1:13 AM Eastern

It’s the greatest comeback story in the history of Major League Baseball, and maybe even in all sports.

The St. Louis Cardinals are World Series Champions, having had to overcome seemingly insurmountable challenge after seemingly insurmountable challenge in order to secure their victory.

First, they found themselves 10 1/2 games out of a playoff spot on August 25th with 31 games to play.  No team had ever come back from that big a deficit that late and made the playoffs, but the Cardinals went 22-9 the rest of the way as the Atlanta Braves melted down, and clinched the wild card with an 8-0 win over the Astros on the final day of the season, as the Braves lost in extras to the Phillies.

Their reward was a first-round date with those Philadelphia Phillies, who led the majors with 102 wins.  St. Louis trailed the best-of-five two games to one, but rallied to tie it up behind David Freese’s four-RBI Game Four. Still, they had to face Roy Halladay in the deciding game.  As we all know by now, Chris Carpenter outdueled Halladay in a classic 1-0 game, going the route on a three-hitter and moving the Cardinals into the NLCS, where they had to face the second-best team in the National League – the 96-win Milwaukee Brewers.

The Cards did lose the opener of the NLCS, but never trailed in the series again in what was their most-easily overcome challenge of the post-season.  They clinched it on the road, as they did in the first round, but this time with an anti-climactic 12-6 pounding in which Freese hit a huge first-inning three-run shot as part of a three-hit night on the way to being named the series’ Most Valuable Player.

Then the World Series happened, and after the Cardinals scored 16 runs in an historic Game Three to take a two games to one lead, they managed to plate a total of just two runs combined over the next two games, losing both, and came home facing elimination.

As much as we all know about the Carpenter/Halladay game, we all know even more what happened in Game Six in Texas, with the Rangers’ bullpen blowing a save three different times as the Cards rallied with two in each of the 9th and 10th – both times down to their final strike – before winning it on Freese’s homer leading off the 11th.

After that show, Game Seven (the first in the World Series in nine years) was bound to be anti-climactic, but it didn’t look that way early on.

Carpenter got the start on three days’ rest, thanks to a Wednesday night rainout that extended the series a day, and didn’t retire any of the first four  batters he faced.  Yadier Molina picked Ian Kinsler off first, so back-to-back doubles by Josh Hamilton and Michael Young only resulted in a pair of Texas runs, but then the former Blue Jay steeled himself, settled down, and allowed only two more hits through the end of the 6th inning.

The Cardinals tied it up right away, and once again it was Freese.  After Matt Harrison issued back-to-back two-out walks to Albert Pujols and Lance Berkman, Freese ripped a two-strike double into the gap in left-centre to score them both and tie the game.

Allen Craig homered with one out in the third to give St. Louis the lead, and Texas never scored again, as Arthur Rhodes, Octavio Dotel, Lance Lynn and Jason Motte combined to throw three innings of perfect relief behind Carpenter, who finished the post-season 4-0.

Freese wound up hitting .391/.500/.696 in the World Series with one rather huge home run and seven RBIs – five of which tied the game or put his team out in front – and was named World Series MVP.  He grew up in St. Louis.

While the game didn’t live up to its predecessor, it also wasn’t the 11-0 KC win in Game Seven of the 1985 World Series after the Royals had walked it off the night before.

It was a very nice ending to what has been an incredible post-season.  Out of a possible 51 playoff games, 48 were played, and we also got four playoff-type bonus games on the last day of the regular season (NYY/TB, BOS/BAL, PHI/ATL, STL/HOU).  A pretty phenomenal way to end baseball for the year.

It wasn’t a pretty World Series, by any means, and both Ron Washington and Tony LaRussa seemed to manage it specifically for the benefit of second-guessers, but it was close, tense, exciting and fun, and you can’t ask for much more than that.

Also, we saw – without question – the most unlikely World Series Champion ever crowned.  It couldn’t happen to a better baseball city.  The St. Louis Cardinals are now tied with the Boston Red Sox (who beat them in 2004) for the most World Series Titles in the 21st Century.  They each have two.  The Diamondbacks, Angels, Marlins, White Sox, Phillies, Yankees and Giants have one each.

It’s always a little sad when a baseball season ends.  I’ll spend the next few months staring out the window and waiting for spring.  The Blue Jays, who I believe will have a busy off-season (mostly on the trade market), open up the 2012 season on Thursday, April 5th in Cleveland.

I’ll be here, and on Twitter (@Wilnerness590), to fill you in on all the news the Jays make in the off-season, to talk about the post-season BBWAA awards which will start to be handed out shortly, to do a few mailbags here and there and various and sundry other things.  Keep your eyes on this space, I won’t be going into hibernation.

Our final Blue Jay A Day Pre-Game Show featured a pair of contributors.  First, here’s Jesse Litsch, for your listening pleasure:

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After Jesse, Alex Anthopoulos took over, and we had a lovely chat.  Here it is:

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That’ll do it for this season.  Thanks so much for being a part of this with me over the past year.  It’s been an absolute blast, and great to have you all along for the ride!  I can’t wait until the spring, and I hope I never have to actually work for a living.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

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2:13 AM Eastern

What started out as one of the messiest, ugliest potentially year-ending World Series games ever wound up an instant classic – one of the greatest post-season games ever played, and maybe the greatest.

Sure there was Bill Mazeroski’s walk-off homer in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, and we all remember Joe Carter’s series-winning shot in Game 6 in ’93 – still the only home run ever hit to win a World Series that brought a team back from behind.  There was great drama in Game 1 of the ’88 Series, with Kirk Gibson going deep off Dennis Eckersley on one leg.

But in none of those games was the team that walked it off a strike away from elimination even once, never mind twice as the Cardinals were in this one.  Even in Game 6 of the ’86 Series, the Bill Buckner game, the Mets and Red Sox were tied going into the 9th, so New York only came back from the brink once.

The first six innings of this game were exceedingly ugly, with the two teams combining for five errors, nine walks, a go-ahead run picked off at third base and a 5-6-4 double play, among other things.  It was as though the Rangers were doing their best to extend things to a seventh and deciding game, but the Cardinals wouldn’t hear of it.

The game was tied at four going to the 7th, with Texas outhitting St. Louis 8-3 at that point, and then things got serious.

When Adrian Beltre and Nelson Cruz led off the 7th with solo homers off Lance Lynn (who we’re reasonably sure Tony LaRussa meant to bring into the game), I figured it was just the game regressing to the mean.  Texas had been the much better team over the first six innings and the Cards had no business being on even ground with them.  The Rangers added what seemed to be a killer third run in the frame when Yadier Molina ole’d a Lynn pitch in the dirt, moving a runner into scoring position and setting up Ian Kinsler’s RBI single.

Allen Craig – who was in the game only because Matt Holliday re-injured his right hand getting picked off third base in the 6th – homered with one out in the 8th to get the home side back within two and with two out, the Cardinals strung together three straight singles to load the bases for Rafael Furcal, who grounded out on the first pitch he saw to end the threat.

It was still 7-5 Rangers going to the bottom of the 9th when, with one out, Albert Pujols doubled to left-centre.  Lance Berkman was next, and Neftali Feliz walked him on four pitches before striking out Craig looking with an absolutely outstanding 2-2 slider.  The season came down to NLCS MVP and St. Louis native David Freese.

With the count 1-1, Feliz threw a 98 mile-an-hour fastball that Freese swung through, and the Rangers were a strike away from their first-ever World Series win.  Feliz went back to the well and came with another 98 mile-an-hour heater, but Freese was on this one.  A line shot over a leaping Nelson Cruz and off the right-field wall wound up a game-tying two-run triple, picking the Cards up off the mat.  Yadier Molina flied out, and off we went to extra innings.

Cards’ closer Jason Motte came back out for a second inning of work and gave up a two-run homer to Josh Hamilton.  It was last year’s MVP’s first home run of the post-season, first in more than 100 at-bats.  He’s been dealing with an injured groin for over a month, but came up with the biggest swing of his career, giving the Rangers another two-run lead.

Rangers’ skipper Ron Washington didn’t bring Feliz back out for the 10th, giving the ball to 41 year-0ld lefty Darren Oliver, who gave up back-to-back singles to Daniel Descalso and Jon Jay, and immediately the Cardinals had the tying runs on  base with nobody out.  Good thing, because the Cards’ bench was empty and the pitcher was due up in a perfect bunting situation.  Tony LaRussa went with his best bunting starter, Kyle Lohse, to pinch-hit.

Lohse, sensing the drama, came within about a foot of bunting into a triple play.

He popped up his bunt, and it just got by a hard-charging Adrian Beltre at third.  Elvis Andrus was backing up, and got the out at first, then Scott Feldman took over for Oliver and got Ryan Theriot to ground out to third as Descalso scored to cut the Rangers’ lead to one run.

Albert Pujols was up next, and was intentionally walked even though that meant putting the winning run on base, and it was left up to Lance Berkman.

Berkman came into that at-bat hitting .409 in this World Series, having gone 2-for-4 with a home run, a walk and four runs scored so far in Game 6.  The Rangers went to their no-doubles defense, pushing the outfielders back to cut off a potential game-winning extra-base hit.

Like Feliz the inning before, Feldman got ahead in the count 1-2, leaving the Cardinals down to their last strike of the season for the second time in as many innings.  Berkman took a ball to even the count, then hit a little soft liner to centre for a single that tied the game and sent Busch Stadium into even more of a frenzy.  The ball would have fallen in anyway, even if the Rangers had been playing a traditional defense.

Craig came up with the chance to win it, but grounded to third and we went to the 11th.

Jake Westbrook came out of the bullpen to throw a drama-free top of the 11th, allowing only a one-out bloop single to Mike Napoli, then Freese came up in the bottom of the 11th and played hero.

With Mark Lowe on the mound, Freese hit a 3-2 change-up way, way up onto the berm in centre field for the biggest home run he’s ever hit in his life.  The local kid, born in Texas but raised in St. Louis, the guy who had a pop-up bounce off his glove and then off the top of his head in the top of the 5th inning, tied the game with a two-run triple in the bottom of the 9th and won it with a walk-off solo shot leading off the 11th.

Never before has a team scored in each of the 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th innings of a World Series game.

Down to their last strike on two separate occasions, the St. Louis Cardinals yet live, and we will have a World Series Game 7 for the first time since the Angels and Giants went at it in 2002.

Josh Hamilton, by the way, becomes only the second player ever to hit an extra-inning home run in the World Series that didn’t wind up winning the game.  The other was Dave Henderson, who homered in the 10th inning of the aforementioned Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.  You might remember that as the Bill Buckner game.

Matt Harrison will start for the Rangers, and though the Cardinals didn’t announce anything, you have to expect that Chris Carpenter will start for them on three days’ rest.

Mike Napoli’s ankle blew up as he slid into second base in the 4th inning, but he sucked it up and played the rest of the game.  There’s no question that it’ll blow up like a balloon overnight and he’ll be hard-pressed to play in Friday night.  I expect him to gut it out, but have a had time believing he’ll be able to catch. Cruz left in the 11th with a groin injury and Holliday came out with the finger, but it’s Game 7.  Even though it’ll be the last baseball game of the year, I can’t wait.

