Three Days in September

This weekend I was lucky enough to see all three games the Cardinals played against the Astros in Houston.

Remember when Mr. Burns wanted to charge the town of Springfield for power so he built a big sun blocker to keep the town in perpetual darkness? I can’t help but think that C. M. Burns was brought in as a consultant on the construction of Enron Field. Like the sun blocker, the roof at Minute Maid Park is capable of moving but only serves the purpose of keeping the sun out. The last seven games I have attended in Houston have all featured a closed roof. It seems like attaching to your stadium a cool thing like a “retractable roof” comes with a responsibility, namely, to open it every now and again. Otherwise what you’ve got is a plain old roof. The sun is nice to have during a ballgame. That’s all I’m saying.

Friday, September 2, 2005
The first game looked to be the most lopsided matchup. Mark Mulder went for the Cardinals against Ezequiel Astacio, and he was about as perfect as you can be while giving up two runs. In the second inning, two bloop hits and an error led to the two runs. In the third, Mulder issued only a walk. In the fourth through eighth, Mulder retired all eighteen batters consecutively, and the ball never left the infield. For the Cards, hits were steady, but the Astros were able to work around much of the damage. Astacio allowed eight hits in 5 1/3 innings, but he walked none, and the three runs he allowed came from opposite field home runs to Molina (solo) and Edmonds (two runs). When the eighth inning ended, the Cardinals had three runs on ten hits, and the Astros had two runs on two hits.

Enter Jason Isringhausen. The first batter he faced was Morgan Ensberg, who homered to give Houston three runs on three hits. The crazy thing about it is that I had a bad feeling before Izzy came in. Not that he’s an unreliable closer, but you wonder about removing Mulder from his masterful appearance and bringing in someone who hasn’t had a lot of work lately. But he did end the inning with two strikeouts and a ground out to send the game into extras.

In the top of the tenth, Pujols led off with a double, was bunted to third by Edmonds, and was brought home by John Rodriguez on one of the gutsiest squeeze play calls I’ve ever seen. John Rodriguez? Sometimes I think La Russa does these things just to entertain himself.

In the bottom of the inning, Ausmus went yard on Isringhausen. Blown save number two, essentially.

The Cards were retired in order in the eleventh and twelfth. And they handed the ball to Cal Eldred for the bottom halves of those innings, which made me rest easy. I’ve always liked Eldred. I think part of it is his story, as profiled in Three Nights in August. Part of it is seeing him at spring training last year. I was standing about five feet from him, on the other side of a chain link fence, watching him endure a few autograph hounds. One guy was carting around a big box, in which he had multiple 8 x 10 photographs of each player. He set down his box right by Eldred, fished around for a while, and dug out a picture of Eldred wearing a Chicago White Sox uniform. He rolled it up and passed it through the fence, and when he got it back it begrudgingly bore the signature of one of the newest Cardinals. Spring training taught me what an absolute beating autograph signing is, and I’ve always respected guys who do a lot of it. (Kudos to David Eckstein for going above and beyond the call of duty during this series--joking with fans during throwing drills and signing after doing some stretching.) Also, I think Eldred’s a very consistent reliever. And he got the job done, working around a leadoff double in the 11th and, after giving up a single in the 12th, benefiting from Pujols’s read-the-bunt-play-perfectly-and-sprint-and-slide-toward-the-ball-and-field-and-make-a-perfect-throw-to-get-the-lead-runner greatness.

Edmonds led off the 13th with a home run. In the bottom, Ensberg led off with a single off Tavarez but was forced out at second on a very bad call on a sacrifice bunt play. Lane singled, and Tavarez intentionally walked Vizcaino to load the bases for Orlando Palmeiro. La Russa brought in King, who plunked in the tying run and was immediately taken out. Reyes then got Ausmus to pop out but allowed the winning run to score on a Bruntlett single to left. It was a very strange half inning that capped off probably the greatest game I’ve ever seen.

Saturday, September 3, 2005
Today was one of those days that made me think back a ways. In 1985, a guy named John Tudor joined the St. Louis Cardinals. After a 1-7 start, he finished the year 21-8, finishing the year almost unhittable. In most seasons, almost unhittable will get you a Cy Young award, but unfortunately for Tudor a kid named Dwight Gooden was genuinely unhittable that year. Tudor’s ERA was a sublime 1.93; Gooden’s was an unreal 1.53.

What John Tudor was unable to do in 1985, Carpenter might be able to do in 2005. No Cards pitcher has won a Cy Young since Bob Gibson, but Carp’s the real deal. I was there for his brilliant 2-0 victory over Andy Petitte back in June. Before today's game I did a little research and discovered that the Astros had scored one run off him in 24 innings this year. I had a chance to see Chris Carpenter win his 20th game and take a big lead in the Cy Young race, but he would have to get past his old mentor Roger Clemens.

The Cardinals used to have incredible trouble with Roger Clemens, until game 7 of the 2004 NLCS. Since then they have wins in 3 of 4 games against him, and in the one they lost they scored four runs on him.

Carpenter worked around trouble in the first and second, getting two guys out between third and home and allowing just one run to score despite allowing four straight hits (and three straight doubles) across the two innings. The Cardinals took a 2-1 lead in an inning in which only Pujols’s lead off single left the infield. A walk, an error, and a swinging bunt single created the rest of the damage.

Clemens left after five because of a hamstring injury. Berkman’s sixth inning homer took him off the hook for the loss, but Cardinal runs in the 7th and 8th gave Carpenter all he would need. He went the distance, retiring the final 11. Hugs all around as Carpenter set himself further apart from the rest of the field. He is now 3-0 against Clemens and Dontrelle Willis.

Sunday, September 04, 2005
The usually hittable Wandy Rodriguez faced the minimum number of batters through five innings, thanks to a couple nifty snags of hard hit balls by Willy Tavares. Meanwhile, the resurgent Jason Marquis gave up a homer to Lance Berkman in the fourth.

In the top of the sixth, Rodriguez walked the Nunez, leading off the inning from the 7 spot, and hit Luna with a pitch. The baserunners were advanced by a Marquis bunt and brought in by an Edmonds single.

After the Berkman homer, Marquis was nearly perfect. He gave up one hit over the last 5 1/3 and retired the last seven. In the perfect fifth and sixth, he retired two by strikeout and had four balls tapped back to him. He threw six pitches in the eighth and, oh yeah, went the distance in a 4-1 win.

Here’s my stat of the series: 26 to 16 1/3. Over the three games, Cardinals starters averaged three more innings than Astros starters. Rodriguez was the workhorse of the Astros staff with six innings pitched; Mulder, who threw eight but easily could have gone nine, was the laggard of the Cards staff.