BASEBALL
		Mid-October, 2004 The 2004 World Series It has been a while since I've written anything for this website, and it has taken the catastrophic failure of my favorite team, the St. Louis Cardinals, to draw me out.  There is a parallel between the extreme excitement I felt when the Cardinals won Game 7 of the NLCS against the Astros and the utter and extreme shock that I felt watching them get swept by the Boston Red Sox. Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated has said that the better team won and that the difference was pitching.  I couldn't disagree more.  I believe that the two teams were relatively comparable in talent.  Before the series started I believed (with, admittedly, some bias) that the Cardinals even had a slight edge over the Red Sox in a majority of the facets of the game.  I wasn't alone, as many professional baseball writers predicted a Cardinals win in the series. The difference in the series didn't really come down to pitching - it came down to hitting.  Some might say that you are talking about opposite sides of the same coin - if the Cardinals hitting was bad, then the Red Sox pitching must have been the difference.  Again, however, I disagree.  The Red Sox pitched well against the Cardinals at times (especially in Game 2, when Curt Schilling completely shut down St. Louis), but the Cardinals offense had plenty of opportunities with runners in scoring position.  If the Red Sox pitching had dominated and been the difference, we never would have had the opportunities. The Cardinals pitching was certainly not dominant, but the truth is that they held their own.  They didn't pitch much worse than they had all season - a season in which the Cardinals won 105 games.  The game plan all year was to avoid big innings and keep the Cardinals close enough that the vaunted offense would inevitably put big numbers up.  The problem was that those numbers never came.  Cardinals pitching held the Red Sox to four runs in Game 3 and three runs in Game 4, which is exactly keeping in form with the game plan.  The offense just couldn't come through.  Verducci wrote that our game plan can't win in the postseason against power pitching like the Red Sox had, but it certainly worked against Roger Clemens and Roy Oswalt in the NLCS. There are three innings that I see as defining plays of this World Series.  These sum of these three innings equal a Red Sox championship: 1.  Game 1, eighth inning.  The Cardinals had been down all game, including 6-1 and 7-2 deficits.  I had thought that Game 1 was the game to steal in Boston for the Cardinals because they had Tim Wakefield starting and we had Woody Williams starting.  The starters didn't make a difference, but I was right: this was the game to steal.  In the 8th, the Cardinals rally and tie the game 9-9, and still have the bases loaded and one out.  Scott Rolen, who batted .314 with 34 homers and 124 rbi in the regular season was at bat.  He popped up weakly, bringing up Jim Edmonds, who batted .301 with 42 homers and 111 rbi in the regular season, to the plate.  He struck out looking (of course, the last two strikes were well off the plate and called strikes anyway).  The next half inning the Red Sox score two and go on to win the game. 2.  Game 3, first inning.  The Cardinals started the first game back in St. Louis on the right track.  The crowd was into the game and loud and Jeff Suppan retired the first two batters easily, bringing up Manny Ramirez.  Suppan ran the count to two balls and two strikes and the crowd stood in unison, screaming for a strikeout.  Manny hit the next pitch about 420 feet into the seats in leftfield, instantly quieting the crowd.  Then, in the home half of the first, the Cardinals again load the bases with one out and Jim Edmonds at the plate.  Edmonds hits a weak fly ball to very short left field, which Manny Ramirez charges and catches.  Larry Walker attempted to tag up at third and score the tying run, but Manny's throw to the plate was perfect and cut him down. 3.  Game 3, third inning.  The Cardinals, still only down 1-0 in the game, get runners on second and third with no outs.  The runner on third is pitcher Jeff Suppan.  Larry Walker hits a ground ball to second base and the Red Sox concede the tying run, opting to get the out at first, instead.  Except that Suppan had a complete meltdown between third and home and froze on the basepaths.  By the time he recovered, the Red Sox had completed the play at first and thrown to third before Suppan could get back, resulting in a double play.  The Cardinals never seriously threatened in the World Series again. The statistic that I keep coming back to as the main reason the World Series is over is that Scott Rolen, Jim Edmonds, and Reggie Sanders/John Mabry combined to go 1 for 43 (.023) in the series.  If it was just good pitching, then how do you explain Albert Pujols, Larry Walker, and Edgar Renteria going a combined 15 for 44 (.341)?  It wasn't great pitching, it was 1/3 of the Cardinals offense going in the toilet at the same time.
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