Our final Blue Jay A Day Pre-Game guest, prior to Game 7, will be Pat Hentgen – so make sure you tune in and call in!  Our guest before Game 6 was Brandon Morrow, who did a great job – here’s the audio of his appearance, for your listening pleasure:

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There really doesn’t seem to be a way that Game 7 can top Game 6 – and I’m sort of fearful of a repeat of 1985, when the Royals walked off Game 6 then won Game 7 in a horribly anti-climactic 11-0 rout – but I’ll be right here watching and listening to every second of it, and I hope you will, too.

It’ll be our last chance to enjoy the greatest game ever created by anyone in the history of anything for a little over four months.

Please follow me on the Twitter – we had a blast tonight!  You can find me @wilnerness590.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

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1:09 AM Eastern

It’s the World Series, which is supposed to showcase the best of the best.  The best teams, the best pitchers, the best hitters, the best managers.  Game Five was close, tense and exciting, no question.  It also might have been one of the most poorly-managed games there’s ever been.

It was as though neither team wanted to win.  Outs were freely given, bases were readily awarded, pitching match-ups were thoroughly ignored.  It was awful.

The teams set a major-league record by combining to issue six intentional walks, there were a pair of sacrifice bunts and two unsuccessful stolen base attempts.

The bunts were by the top two hitters in the St. Louis line-up, one of them in front of Albert Pujols, taking the bat right out of his hands.

Both caught stealings were by the same guy, Allen Craig, and both happened with Pujols at the plate, too.  The first one, in a tie game in the top of the 7th inning, is unforgivable.  Even if successful, all it does is lead to an intentional walk of Pujols.  After the game, Pujols said he put the hit-and-run on, though other players said it came from the bench.  It defies explanation that Pujols put the play on – because he didn’t swing!

The second caught stealing was even worse, though.  In the 9th inning, down two, there is absolutely nothing to be gained by picking up 90 feet, Craig’s run means nothing.  And with the runner going, Pujols expanded his strike zone and swung at ball four three times.  He fouled off the first two, then missed the third one – which was about two feet outside – and Craig was meatcake.

The ugliest of all the ugliness was how managerial genius Tony LaRussa committed the bottom of the eighth inning.  With the score tied at two, LaRussa went to Octavio Dotel with three Texas righties coming up, but Dotel gave up a leadoff double to Michael Young.  He rebounded to strike out Adrian Beltre, but then we saw the first eyebrow-raising move of the frame.  LaRussa ordered Dotel to intentionally walk Nelson Cruz.  We all know that Dotel eats right-handed hitters alive, and Cruz has been awful against righties this season (.243/.289/.459) – seems like a heck of a spot for Dotel to take advantage. Instead, Cruz is put on, bringing up left-handed hitter David Murphy, with Mike Napoli on deck.

You’d think you’d want Dotel, your best righty-on-righty guy other than your closer, to pitch to Napoli.  At the very least, you don’t want Napoli facing a lefty, almost no matter how good that lefty is (I’ll make an exception for Sandy Koufax.  Maybe Randy Johnson, too).

But the walk to Cruz brought Murphy up with men on first and second and one out, so out went Dotel and in came Marc Rzepczynski, who got the double-play grounder but had it kick off his glove for an infield single, loading the bases for Napoli.

Too bad they couldn’t bring Dotel back in.

Also too bad that closer Jason Motte hadn’t gotten up and started warming when Zep did, for just this circumstance. Instead, Rzepczynski stayed in to give up the eventual game-winning two-run double to Napoli.

After the game, LaRussa said that he had asked for Zep and Motte to start warming together, and the bullpen didn’t hear the Motte part.  He called again for Motte – I’m assuming when Napoli came to the plate – and that time they heard “Lynn” (which, to be fair, sounds a whole lot like “Motte”.  Or something). So they started warming a guy who wasn’t even supposed to pitch in this game at all, having thrown 2 1/3 innings in Game Three Saturday night.

As they say, there are so many holes in this story that you could drive a Mack truck through it.

First off, anyone who has worked with Tony LaRussa for ten minutes – let alone all year, as bullpen coach Derek Lilliquist has – knows that LaRussa would NEVER go into the eighth inning of a tie game with only one reliever warming up.  So if he heard “Rzepczynski”, don’t you think Lilliquist would have said “Just Zep?” or something like that.

Then, later in the inning, when the call came down and Lilliquist thought he heard “Lynn”, wouldn’t he have said something along the lines of “Lynn?  I thought he was a no-go tonight.”

The explanation LaRussa gave makes less than no sense at all and frankly, it’s pretty disappointing.  Even if he thinks someone else screwed up, he’s the manager and is supposed to be the guy who takes responsibility.

The line of the night goes to Dotel himself who, upon seeing Lynn come in only to issue an intentional walk, buying time for Motte to get ready, and then leave the game, rolled his eyes and said to no one in particular “What the f*** is he doing?”

Texas Rangers, the ball is now firmly in your court.  Let’s see if Ron Washington can top this on Wednesday night.

The Blue Jay A Day Pre-Game show continues to be an unqualified success, with Brett Lawrie having been the latest guest.  He was fantastic tonight – here’s his appearance, for your listening pleasure:

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Before Wednesday night’s Game 6, Adam Loewen will be on to take your calls starting at 7:00 PM Eastern!

Please give me a follow on the Twitter, you can find me @wilnerness590.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

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1:12 AM Eastern

Derek Holland got lit up good during the ALCS – knocked out of his first start in the third inning, and failing to make it through five in his second, so he was well-rested when he took the ball for Game Four of the World Series, and it showed.

