We are
now two games into this playoff series and nothing is set about which team will
separate them enough to make it to the World Series. The Cardinals have met their match in this
Giants team. The Cardinals biggest
advantages during the first series was their experience and belief that all
things are possible and that they could come back from any deficit that may be
thrown their way by the Nationals who were largely inexperienced. The Giants have their own past history of
success. Like the Cardinals, they have
won a World Series in the past few years and feature a roster that is full of
the type of talented and experienced players that the Cardinals rode to get to
the NLCS. Like the Cardinals, the Giants
are coming off of their own miraculous comeback in which they had to win 3
games on the road against one of the best teams in the National League. It has only been 2 games so far, but the
lessons we have learned in those 2 games may very well be played out over the
course of a long and competitive 7 game series.
Lesson 1:
Carlos Beltran is unbelievable in the postseason. You can count me as one of the people who
thought that Beltran was just about all washed up. He was slowing down quickly at the end of the
season offensively, and it was looking more and more like those balky knees of
his may not allow him to catch a fly ball or make it around the bases in one
piece. I was sure that the high work
load early in the season had all but doomed the old man to the same mediocrity
that we had seen at the end of the season.
Who knew that Carlos Beltran would start to hit like it was 2004? I just hope that he can get enough hits to
balance out the futility of those around him.
Lesson
2: While Beltran, Freese, and
occasionally Allan Craig are hitting, there are just too many holes in the
Cardinals lineup right now. John Jay,
Yadier Molina, and Pete Kozma are all hitting below .200 during these playoffs,
and Matt Holliday is hitting all of .250 in the third spot in the order. There are just too many spots in the
Cardinals order where hitting streaks will have a tough time of continuing, and
that leads to the enormous amounts of stranded runners that they have had
during this postseason. The Giants will
not walk the bases loaded and give the Cardinals runs like the Gio Gonzalez and
the Nationals did regularly.
Lesson
3: If the Cardinals are going to win
this series, much like last year, they are going to need to rely heavily on
their young bullpen. While Cardinal
starters like Chris Carpenter are inspirational, to hope for more than a solid
5 innings out of Carpenter, Adam Wainwright, or Lance Lynn would not be
realistic or responsible. If the
Cardinals are going to win, they are going to need a consistent 4 innings out
of a bullpen that is populated mostly with extremely young pitchers. It has no consistently effective left handed
reliever, but this relief corps that has been patched together, seems capable
of some pretty impressive things. We
will just have to hope that these impressive things include another trip to the
World Series.
Lesson
4: Matt Holliday looks lost. While there are plenty of times when I feel
like I want to completely bash the guy, something about him makes this
impossible. Matt Holliday has given
nothing but his all every day since he has become a Cardinal. He may have frustrating moments where he
cannot perform with runners in scoring position, but the way he took out the
Giant’s second baseman Marco Scutaro shows that he is trying almost too
hard. He looks even more lost at the
plate than he does on the base paths. He
seems to either flail away at curveballs in the dirt or take fastballs over the
plate because he almost seems to be trying to work a pitcher for a walk. This combination of over aggression and over
patience is just not going give them the type of production that this team is
desperately needing out of its third hitter.
Lesson
5: This series very well may come down
to Kyle Lohse vs. Matt Cain. These two
right handers very possibly could match up both in game 3 and game 7 of this
series if it gets that far. If the
Cardinals could win the third game of the series, they will have a good chance
to at least head back to San Francisco needing only a win to take the series,
and a potential Game 7 needs no extra hype or stated importance. Luckily for the Cardinals, Kyle Lohse has
been the most consistent and steady pitcher, and if there is a man this team
could at least stay with the guy who threw a perfect game this season, it would
be Kyle Lohse.
There
will be quite a few new lessons to be learned over the course of this
series. Will this series get ugly as so
many Cardinals vs. Giants playoff series in the past seem to have after Matt
Holliday’s aggressive slide? Whose
postseason magic will run out first?
Which of the game’s best catchers will have a bigger impact, Yadier
Molina or Buster Posey? Will the Giant’s
pitching staff filled with former pitching stars turned 5th starters
such as Tim Lincecum and Barry Zito be able to channel their old selves enough
to lift the Giants to the World Series?
We will learn the answers to these questions and more, and the answers
will start to come tomorrow…
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