decided to weigh the best beer attributes of Milwaukee and St. Louis in a side-by-side comparison. Mayors, it's not too late to up that ante.

Best-selling beer

Milwaukee • Miller Lite. Marketing can do wonders to the mind, but I’m not falling for the "triple-hops-brewed" flavor that MillerCoors claims flows out of its Miller Lite Vortex bottles.

St. Louis • Bud Light. If I had a choice, I'd pick Budweiser over Bud Light any day, but as far as the Big Three — Bud Light, Miller Lite and Coors Light — the lighter Bud is the most, um, drinkable.

Winner • St. Louis.

Beer-named stadium

Milwaukee • Miller Park. Retractable roof. Poutine available at select concession stands; bratwurst at nearly all. Klement’s Famous Racing Sausages race around the field at every home game.

St. Louis • Busch Stadium. View of the Arch. Unless nachos are your idea of a good time, bring your own food (it’s allowed in most sections).

Winner • Milwaukee.

Craft-brewery standout

Milwaukee • Lakefront Brewery. As far as brewery tours go, Lakefront’s is hard to beat: You drink beer before, during and after. Its award-winning Cherry Lager is brewed with fresh Wisconsin cherries, and Lakefront also makes a gluten-free beer for the celiac sufferers among us.

St. Louis • St. Louis Brewery (Schlafly Beer). Now in its 20th year and brewing about 50 styles of beer annually, Schlafly is a driving force behind St. Louis’ current craft-beer renaissance.

Winner • St. Louis. This year’s vintage of Schlafly Pumpkin Ale, on shelves and in bars through the end of next month, is drinking especially fine.

Big-brewery tour

Milwaukee • Miller Brewing Co. Free, with beer samples and pretzels after tour.

St. Louis • Anheuser-Busch Brewery. Free, with beer samples and pretzels after tour.

Winner • St. Louis. Our tour includes Clydesdales.

Beer-inspired fans

Milwaukee • The Brew Crew.

St. Louis • Cardinal Nation.

Winner • Milwaukee. Having "Brew" in the name gives those guys a big advantage.

City-pride beer

Milwaukee • Milwaukee Brewing Co. Pullchain Pail Ale. This brew is inspired by the city’s old factory workers, who used to drink from pails of beer while on their union-mandated work breaks (supervisors signaled the breaks by pulling a chain to sound a steam whistle).

St. Louis • Six Row Brewing Co. Plant No. 1 Pilsner. This 2-year-old craft brewery located in midtown released its first lager to commemorate Ken Burns’ new PBS documentary, “Prohibition,” which features St. Louis. Head brewer Evan Hiatt’s recipe is inspired by pre-Prohibition-era beers, and Six Row’s brewpub is located in the old Falstaff Brewing Corp.’s Plant No. 1, which churned out some of the city’s first post-Prohibition beers.

Winner • St. Louis. Both beers offer nostalgia in a glass, but the edge goes to Six Row’s nod to the city’s brewing past.

Series winner • St. Louis. Duh.

:beersalute: