St. Louis Cardinals

[Colonel Angus]

This series is going to be JACKED UP

 

[wingsfan77]

I think it's hilarious how Phillies fans are surprised that they lost...this is the THIRD year in a row that their offense has collapsed in big games...sign all of the pitchers you want, doesn't mean squat when your line-up falls face down in the play-offs AGAIN!

 

[mcstl25]

Got my game 3 tickets today. Going to be in Milwaukee for games 5 and 6 (scheduled trip to GB for Rams/Packers game). This series is going to be awesome.

 

[Woy]

:rofl:

 

[Woy]

http://espn.go.com/mlb/playoffs/201...chris-carpenter-leads-st-louis-cardinals-nlcs

PHILADELPHIA -- These are the baseball games that take that special journey through history, a ride only the October classics get to take.

They don't come along often. Maybe every 10 years. Or every 20. Or every 50. So when you see them, you want to freeze them and savor the feeling, hang onto the memory -- because they won't come around again for a long, long time.

When Chris Carpenter and Roy Halladay took the mound on a pressure-packed -- not to mention squirrel-free -- Friday night in Philadelphia, it was easy to imagine they might just conspire to do something great and everlasting. But could you have imagined this?

Could you have imagined an unforgettable 1-0 instant classic, baked in the hearth of a sudden-death, Game 5 NLDS pressure cooker?

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Howard Smith/US Presswire
Chris Carpenter allowed just three hits over nine innings. He did not walk a batter.
Could you have imagined the first 1-0 baseball game in a Game 5 or Game 7 win-or-else postseason setting since the legendary Jack Morris-John Smoltz epic, two decades deep in the rearview mirror -- and just the third such game in history?

Could you have imagined two longtime pals, hooking up for the duel of their lifetimes -- in a game that would send one man's team home and dunk the other in a tank of Ariel Brut Cuvee?

And could you have imagined that, when 11:06 p.m. arrived in the Eastern Time Zone, it would be the Best Team in Baseball trying to digest the shock of a first-round execution, while the reincarnated St. Louis Cardinals group-hugged their way toward their next October adventure in Milwaukee?

What an amazing story, shaped forever by a truly amazing night.

"That team we beat -- they're tough," Albert Pujols said, after the 1-0 nail-gnawer over the Phillies that kept the Cardinals' magic carpet floating through the October sky. "But you know what? We're tough, too."

By now, you know the improbable path these Cardinals took to get here. By now, you know all about the 10.5-game hole they climbed out of in the season's final 31 games, the three-game deficit with six to play, the Carpenter shutout in Game 162 in Houston that finally propelled them into this tournament.

But remember too that just three days ago, they trailed in this series, 2 games to 1 -- and knew the only route to survival was to find a way to beat Roy Oswalt and Halladay back to back in Games 4 and 5.

The odds of that seemed even longer than the Pacific Coast Highway. But in the mind of the manager, a vision was lurking -- and it was a vision of this night.

From the moment Tony La Russa set his rotation for this series, this was what he had in mind -- just to get to this time, this place, this matchup:

To a Game 5 duel for the ages, Carpenter against Halladay.

If his team could just scramble its way into this setting, Tony La Russa figured, anything was possible.

"When you pick your rotation in a five-game series," La Russa said Friday night, his champagne-soaked jersey still on his back, "it really comes down to this: If Carpenter doesn't pitch twice in that series … our chances of winning are not good."

So the manager spun his roulette wheel and took the gamble that made this night possible. He pointed Carpenter toward the mound in Game 2, on short rest for the first time ever. And even though that maneuver didn't exactly work out the way he had planned it in his brain, it all worked out beautifully in the big picture.

NLDS: Cardinals vs. Phillies
Complete coverage of the Cardinals-Phillies matchup. More »

Because it set up this.

Pitching Carpenter in Game 2 allowed La Russa to bring his ace back again in this game. And the biggest reason La Russa knew he needed Carpenter in this game was that he also knew it would be Halladay sitting there waiting for him.

Asked after Friday's game if it was this Roy Halladay -- in all his Cy Young glory -- that was what he was worried about, La Russa just nodded.

"Yes," he said. "Unfortunately."

It was no stretch to imagine Halladay painting another eight-inning, six-hit, one-run October masterpiece in a game of this magnitude. It was trying to comprehend that the man he was facing would be even better -- that was the hard part.

But Carpenter is a man who had no fear of this stage, of this lineup or of this duel with one of his closest friends on earth. And so, as spectacular as Halladay would pitch on this night, he wasn't the best pitcher on the field.

Not on a night when Carpenter would unfurl nine innings of three-hit-shutout brilliance of his own -- when only a performance that dominant would do.

As people all around him tried to shower words like "historic" on him afterward, Carpenter went into deflection mode, tried his best to describe this night as merely "another game," another step to "move on to the next round."

But his teammates knew different. Asked if he felt as if he'd just been a part of something special, Skip Schumaker -- the man who would drive in the only run -- understood precisely what he'd just been a part of.

"I felt that coming into this game," he said. "And for them to come out and do what they did, with all the pressure on both of them, was even more incredible."

But just howww incredible was it? Let's try to digest it.

• This was the 340th start of Carpenter's tremendous career, counting the postseason. But it was his FIRST 1-0 shutout.

• And that team he beat, the Phillies, was shut out only seven times all season, tied for the third-fewest times in baseball.

• But this, remember, was on the Phillies' turf. And in their home park, they were shut out just twice after May 22 -- both after they'd clinched first place. One of those two games was started by a fellow named Chris Carpenter.

• Only once in the last three years, since they won the 2008 World Series, had the Phillies lost a 1-0 game in this park -- that one on Aug. 7, 2010, to Johan Santana and the Mets. But no pitcher had gone all nine innings against them to win a 1-0 game in Philadelphia in a decade and a half -- since June 29, 1996, a day when Curt Schilling got outpitched by (who else?) Jeff Fassero.

• And now let's add in the October history that brings it all home. In the many, many winner-take-all postseason games ever played, just two other pitchers had ever closed out a series by winning a 1-0 game. One was Ralph Terry, in Game 7 of the 1962 World Series. The other was Jack Morris, in that indelible Game 7 in 1991. And we're still talking about both of them.

But this was actually the Morris-Smoltz game in reverse. Twenty years ago in that game, the only run was scored on the final play of the game. This game, on the other hand, would turn out, amazingly, to be the only postseason game ever played in which the only run would be scored before either team made AN OUT.

“
You do everything you can. You know every pitch is going to mean something, and you're hoping we'd get back in it and overcome it. It's definitely a tough way to go.
”
-- Roy Halladay
One second, there was Halladay, finishing up his warm-up tosses in a jam-packed ballpark, throbbing with energy. Four pitches later, Rafael Furcal was pounding a triple up the gap in right-center. And that fast, the Cardinals had made a whole city nervous.

Just six days earlier, Furcal had led off Game 1 with a hit against Halladay -- and he fully understood the importance of setting that early tone.

"My approach was to look for something I could drive, because that guy is one of the best in the business," said Furcal, his lost season brought back to life by the July deal that airlifted him out of Los Angeles. "He knows how to get out every hitter. He controls every pitch that he throws. Even 3-0, you don't even know what kind of pitch he's gonna throw, because he can control anything. But I think he tried to come inside with a cutter, and he left it in the middle of the plate. It was a little high, but I make a good swing, and the ball jumped out of my bat."

So there he was, hip-hopping off third as Schumaker settled in for what would become the most important at-bat of the night. Halladay jumped ahead 0-2, but never could put the pesky Schumaker away.

Schumaker fouled off one two-strike pitch. Then another. And another. And another. And yet another. Finally, after five two-strike foul balls, he stroked the 10th pitch of the at-bat into the right-field corner for an RBI double. And as he pulled into second base, he was still trying to digest what he had just done.

"Are you kidding? Against Doc Halladay?" Schumaker laughed later. "I was happy just to put the barrel of the bat on the ball."

Asked if there'd been one or two ferocious pitches he couldn't believe he had been lucky enough to foul off, Schumaker shook his head in disbelief.

"Yeah," he said, laughing again. "Probably, seven of the 10."

But as it turned out, the one pitch he got to hit was enough to change the course of two teams' seasons -- because it was the end of the offense for this night.

Halladay would be seriously threatened in only one more inning, when the Cardinals loaded the bases in the eighth. But even 120 pitches into his night, he had enough left to strike out Lance Berkman then lure Matt Holliday into a soft fly ball. He strung together seven consecutive zeroes after that first inning. But even nine zeroes wouldn't have beaten Carpenter in this game.

Afterward, Halladay stared into his locker for nearly a half-hour, in near-disbelief over what had just transpired.

"You do everything you can," he said. "You know every pitch is going to mean something, and you're hoping we'd get back in it and overcome it. It's definitely a tough way to go."

He knew from the first pitch that the other guy on the mound would be ready. But he couldn't possibly have known that first-inning run would reverberate not just through the rest of this night, but through the rest of this postseason and beyond.

And that was because Chris Carpenter took that 1-0 lead and wouldn't let go.

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Rob Carr/Getty Images
After giving up a run in the first, Roy Halladay settled into the game, matching old friend Chris Carpenter pitch for pitch.
Oh, there were moments in which his defense rose up to make his job a little easier. There was Yadier Molina's laser beam in the sixth to throw out Chase Utley stealing. There was Furcal's diving, whirling, acrobatic play to rob Carlos Ruiz in the eighth. There was Carpenter's own kick save of a Jimmy Rollins bullet up the middle later in the eighth that second baseman Nick Punto charged and turned into a huge out.

And then there were two long, hold-your-breath rockets, off the bats of Raul Ibanez in the fourth inning and Utley in the ninth, that came within a few feet each of rewriting this entire story. Asked later if those balls had made his heart race as they soared through the night, La Russa replied: "That's a nice way to put it."

But mostly, Carpenter just did what he does best -- threw strike one, lured the Phillies into what he called "swing mode," sinkerballed his way to 16 ground ball outs and pitched himself into the history books on what even he admitted was "an unbelievable night."

Yeah, he tried his best to convince us that he wasn't the story, that all that mattered was "getting this team to the next round." But that spin wasn't working real well, because Chris Carpenter had just had himself a night that will go careening through time, its place cemented in October lore.

Well, we know one man who will never forget it, anyway -- his manager.

It was a night La Russa had been waiting for all week, and when he woke up Friday morning, he felt as if game time would never come. So he went for a walk through the streets of Philadelphia, even though he recognized that had a chance to be "kind of dangerous."

What he found on those streets, though, was a steady stream of Philadelphians who were in the mood to be gentle -- because they had total faith, they told him, that Halladay was about to send La Russa's team, and his ace, home for the winter. Boy, were they in for a shock, courtesy of Christopher John Carpenter.

"They were all confident they were gonna beat us," La Russa reported.

"But you know what?" he chuckled. "If they had a crystal ball, they might not have been so nice."

 

[Woy]

http://www.youcantpredictbaseball.com/?p=1660

(I’m sorry for the title. I had to.)

If I asked you all to name the YCPB Team of the Year, most of you would probably say the Diamondbacks. It makes sense; they were a 97-loss team in 2010 with a bullpen consisting of dirty barrels of oil, firewood, and a whole lotta matches, and they weren’t supposed to sniff contention in 2011. Instead, they knocked off the defending World Series champions, won 94 games, and fought their butts off down to the very last three outs of their season. Maybe you’d mention the Pirates through July, or the Indians through June. Maybe you’d talk about the Twins, in a negative way. And on a big picture level, most of you are probably right.

But on a smaller level? Like, how a given team got to where they ended up? I propose a team not many of you are going to think of: the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Cardinals entered Spring Training 2011 with a lot of questions, oddly enough. They’d spent most of the first decade of this century being probably the third-best overall team, but behind the crazy fanbases of the Yankees and Red Sox, well, their Midwestern ways were never going to get too much attention (aside from Albert Pujols, the best player in baseball). Sometimes you’d tune in to a Cards game to hear the play-by-play guys gushing over the “best fans in baseball” and you’d roll your eyes and change the channel, but the Cards just weren’t that flashy. They were good, though. They won well over ninety games most years, and their 105-57 2004 team has a claim to one of the best individual teams of the 2000s. When they had a mediocre team, the 83-win 2006 team, they ended up stumbling to the playoffs anyway and, funnily enough, winning it all.

But I digress. (No kidding.)

The Cardinals hadn’t made the playoffs in 2010, comfortably beat out by the upstart Cincinnati Reds. They’d signed Lance Berkman, coming off an extreme down year and looking old and tired, to play… the outfield? Sure, they had. Best Player in the Universe Albert Pujols was set to be a free agent after 2011, and though baseball players are obviously professionals, the hysteria around his free agency would probably be at least a little distracting. In even worse news that would definitely impact the team in a very tangible way, excellent ace Adam Wainwright – over 2009 and 2010, he’d thrown 463.1 innings with a 2.53 ERA, 157 ERA+, 1.131 WHIP, 8.3 K/9, and 3.48 K/BB, he is awesome – got hurt and needed Tommy John surgery. It would rule him out for all of 2011. With the Brewers trading away their whole darn farm system to acquire some really good pitchers and the Reds the reigning NL Central champs, full of great young hitting talent and a lot of pitching – well, the Cardinals didn’t look bad, but it wasn’t unreasonable to pick them for third place behind those two teams.