Holland was phenomenal, quieting the Cardinals’ bats a night after they’d exploded for 16 runs, pitching the Rangers to a win and knotting up the Fall Classic at two games each.

It was reminiscent of the game Curt Schilling threw at the Blue Jays in Game Five of the 1993 World Series – that one a complete-game, five-hit shutout after the Jays had scored 15 runs in the epic Game Four the night before.

Except that Schilling gave up hits to four different players and threw 147 pitches.  Holland got two fewer outs, threw 29 fewer pitches and only gave up a hit to one guy, Lance Berkman.

The man known as Fat Elvis, a much weaker hitter right-handed than left, ripped a double to the gap in right-centre in the 2nd and lined a single up the middle in the 5th.  Those were the only hits the Cardinals would get, and Holland allowed only ONE other ball to be hit out of the infield.

It was an incredible performance, and Mike Napoli provided the breathing room.  The Rangers’ best hitter this season, Napoli found himself hitting EIGHTH, but greeted reliever Mitchell Boggs by destroying his first pitch – a neck-high fastball – for a three-run homer to make the score 4-0.  Boggs took over for ex-Jay Edwin Jackson, who hit the showers with one out in the 6th after issuing his sixth and seventh walks of the night.

So for the first time in eight years, the World Series is locked up at two wins each.  It’s now a best-of-three, with one game left in Texas.  Chris Carpenter will start that one for the Cardinals, C.J. Wilson for the Rangers – they met up in the opener, with Carpenter winning a 3-2 squeaker that saw both bullpens combine to throw 5 1/3 innings of three-hit shutout behind the starters.

We’ll have all the action for you along the Fan Radio Network, beginning with the Blue Jay A Day Pre-Game Show, which will feature super-rookie Brett Lawrie.  He’ll be taking your calls, starting at 7:00 PM Eastern, so make sure you tune in and call in!  Before Game Four, our Blue Jay guest was Adam Lind – here’s his appearance, for your listening pleasure:

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The big news in Blue Jay land is reaction to a speculative, vague “report” in the Boston Globe that the Red Sox had John Farrell at the top of their list to take over as manager when Terry Francona left earlier this month, that they had “internal discussions” about approaching Farrell and that, at this point, they may or may not still be interested in making an overture towards him.  Probably.

Over the course of a few hours, thanks to the Twitter- and blogospheres, that story became “John Farrell is leaving the Blue Jays to take over as manager of the Red Sox.”

That’s not the case, obviously, but what is the case is that if the Red Sox were interested in Farrell, and Farrell wanted to leave the Jays to go back to Boston, the Blue Jays would not stand in his way.  The Jays would give the Sox permission to talk to Farrell, and wouldn’t demand any compensation if Farrell left.  Everything else is pure speculation.

I don’t think that Farrell would leave the Jays to manage the Red Sox, despite his history with the team.  I don’t know Farrell well, by any means, but he seems like someone who would honour his commitment and be loyal to the Jays for showing enough faith in him to give him his first manager’s job at any level.

I do know that Farrell and Francona are very close friends, and I would think that the way Francona was figuratively tarred and feathered on the way out of town by the higher-ups in the Red Sox organization probably made an impression on Farrell.  It doesn’t seem like a very desirable place to work right now.

Farrell would be a good fit for Boston.  He knows the situation well and I think he’d be able to clean up a lot of the crap that went on in that clubhouse over the final month of the season.  But Francona and Theo Epstein are gone, Jonathan Papelbon and David Ortiz are probably leaving as free agents, it’s not the same group anymore.  I think he’d choose to stay with the Jays – if the Red Sox are even interested in offering him the job – but that’s just my opinion.

If Farrell chooses to leave, then Francona would be a very nice fit to take over the Blue Jays.  As would Brian Butterfield, Torey Lovullo (though I assume he’d leave with Farrell) or Sal Fasano.

I do think it’s a mistake, though, for the Jays to allow Farrell – or any member of the staff – to make a lateral move to another team while under contract without demanding compensation.  I know that Alex Anthopoulos sees it as treating his people properly and in so doing, making the Jays an attractive place for top talent to come and work, but Farrell and others like him are also assets that can bring back something nice and tasty if someone wants to poach them.

John Farrell is a smart guy, and he seems to be well-liked by his players and his employers.  He certainly has the makings of a very good big-league manager, but he’s still in the infancy of his career.  He’s not an irreplaceable asset by any means, so there should be neither weeping nor rending of garments should he choose to leave for the Red Sox.  I’ll wish him luck and know that if his heart wasn’t in it here, everyone is better off with him not being here.  But I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen.

Please give me a follow on The Twitter – you can find me @wilnerness590.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

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1:00 AM Eastern

The last 11 times the World Series has been tied at one game each, the team that has won Game Three went on to win the series ten times.

The St. Louis Cardinals won Game Three rather emphatically and have guaranteed that, at the very least, they’ll get the series back to Missouri – that is, if they don’t win it in Texas.

I could write about Ron Kulpa blowing a call at first base that opened the floodgates to a four-run inning, about Kyle Lohse almost giving a five-run lead right back almost the minute he got it, about Alexi Ogando’s continuing World Series implosion (ERA of 27.00, WHIP of 7.00), or even about the fact that the Cards and Rangers defied odds of almost three million to one by scoring at least three runs in five consecutive half-innings, but this game was all about Albert Pujols.

Pujols, who sparked a ton of debate over the last couple of days by ducking out on the post-game media after kicking a cut-off play in the 9th inning of Game Two that may have cost the Cardinals the game (I think he should have talked, by the way), had the best game any hitter has ever had in the history of the World Series.

Pujols grounded out to third in the first inning, making him 0-for-7 to start the Fall Classic, and then he didn’t get out again.

He hit a line single to left to lead off the fourth, then did the same thing leading off the fifth.  In the sixth, he hit a mammoth three-run homer to left off Ogando that was hilariously measured by the Rangers at 423 feet (maybe when it left the atmosphere), and in the seventh, Pujols drilled a two-run shot off Michael Gonzalez.

That outburst made him the first player in World Series history to get a hit in four straight innings, but that was just the tip of the iceberg.

In his next at-bat, Pujols tied three World Series records and set another one with one swing.

He came to the plate with two out in the ninth, facing Darren Oliver , and hit a 2-2 pitch out to left for his third home run of the night.

Only Babe Ruth (he did it twice) and Reggie Jackson had ever hit three home runs in a World Series game.

Only Paul Molitor had ever had a five-hit game in the World Series.

Only Bobby Richardson and Hideki Matsui had ever driven in six runs in a World Series game.

No one had ever had more than 12 total bases in a World Series game (Pujols had 14).

Albert Pujols, welcome to the pantheon – not that you weren’t already there.

Before the game, we had two Blue Jay A Day Pre-Game guests!  Here’s the audio from Shawn Camp(ylobacter), for your listening pleasure:

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Following Camp was Mark Teahen (Wolf – why haven’t these nicknames caught on????), and here’s that audio for you:

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The series continues Sunday night with a battle of fourth starters.  The Rangers need a win kind of badly, and they’re sending Derek Holland to the hill.  The young lefty, who led the majors with four shutouts this season, was awful in the ALCS, making two starts, posting an ERA of 8.59,  a 2.045 WHIP and throwing only 7 1/3 innings.  Edwin Jackson, a Blue Jay for about 20 minutes back in July, answers for the Cardinals.

We’ll be on the air for you along the Blue Jays Radio Network at 7:00 PM Eastern for an 8:05 first pitch.  I’m not yet sure who the Blue Jay A Day guest will be, but keep your eye on my Twitter feed (@Wilnerness590) and you’ll know as soon as I do.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

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12:02 AM Eastern

The Texas Rangers got up off the mat and scored a pair of runs in the ninth inning to beat the Cardinals 2-1 and turn this World Series into a best-of-5, the next three games of which will be played in the Lone Star State.

The Rangers became the first team to win a World Series game after trailing going into the 9th inning since the Arizona Diamondbacks came back on Mariano Rivera and the Yankees in Game Seven of the 2001 Fall Classic.

They did it by taking what the Cards gave them.

Jaime Garcia pitched a brilliant seven innings of three-hit shutout and then watched as, for the second straight night, Allen Craig lined a pinch-hit single to right field off Alexi Ogando with two out to give St. Louis the lead.  In Game One, it happened in the 6th and broke a 2-2 tie, this time it happened in the 7th and opened the scoring.

After Fernando Salas and Marc Rzepczynski combined to throw a perfect 8th, the Cards took that 1-0 lead into the top of the 9th, needing three outs against the top of the Rangers’ order to take a two games to none lead as they hit the road.

On came closer Jason Motte, who took the role at the end of August, was good on 9 of 10 save opportunities in the regular season, and who through the post-season had been almost perfect, allowing just one baserunner in nine innings of work.

The Cardinals went into the “no-doubles” defense, pushing the outfielders back to prevent a deep fly ball from falling in for an extra-base hit.  It’s kind of like the “prevent” defense in football, and there’s a famous line that the only thing that the prevent defense prevents in wins.

In this case, Ian Kinsler led off with a shallow fly ball to left-centre that would have been caught with a normal defensive alignment, but instead fell in for a leadoff single.  Kinsler then stole second when Motte was slow to the plate, and Elvis Andrus lined a single to centre.  He hit it too hard for Kinsler to score (especially down a run with nobody out and the 3-4-5 hitters due up), but Albert Pujols couldn’t cut off Jon Jay’s throw home properly, allowing Andrus to move up to second.

That brought a hobbled Josh Hamilton to the plate, with the Cardinals desperately needing a strikeout (or two) to hold on to the lead.  So Tony LaRussa took out the guy who throws 98 miles an hour and went to his second-best bullpen lefty, Arthur Rhodes, who whiffed just 21 in 33 innings pitched this season.

Motte had given up a couple of hits, but one was a bloop.  He’s the guy who gets strikeouts (8.3 per 9 inn. this season) and Hamilton, who the Rangers admitted before the game wouldn’t have been playing if it wasn’t the World Series, isn’t currently that threat that requires a left-handed pitcher to face him.  But it’s in his blood, LaRussa can’t help matching up in big spots.  Huge point in the game, lefty in the batter’s box, he must bring in a left-handed pitcher.

Rhodes threw one pitch, Hamilton hit it deep enough to right field for a sac fly, game tied.  On came Lance Lynn to give up another fly ball to right, this one from Michael Young, and the Rangers had the lead for the first time in the Series.

Texas went to closer Neftali Feliz, and Yadier Molina worked him for a leadoff walk.  Actually, it didn’t require much work, Feliz was all over the place.  Nick Punto was next, and was sent up to bunt the tying run into scoring position.  Punto bunted at ball one and fouled it off.  He then bunted at another ball and couldn’t get it.  With the count 0-2, the bunt was off and Punto swung and missed at a pitch that was nowhere near the plate.  If he had just stood there with the bat on his shoulder the whole time, the count would have been 3-0 and Feliz would have been going nuts, having missed badly on seven out of eight pitches, trying to figure out why he couldn’t throw a strike.  Instead, Punto was out, Feliz found his legs, and then struck out Skip Schumaker and got Rafael Furcal to fly out to end the game.