It was a weird first game of the season for St. Louis, against the Padres. Pujols went 0-for-5 with three GIDPs, probably the worst game in his entire professional career. Still, the Cardinals were in a position to win going into the ninth inning with a 3-2 lead, thanks to Chris Carpenter’s seven innings of two-run ball and Matt Holliday’s go-ahead home run in the bottom of the eighth. Only, Ryan Franklin blew the save – remember those words – giving up a tying home run to Cameron Maybin after two easy outs. Something called a Bryan Augenstein, who’d pitch 5.2 total innings for the Cardinals in 2011, would allow Maybin to hit the go-ahead single in the eleventh, and the Cardinals lost, 5-3.

Honestly, it only got weirder the next day. Before the second game of the season, the Cardinals announced that Holliday, who had the home run and two other hits in the season opener, needed appendicitis. He was going to be out weeks, if not months. The Cards’ offense was now an oh-so-very-distracted Pujols (oh for five! Three double plays!), Colby Rasmus and his weird dad, the dessicated remains of Lance Berkman, Yadier Molina who can hit for a catcher, and then – oh dear lord. They’d added Ryan Theriot and Nick Punto in the offseason. Were they supposed to depend on them? In the actual game, the Cardinals blew a 2-0 and 3-2 lead en route to an 11-3 drubbing by the Padres. The Padres! It was only the second game, but people were understandably a little worried.

(Also, can we talk about Matt Holliday? He’s hit .319/.396/.553 with solid defense since 2006 began and proved he wasn’t just a product of Coors with his excellent performance in St. Louis. He’s a really, really good player. But at this point – though remember, LEGENDS ARE BORN IN OCTOBER – his career will be known for a. not touching home plate; b. having a ball bounce off his man-parts to doom the Cards in 2009; c. a moth flying into his ear.)

The Cardinals won their first game of the year in the third game, behind Jaime Garcia’s complete game shutout of the Padres. I could throw a complete game shutout against the Padres, and the Cardinals only scored two runs, so I doubt their fans were cheering, even if a win is a win.

Things didn’t improve much by game #8. The Cardinals were just beginning a long West Coast trip, and had lost the first two games to the Giants. In the first game, they’d rallied off Brian Wilson to take a 4-3 lead, only to watch Ryan Franklin blow the save, and they lost in extras; in the first game, they’d had a 2-1 lead going into the bottom of the ninth, only to lose because Ryan Franklin blew the save. (I told you to remember those words.) These were the Giants! Defending champions! They had walkoff magic! The Cardinals, well, they had none of that. They were 2-6, and had scored 3, 3, 2, 3, 3, 1, 4, and 3 runs in their first eight games. Their bullpen was looking scary. Pujols didn’t look right, and who knew how long Matt Holliday would be out for? It didn’t look great.

They turned it around. Turns out, Holliday, who was supposed to be out for months, came back… April 10. Not even ten days after he had the appendectomy. The rapid injury recovery would happen again, later on in the season, when Pujols seriously hurt his wrist in a game against the Royals on June 19; he’d return July 6, a freaky-quick turnaround, and OPS over .950 for the rest of the season.

Their offense woke up. In the next few games, they’d score 6, 8, 8, 15, 9, 11, and 9 runs, winning all but one of them, beating up on pitchers like Ian Kennedy and Clayton Kershaw. Take a look at who the winning and losing pitchers were in these two games and laugh.

Of course, all good things must come to an end. And that did in a spectacular pitchers’ duel between Chris Carpenter and Chad Billingsley against the Dodgers. After Billingsley threw eight scoreless innings with eleven strikeouts in a 0-0 game, Dodger closer Jonathan Broxton – you may have heard he had issues of his own – gave up the go-ahead run to the Cardinals. Trever Miller gave up a leadoff double in the bottom of the ninth, and LaRussa, not wanting to mess around, brought in Ryan Franklin to attempt to put out the fire. Of course, 2011 Matt Kemp vs. 2011 Ryan Franklin is about the most unfair thing ever – for the latter. Franklin’s fifth pitch went into the stands.

Not surprisingly, Franklin lost his closer role after that, demoted right to mostly mop-up duty. On June 28, after an awful outing against the Orioles, the team finally had enough; he was released. Franklin’s awfulness with the Cardinals – I’m talking his whole Cardinal career here – will be overstated. He was never a reliever where he came in and you figured “this game is over” Mariano Rivera-style, and his strikeout rates were pretty low, but he normally got the job done. Still, he was absolutely terrible in 2011, and fair or not that’s going to be most people’s memory of him. That, and the horrendous beard, for which he deserves all the crap he gets quite frankly.

Franklin wasn’t the only pitcher having issues early on. Carpenter was mediocre at best. He got the loss on a night his team scored eight runs against Arizona. He gave up seven runs to Cincinnati. After giving up five runs to the Royals on June 17, right after another five-run outing against Milwaukee, he was 1-7 with a 4.47 ERA. Still, the Cardinals were battling for first place, somehow.

The Cardinals were 57-51 at the trade deadline. That’s not great, but hey, NL Central. They were 2.5 games behind the Brewers, who were about to run away with it, in their division, but only 2.5 games ahead of the Pirates; Pittsburgh had already started their second half complete collapse that had only just pulled them out of first place (!!!!!!!), though they didn’t know it at the time. So they had room to improve, and any improvement would’ve likely helped them in a playoff hunt.

The Cards’ activities at the trade deadline could be best described as ummmm. First, they traded for Rafael Furcal from the Dodgers. Furcal was a good shortstop in his prime, with some great years sprinkled in, but he wasn’t an elite bat and he’s one of those players you couldn’t breathe on funny, out of fear of them breaking into itty bitty pieces. In only 37 games with the Dodgers in 2011, Furcal had hit .197/.272/.248. If you’re gonna hit like that, you’d better catch every ball in play no matter where it’s hit. (He did not do that.)

Still, it wasn’t a seriously questionable move. The Cards needed some middle infield help, and they got someone who was available, if far from ideal. Fine. It was their other big move that truly raised eyebrows.

Colby Rasmus was a first-round pick who had been in Baseball America’s top five overall prospects twice. Him and his family had odd issues with LaRussa and his playing time, but in 2010, he’d hit .276/.361/.498 as a 23-year-old. Even in a down year for him in 2011, Rasmus was hitting .246/.332/.420. Maybe Rasmus was a real butthole. Maybe he was an innocent angel, beloved by all his teammates, and it was all LaRussa. It doesn’t matter. Unless Rasmus is trying to skin Pujols alive in the clubhouse, you’re probably gonna keep a cost-controlled center fielder who can produce like that around.

The Cardinals, well, they didn’t. In a deal with the Blue Jays, who were already known for more or less robbing undervalued assets from other teams, they traded Rasmus (and a few bullpen pieces) for Edwin Jackson, Octavio Dotel, Mark Rzepczynski, and Corey Patterson. Now, Edwin Jackson’s a pretty good pitcher. Wildly inconsistent, but you could do worse. Still, he was going to be a free agent at the end of the year, and for that, some non-elite relievers, and Corey freaking Patterson, the Cardinals traded a very good young player.

Jackson’s first start for the Cardinals was great, seven innings of one-run ball against their rival Cubs. But his second start was an absolute disaster – he went seven innings, again, due to a tired bullpen, but gave up ten runs to Milwaukee, including three home runs to Casey McGehee, who had an awful year. In the midst of serious second-guessing – to put it nicely – about trading Rasmus, it wasn’t a very good, um, second impression.

It’s funny how these things work out, though. Overall, Jackson was quite good for the Cardinals, putting up a 3.58 ERA (only good for a 102 ERA+ – thanks, horrible run environment!!) with strong peripherals. Rzepczynski and especially Dotel were huge pieces out of the bullpen. Corey Patterson was bad even for him, but this had to hurt less when Colby Rasmus put up an outright awful line in Toronto. I still don’t think this trade was very smart, but it will “only” hurt them in the future. It helped them in 2011. I didn’t think even that would happen. Furcal turned out to be above average with the Cardinals, as well.

Really didn’t look good at first, though. Milwaukee took off in August, leaving St. Louis as many as ten and a half games out. Sure, the Wild Card exists, but the Atlanta Braves had a firm grip over that.

On Wednesday, August 24, the Cardinals reached probably the low point. With a 9-4 loss to the Dodgers at home, completing an ugly sweep full of blown saves and weird managerial decisions and blowouts (Skip Schumaker pitching!), St. Louis fell to 67-63. Not awful, just thoroughly mediocre, ten full games behind the Brewers. The Cards had spent a week-plus going just 2-7 against the (bad) Pirates, Cubs, and Dodgers; they had a series against Milwaukee at Miller Park looming on the 30th. They were behind not only Atlanta by many games in the Wild Card, but the Giants too. You could excuse Cardinals fans for not thinking they were going much of anywhere.

Funny how quickly things turn in baseball. The Milwaukee series went pretty darn spectacularly for the Cardinals. After St. Louise won a tight game to begin the series, Edwin Jackson coming back with a vengeance after his first awful start against the Brewers, they won the next two by hitting Randy Wolf and Yovani Gallardo hard. They’d swept the Brewers, at Miller Park where they had a ridiculous record. This series meant likely very little to the Brewers, who were still over seven games up with less than a month to go despite getting swept, but it meant a ton to St. Louis.