Tony LaRussa was hailed as a genius in Game One because Ron Washington used Esteban German instead of Yorvit Torrealba (tonight Washington used both, and Zep got them both).  This time, LaRussa may have outfoxed himself.  Now the Cardinals have to win at least once in Texas in order to get the Series back to St. Louis.

I’ll be surprised if they don’t.  Despite the difference in their run differentials over the course of the season, right now these two teams look pretty evenly matched, and the Cardinals have a DH-type bat that they can put into the line-up in Craig, while the Rangers don’t really gain a big bat since they’ll use either Torrealba or Mitch Moreland, who is 2-for-19 in the playoffs and had been benched in the ALCS.

It’s been a terrific series so far, and I’m looking forward to the rest of it, however long it goes!

It’s also been a terrific run of Blue Jay A Day Pre-Game Shows, and the latest featured Jose Bautista, live from the Dominican Republic!  Here’s the show, for your listening pleasure:

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The Series gets a travel day, so we’ll be back at it on Saturday night, with the Blue Jay A Day Pre-Game Show starting at 7:00 PM.  Not sure who the guest will be yet, but we do know that Brett Lawrie will be on before Monday night’s Game Five to take your calls!  Keep your eye on my Twitter feed (@wilnerness590) to find out who Saturday night’s guest will be as soon as I know!

Then the game, of course, which will feature Rangers’ lefty Matt Harrison against Cards’ righty Kyle Lohse, who had an amazing season in the National League.  He doesn’t seem to me like someone who will likely last all that long against a tough AL line-up.  We shall see.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

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1:09 AM Eastern

The St. Louis Cardinals took the World Series opener, Allen Craig broke a 2-2 tie with a two-out pinch-single in the bottom of the 6th and the Cards’ bullpen held tight the rest of the way.

Chris Carpenter threw six innings, becoming the first Cardinals’ starter to work more than five since he himself did it in throwing a complete-game shutout to end the first round 12 days prior, the only damage he allowed was a two-run homer to Mike Napoli.  Almost as important as his six strong innings, though, was an incredible defensive play Carpenter made in the first.  With one out, Elvis Andrus hit a grounder into the hole between first and second and Albert Pujols ranged to his right to pick it up, then fired wild to Carpenter covering, as he led his pitcher too much.  Carpenter dove headlong, full out, to snare the throw and slid into first base, glove-first, to get the out.  It was an incredible defensive play, one I’ve never seen a pitcher make before, and even though it’s not going to happen, I might have given Carpenter the World Series MVP right there and then.

As it stands, Craig has the early lead, or maybe Lance Berkman does – the Cards’ rightfielder, also known as Fat Elvis, went 2-for-4, his first hit a chopper over first that drove in a pair of runs.

The Cards’ bullpen was terrific, only slightly moreso than the Rangers’, with five relievers combining to throw three innings of one-hitter, walking one.  Those two baserunners were allowed back-to-back with one out in the 7th, by Fernando Salas, leading to Marc Rzepczynski’s first-ever World Series appearance.  Zep came on with David Murphy and then the pitcher’s spot due up, and though he’s been used as a lefty-killer this post-season, it was pretty apparent that he’d have to face a pair of right-handed hitters in this spot.

The weird part was the righties that he wound up facing – Craig Gentry and Esteban German.  Gentry was expected, since he platoons with Murphy he’s the guy who almost always pinch-hits for him.  Also, had Yorvit Torrealba (4-for-9 in the ALCS) hit for Murphy and reached base, Gentry would almost certainly have been used to pinch-run, so you save a bullet.

Gentry struck out, and then German came up, not Torrealba.  Now, German is a .280 career hitter in parts of ten big-league seasons, and that goes up to .292 (with a .783 OPS) against lefties, and he did hit .455/.462/.818 in 13 plate appearances as a September call-up after a very successful season at AAA Round Rock.  He’s no big-league neophyte, to be sure.  But the last time Esteban German came to the plate in any situation other than batting practice was on September 25th, almost a month ago.  Torrealba, on the other hand (despite a .612 OPS against lefties this season), went 4-for-9 in the just-concluded ALCS, so he might have been just a little sharper.

A lot was made of the decision to use German, but it’s defensible if seemingly a huge reach.  The question is, if the Rangers aren’t going to use Torrealba in that spot, why carry a third catcher?  That’s the biggest thing that jumps out at me.  And yet, there sits Matt Treanor, the luckiest man in the world, able to be used as a back-up to the back-up catcher, for situations just like this, one would think.  Weird.

German, not terribly unpredictably, looked awful in striking out on three pitches.  But if he gets a hit and ties the game, Washington is a genius, much like Tony LaRussa is being hailed as one for using Craig to hit for Carpenter in the 6th, which was really his only move.

Say what you will about the in-depth strategy that’s needed to manage in the National League but come on – when you’re in a tie game in the bottom of the 6th, with two on, two out and the pitcher coming up, you’re an idiot if you don’t pinch-hit.  And when there’s a lefty on the mound and you have a guy on the bench who hit .313/.343/.657 against lefties, that’s the guy you use. Genius.

So congrats to the Cardinals – teams that win the World Series opener have taken 12 of the last 14 Fall Classics.  The Rangers are looking for a split on the road, and their big right-handed boppers Ian Kinsler, Nelson Cruz, Adrian Beltre and Mike Napoli get a chance to face southpaw Jaime Garcia in Game Two.  Colby Lewis will oppose.

Before the game, we had the pleasure of having the Blue Jays manager as our guest on The Blue Jay A Day Pre-Game Show.  John Farrell is the first Jays’ skipper who has ever appeared on the program, taking calls, and he was – as expected – terrific!  Here’s the show, for your listening pleasure:

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Make sure to join us at 7:00 PM Eastern Thursday night along the Fan Radio Network when our Blue Jay A Day Pre-Game Guest will be none other than Jose Bautista, taking your phone calls!