The Cardinals could’ve just given up. That’s what they did in 2010, losing to mediocre and flat-out bad teams down the stretch. The Reds won that division, but the Cardinals handed it to them a little bit, too. This Cardinals team wasn’t gonna do that. In September, they beat just about everyone, while Atlanta crumpled. Early in the month, in fact, they swept the Braves in St. Louis, including a blown save by the previously almost untouchable Craig Kimbrel to win one of the games.

Even late in the month, the Cards slid a little bit. They were playing the Mets, Cubs, and Astros in their last three series, three pretty bad to freaking awful teams. They won two of three against the Mets, but blew a 6-2 lead in the ninth inning in the last game, in what looked like a major blow to their postseason hopes. They lost to the Cubs the next day to give Milwaukee the division crown, and trailed 1-0 to them the day after in a tight pitchers’ duel between – Kyle Lohse and Rodrigo Lopez? Okay. Only, Cubs closer Carlos Marmol had a disastrous outing, walking in the tying run and wild-pitching home the winning run.

The Cardinals shouldn’t have had life in the playoffs. That’s not what’s supposed to happen to teams that were over ten games out with less than a month to go. But they did.

They took two of three from Chicago, and moved on to their last series in Houston. They lost the first game, on a walk-off bunt of all things – but Atlanta lost too. At this point, the Cardinals were only a game back, but they had just two games left. Time was simply running out, and losing to teams like Houston shouldn’t have been an option. So, they didn’t any more.

After spotting the Astros a 5-0 lead in the second game of the series, the Cardinals ended up winning quite comfortably, 13-6. Atlanta lost, again, to pull into a tie with one game left. On the last night of the season, the Cardinals won 8-0 rather anticlimactically, behind Chris Carpenter’s complete game shutout. Ever since bottoming out on that previously mentioned June 17 date, Carpenter had gone 10-2 with a 2.73 ERA, anchoring the rotation. All they could do was wait and watch Atlanta’s game, in extras after Kimbrel blew another save, to see whether they’d go right to the NLDS or have to play Game 163. Atlanta lost on a bloop infield single, and the Cardinals, who’d looked dead a few weeks earlier – heck, who’d looked shaky a couple of days earlier – were going to the playoffs. Their lineup had Pujols, Berkman, Holliday oh wait oops he’s out because he busted his hand, and a bunch of guys who dove into first base a lot, and their rotation was unsure and had Kyle freaking Lohse pitching Game 1, but they got there.

Still, all their playoff berth got them was a date with the Phillies, the team who’d just swept Atlanta to help St. Louis into the playoffs. Even with the skid at the end of the year, the Phillies were pretty clearly the best team in baseball. Maybe their offense wasn’t quite as good as the Cardinals’, but in the National League in this hitting-starved year, it was a fine offense, especially with their additions of Hunter Pence and a healthy Chase Utley.

And even if St. Louis had an edge in offense, well, their pitching couldn’t stand up, not even close. Mock the preseason hype all you want, but the foursome of Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, and Roy Oswalt had turned out to be more or less everything you could have asked for. Even if the Cards offense was good, well, pitching wins, and the 2010 Reds had hit just .124/.160/.213 en route to getting very quietly swept out of the NLDS the year before. They had a better offense than the 2011 Cardinals. The 2010 Phillies didn’t have Cliff Lee. Yeah, the playoffs are a crapshoot. It was still foolish to pick against Philadelphia.

Tell that to the Cardinals.

The 2010 Reds began the postseason by getting no-hit by Roy Halladay. It was a pretty appropriate foreshadowing of the whole series; they wouldn’t pose much of a threat at all. The 2011 Cardinals began the postseason by jumping out to a 3-0 lead against Halladay in the first inning, on a Lance Berkman homer. They weren’t going away so easily. They ended up losing that game, but won the next day, coming back from a 4-0 deficit against playoff god Cliff Lee. A loss in the first game in St. Louis put the Cardinals on the brink of elimination, but they’d been there more or less all September. They came back to win the next game, and hey, win or lose they’d forced Philadelphia into a must-win game. Pretty darn incredible.

In the first inning of Game 5, Rafael Furcal hit a triple and Skip Schumaker doubled him home (then, in Cardinal 2011 fashion, had to leave the game with an injury). That was the only run they’d get. That was the only run they’d need. Chris Carpenter, who’d gotten hit very hard in Game 2, threw a gorgeous complete game shutout. The Cardinals had been oddly good when he’d been mediocre, maybe due to guys like Jaime Garcia and KYLE LOHSE WHAT? stepping up, but they needed him to take the next step. The Cardinals left Philadelphia with a 1-0 win over a 100-win team; they’d beaten three of the four aces, beating up on Lee and Oswalt and flat-out outpitching Halladay in one of the games, and ended their season.