Please give me a follow on The Twitter, you can find me @wilnerness590.

You might also want to check out dynastyleaguebaseball.com – that’s the website of the simulation game on which I pre-played the World Series.  It’s a tremendous game, a great way to play manager.  In my simulation, the Rangers won in six, but they did take Game One 17-0 with C.J. Wilson taking a no-hitter into the 9th.  Hey, it’s not perfect, but it’s fun, and if you simulated 100,000 World Series or so, you’d have a good chance of picking the winner when it’s all said and done.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

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1:00 AM Eastern

The St. Louis Cardinals went into Milwaukee and beat the heck out of the best home team in the major leagues, getting their bats booming early and often and though they didn’t clean the Brewers’ clocks like Texas did Detroit’s, they also took Game Six with massive authoritah and are off to the World Series for the second time in the last five years.

It was a battle of former Blue Jays (though not for long) as Shaun Marcum took the ball for the Brewers over the protestations of most Milwaukee fans, facing Edwin Jackson, who was a Blue Jay for about 20 minutes on July 27th of this year.

Marcum has been terrible since throwing seven innings of one-hit shutout at the Astros on September 4th, and that terriblicity continued in the most important start he’s ever made.  Marcum retired only one of the first four batters he faced, then after getting a second out, coughed up a three-run homer to eventual NLCS MVP David Freese and the Cards were on their way.

Marcum didn’t answer the bell for the second inning, and finished these playoffs 0-3, having given up a huge home run in each of his three starts, and set an all-time record for the highest ERA in any single post-season (minimum 8 innings pitched) at an abysmal 14.90.  He allowed 16 runs on 17 hits, walking five and striking out as many in 9 2/3 innings of work.

Somehow this has solidified in people’s minds that the Blue Jays “won” the Marcum for Brett Lawrie trade, but the truth remains that both teams got what they wanted, and without Marcum’s sensational contributions from April through August, the Brewers’ chances of being in the playoffs would have been much lower.  Marcum will bounce back from this, he’s too good not to.  Those of you who think this was the real Marcum, that’s he’s done or he was never all that good, remember all the rending of garments and screams of hysteria when the Jays traded him away.

As for Jackson, he wasn’t much better, taking a 5-1 lead into the bottom of the second and nearly handing it all back that very inning, coughing up home runs to Rickie Weeks and Jonathan Lucroy that got the Brewers back within a run.  Jackson was done after two innings, meaning that not a single Cardinals starter in this NLCS managed to record even one out as late as the 6th inning.  In fact, only one guy (Chris Carpenter) threw as many as 5 innings in a game.

The Cards’ bullpen was much better than the Brewers’ in this one, though, allowing two runs on three hits over seven innings of work.  The Milwaukee relievers combined to give up eight runs on 11 hits in their eight innings.

Freese missed the cycle by a triple, but he was consoled by both the trip to the World Series and by the MVP.  For the series, Freese hit .545/.600/1.091 with three homers, nine RBIs and seven runs scored.   By the way, the last player to hit at least .545 with as many as three homers and nine RBIs in one post-season series was some guy named Lou Gehrig, back in 1928.

Along with Marcum and Jackson, the other ex-Blue Jays in the series bear mentioning, as Marc Rzepczynski threw 2 1/3 innings of one-hit relief in picking up the win in Game Six, and handed the ball off to Octavio Dotel, who got the final two outs in the shutout 7th and had a win of his own, back in Game Five.  The two ex-Jays relievers combined to throw 8 2/3 innings in the series, allowing one earned run on three hits.

There’s no question that the Cardinals got exactly what they wanted when they traded Colby Rasmus to the Blue Jays, and even though Rasmus is very likely to wind up being the best player in the deal (the argument could easily be made that he already is), there’s no debating the short-term benefit to St. Louis, and if the Cards go on to upset the Rangers and win the World Series, it’s a great deal for them even if Rasmus winds up being a perennial all-star.

Just like the Marcum for Lawrie deal, there doesn’t have to be a clear winner in every trade, let alone a “rip-off”.  Trades work best when each team gets what it wants, and that was the case in both deals the Blue Jays made with the NLCS combatants.

As for the Brewers, seven errors in the final two games of the series sort of highlights their most glaring deficiency, but more importantly than the crappy defense they played, the Brew Crew ran roughshod through the NL Central (with the exception of St. Louis) on the strength of the big bats of Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder and their incredible starting pitching, featuring Marcum, Zack Greinke and Yovani Gallardo.

Braun (.968 OPS) and Fielder (.960 OPS) held up their ends of the bargain, but Greinke posted a 6.17 ERA and 1.63 WHIP while Gallardo was even worse, with a 7.10 ERA and WHIP of 2.6 and we don’t need to go over Marcum again, that would be cruel.

Milwaukee’s starting pitching, aside from Randy Wolf’s performance in Game Four, was awful in this series and that cost them, more than anything else.

So the St. Louis Cardinals, 30-13 since waking up on August 25th to find themselves 10 1/2 games out of a playoff spot, are headed to the Fall Classic as a Wild Card team, having toppled the two best teams in the National League in their playoff run.  They’re looking for their 11th World Series title, the Rangers are seeking their first.

Chris Carpenter will get the ball in Wednesday night’s opener in St. Louis – he threw eight innings of three-hit shutout in his only other World Series appearance, back in Game 3 of the 2006 Series, which the Cards won in five games over Detroit.  C.J. Wilson will oppose, having one World Series start on his resume, as well.  In last season’s Game Two, Wilson gave up two runs on three hits in six innings of work in an eventual 9-0 loss to San Francisco.

We’ll have the entire World Series for you all across the Fan Radio Network, starting with the Blue Jay A Day Pre-Game at 7:00 PM Eastern on Wednesday night.  Keep an eye on my Twitter feed (@wilnerness590) and I’ll let you know who that first night guest will be as soon as we have him confirmed.

Try not to go too nuts having to deal with two straight days of no baseball!

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

1:50 AM Eastern

Well, that was no fun.  I mean, I guess if you’re a Rangers fan you loved it, but for me it was no way for a playoff series to end.

The Detroit Tigers, fighting for their lives, took a 2-0 lead into the bottom of the 3rd on the strength of solo home runs by Miguel Cabrera and Jhonny Peralta.  They then had the ugliest, most horrifying, galactically spectacular immense single-inning blow-up that’s likely ever occurred in an elimination playoff game.

The Rangers sent 14 hitters to the plate in the bottom of the 3rd, going through four Tigers pitchers, and scored nine runs on six hits – four singles and a pair of two-run doubles by Michael Young.  Aside from an ultimately futile mini-rally in the 5th by the Detroits, that was it.

Nelson Cruz punctuated things with a two-run homer in the 7th that scored the Rangers’ 14th and 15th runs of the night – he was an easy choice as the ALCS MVP, hitting .364/.417/1.273 setting post-season series records in home runs and RBIs with six and 13.

And how about the Rangers’ bullpen?  In a series in which not a single Texas starter recorded an out after the 6th inning, the relief corps (aside from Koji Uehara) combined to throw 26 innings, allowing just two runs on 12 hits, walking five and striking out 22.  That’s pretty incredible, and the ridiculosity of Alexi Ogando, Mike Adams and Neftali Feliz is going to make the Rangers awfully tough to beat in the Fall Classic.

Congrats to the Rangers, who become the first non-Yankees A.L. team to reach the World Series in consecutive seasons since the 1992-93 Toronto Blue Jays.  They’ll hit the road to either Milwaukee or St. Louis, with the Cardinals looking to close it out up in Wisconsin on Sunday night in a Game Six battle of former Blue Jays, one of whom actually suited up for the local nine.  Shaun Marcum, who has had just one start that could be called even decent since September 5th, holds the Brewers’ future in his hands as he takes on Edwin Jackson.

We’ll have all the action of that game for you Sunday night starting at 7:00 PM Eastern along the Fan Radio Network.

Prior to the Rangers’ Junior Circuit Coronation, Blue Jays catcher J.P. Arencibia joined us to take your phone calls before he took in the Panthers-Lightning game in South Florida.  Here’s the Blue Jay A Day Pre-Game Show, for your listening pleasure:

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Please give me a follow on The Twitter, you can find me @wilnerness590.  If you’re looking for Mr. Arencibia, he can be found @jparencibia9.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

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12:16 AM Eastern

This has been a pretty terrific post-season, with each of the six series so far having been compelling, exciting and tension-filled.

We had three of the four first-round match-ups go the distance, and there’s a chance that both LCSs will, too, with the Brewers needing a win at home and the Tigers needing to take one on the road in order to force a pair of Games Seven.

For those among us who spend most of our time watching the Blue Jays, there have been a few extra added boni, if you will, in getting the chance to see so many former members of the local nine compete in this post-season.

Roy Halladay’s Phillies have been eliminated, as have the Diamondbacks of Aaron Hill, John McDonald, Lyle Overbay and Ryan Roberts, but we still have Shaun Marcum and the Brewers along with the Cardinals and their bullpen, bolstered by the mid-season additions of Octavio Dotel and Marc Rzepczynski.

No, I’m not counting Edwin Jackson and Mike Napoli, who were Blue Jays on paper only.

Marcum hasn’t really risen to the occasion quite yet, having been lit up for a dozen runs over 8 2/3 innings in a pair of playoffs starts, but he’ll get another opportunity in the Brewers’ do-or-die Game Six.  Hopefully, he’ll get more help behind him than Zack Greinke did in Game Five, with the Brewers making a quartet of errors that led to three unearned St. Louis runs.

Dotel was the winning pitcher, entering in the 5th inning to strike out Ryan Braun, who represented the tying run, then throwing a shutout 6th.  And Rzepczynski  picked up a hold by doing what seems to have become his specific job yet again.

The Brewers have two big offensive threats – Braun and Prince Fielder – and with The Master Of The Match-Up, Tony LaRussa, running the show in St. Louis, it has become Zep’s job to go get Fielder.

In Game Three, Zep faced Fielder – and only Fielder – in a one-run game in the 8th and struck him out.  In Game Five, Fielder was up in the 8th with two on and the Cardinals up by four, and Zep came in to face him – and only him – and struck him out again.

For the NLCS, Rzepczynski has pitched 2 1/3 no-hit innings, having allowed just one walk, mostly as Fielder’s personal caretaker.

The Cardinals plan on giving him a shot in the rotation next year, but for now, he’s just about as LOOGY as LOOGY gets and doing a fantastic job.  Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy!

Speaking of great human beings, and very good left-handed pitchers, Ricky Romero joined us for the latest installment of The Blue Jay A Day Pre-Game Show, taking fans’ calls for the better part of an hour prior to the Cards’ Game Five win.  Here’s the show, for your listening pleasure:

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We’ll have another Blue Jay A Day Pre-Game Show at 7:00 PM Eastern on Saturday night, prior to Game Six of the ALCS.  J.P. Arencibia will join us to take your calls, so make sure to tune in!

Please give me a follow on The Twitter, you can find me @wilnerness590.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

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