The Cardinals had a weird year. That’s the only way to describe it. Their stars weren’t what they could’ve been. Albert Pujols had a down year for him, they didn’t have Adam Wainwright at all, Chris Carpenter was inconsistent, and they traded away Colby Rasmus. Matt Holliday had a lot of injuries, some of them truly bizarre. Their closer was released mid-season. They were slow, hit into something like five thousand double plays, and didn’t steal bases, and they still had the best offense in the NL. They were 10.5 games out of a playoff spot in early September, their team was frequently horribly injured, and they made it, and they beat the best team in baseball. Lance Berkman totally resurrected his career, when he’d been Mr. Astro less than a year earlier. And I hardly even talked about Kyle Lohse, for goodness’ sake!

It’s not that the Cardinals were unexpectedly good or unexpectedly bad. They were a pretty good team, and even after the Wainwright injury, even if you didn’t think they’d make the playoffs, you probably could’ve predicted that. It’s how they were so good, and all the strange little intricacies of their year (which isn’t over yet – who knows what’s going to happen in the NLCS) that makes me brand them YCPB Team of the Year.

 

[Woy]

Lance Berkman wins NL Comeback Player of the Year.

 

[Woy]

Just read through the thread...puts the craziness of this season into hindsight really. Remember how we were counted out already after Wainwright went down? The Ryan Franklin debacles? Descalso's stretch of clutch hits? For the millionth time, it's hard to put into words how special this season has been.

Dad who never texts me just texted, "How bout those cards, berkman MVP"

My dad is the exact same way. But this post-season, he really took an interest to the Cardinals and was calling and texting me during and after the games, asking about the score or wanting to discuss the game. One of my favorite memories of this post-season was Game 5 of the NLCS, just because I went home that weekend (unplanned) and got to watch the game with him that night.

I'm writing an opinion piece on these last two months, so when I'm done with that, I'll make sure to share it with you guys.

2011 World Series champions. That'll never get old.

 

[Primetime]

This championship is so manipulated....

Between the man in the stands giving away pitches, Albert learning about steroids from Big Marky Mark, and Wainwright faking an injury to put Freese on the roster...this championship will always have an asterisk firmly placed by it's name in the books. Your organization and your fan base should all be ashamed of yourselves and embarrassed beyond all belief.


/moneyman

 

[Woy]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJFMYlKdMz8&sns=fb"]2011 World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals Season Highlight Reel (Dark Horses) - YouTube[/ame]

Incredible highlight video.

 

[SHOGUN]

Freese just got the key to the city.

 

[Woy]

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/base...cle_b1e5f19a-b553-5cfa-a950-1ba845d508ec.html

A search committee headed by Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. and general manager John Mozeliak today begins what it hopes is a 10-day process to identify the successor to departing manager Tony La Russa.

The committee today holds the first in a series of face-to-face interviews with a pool of "less than 10" candidates including former Boston Red Sox manager Terry Francona and longtime Cardinals third base coach Jose Oquendo. The Cardinals also have received permission to interview Hall of Fame Chicago Cubs second baseman and current Philadelphia Phillies minor-league manager Ryne Sandberg.

Mozeliak on Wednesday confirmed only that the interview process would formally begin today. Mozeliak declined to comment on specific candidates, including Sandberg, whose involvement represents something of a surprise to many due to his ties to the Cardinals' chief rival.

Francona, who steered the Red Sox to the 2004 and 2007 World Series championships, is the only one of six known candidates with prior major-league managerial experience.

Mozeliak plans to also interview Memphis manager Chris Maloney, minor-league instructor and former Gold Glove catcher Mike Matheny and Chicago White Sox coach Joe McEwing, according to sources familiar with the process.

Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon, the popular choice among a segment of the organization as well as a large swatch of the fan base, apparently is not in play. Multiple sources said Wednesday the Cardinals had not sought permission from the Rays to interview Maddon, who remains under contract through next season and is expected to sign an extension prior to spring training.

The Cardinals also have not sought permission to interview Maddon's respected bench coach, Dave Martinez, considered one of the game's most eligible coaches, a source said Wednesday night.

The pool's composition suggests the Cardinals are open to departing with tradition that has found Whitey Herzog, Joe Torre and La Russa in the manager's chair for virtually all of the past 31 seasons.

Emphasis will be placed on a close working relationship with Mozeliak as well as player development.

DeWitt and Mozeliak stress they are not entering the process predisposed toward any candidate or direction. Mozeliak said following La Russa's retirement announcement that he wants to 'see where the process takes us."

Mozeliak said Wednesday that there might not be a need for a second round of interviews but wouldn't rule it out. The club hopes to name its next manager before Major League Baseball convenes its annual general managers' meetings in Milwaukee on Nov. 14.

Mozeliak insisted Monday the process would not extend beyond Thanksgiving.

Sandberg became available to the Cardinals on the same day that new Cubs president Theo Epstein dismissed manager Mike Quade and said the team's next manager would have major-league managerial experience. The Phillies this spring signed manager Charlie Manuel to a two-year extension that runs through 2013.

Francona was Epstein's manager in Boston. It remains uncertain the degree of interest either holds for a reunion on Chicago's North Side.

The fact that the Cubs and Red Sox are also engaged in managerial searches may feed the Cardinals' desire for a rapid resolution.

Pitching coach Dave Duncan, who accompanied La Russa to St. Louis prior to the 1996 season, indicated earlier this week a need for a comfortable working relationship with the next manager.

Mozeliak said Tuesday that he had spoken to La Russa's staff, including Duncan. While Mozeliak has said the next manager will have significant autonomy over his coaching staff, naming a candidate with no prior major-league managerial experience would lend itself to greater continuity within the coaching staff. Duncan, the game's highest-paid coach, is signed through next season with a club option for 2013. Duncan's deal, including performance bonuses, is believed worth potentially more than $3 million.

Matheny enjoys strong ties to the organization but has no prior managerial experience. He enjoys a solid relationship with Duncan and the remaining coaching staff, as well as clubhouse pillars Chris Carpenter and Yadier Molina.

Oquendo and Matheny are scheduled to leave the state before this weekend. Oquendo and free agent first baseman Albert Pujols are on the invitation list for a three-day charity event hosted by catcher Molina in Puerto Rico. Matheny this weekend is accompanying a local youth baseball team to the Dominican Republic, where it will compete against local teams. Pujols is expected to travel from Puerto Rico to his native country during the same period.

La Russa said Wednesday that he has not offered input on his successor but said he would give it if solicited.

"They know what they're doing," he said. "I expect they'll make a sound choice."

First off, @ no interest in Maddon. Really was hoping we could snag him somehow.

I think out of the list given, Oquendo, Francona and Matheny are the most realistic selections.

 

[Woy]

Mike Matheny will be named manager tomorrow at Busch Stadium.

 

[SHOGUN]

I wanted Oquendo.

 

[Woy]

Oquendo is interested in staying on as third base coach, which is great if it happens.

I always thought Matheny would make a really good manager. Guess we'll find out.

 

[ThomasTomasz]

I love this move. It is a gutsy move, where they could have gone with Oquendo or a more proven option in Terry Francona.

However, Matheny knows how to command respect and lead a ballclub. He did that as a catcher. He knows game strategy, knows how to handle pitchers (though he will still have Dave Duncan for that.) The experience of a Francona would have helped, but only for a couple months. After that, Matheny should be fine leading this club.

 

[Woy]

Matheny's staff for 2012:

"Duncan, Lilliquist, McGwire, Oquendo return; Mike Aldrete (bench coach), Chris Maloney (1B coach)."

 

[Woy]

:smughard:

 

[Woy]

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/base...cle_9371905e-2036-11e1-a036-001a4bcf6878.html

DALLAS • Cardinals outfielder Allen Craig had surgery on his right knee shortly before Thanksgiving and the club is braced for the possibility that he won't be available for opening day, an official confirmed.

Craig, who caught the final out of the World Series, had a couple screws placed in his right kneecap to repair the damage done in the middle of last season when he crashed into a rigid fence at Houston's Minute Maid Park.

Craig returned from the injury to finish out the season as a key part of the Cardinals' rally. Craig hit .327 with five homers and 12 RBIs in September, and he added four homers in the postseason. Craig had two key pinch-hit appearances in the World Series before taking over as the starter in left field for Game 7. Craig hit three homers in the World Series.

The outfielder had surgery on the knee in Vail, Colo., at The Steadman Clinic. His recovery is pegged at four to six months.

He is not expected to be able to participate at full strength in spring training, and the predicted rehab time could put his return off until May.

Craig plays no small role in this winter as the Cardinals look to re-sign Albert Pujols. The Cardinals have positioned their roster so that if Pujols does not return Lance Berkman would move to first base and Craig would take over as the every day right fielder. With the pop he showed late in the season, the Cardinals have been eager to see what Craig could do with an everyday opportunity.

Yuck.

 

[Woy]

The left-handed McGwire will get us through this tough time.