I know
this is pathetically late analysis, but in order to avoid little more than a
long string of expletives being my thoughts, I felt it was appropriate to wait
a little while before writing about the end of the 2012 Cardinals’ season. In the time since, I hope that I have gained greater
piece of mind and perspective compared to the hatred I was feeling for Pete
Kozma after breaking the wrong way on a groundball up the middle. Yes, it was a painful end to a frustrating
season, but I guess that was how 2012 was destined to end for this team.
The more
I look back at this season, the more I wonder if this team actually over
performed, although this does not make the final result any less difficult to
swallow. When you really look at it, the
2012 Cardinals made it within one game of the World Series with a starting rotation
that was anchored by Kyle Lohse who had a solid season, but as we saw during
the playoffs last season, he does not possess the type of swing and miss stuff
to consistently get good hitters out the second and third time through the
lineup. They were also relying on Lance
Lynn whose Nuke LaLoosh like million dollar arm comes with a ten cent head that
gets in the way all too often. On top of
this, the team needed their co-aces to perform even though Chris Carpenter’s
arm was only recently cut into in order to remove a rib, and Adam Wainwright
was well beyond the recommended number of innings for a pitcher coming off of
Tommy John surgery and looked like it at times.
They had already lost Jamie Garcia for the postseason with a shoulder
injury, and they were reliant on a shortstop which had never had significant
Major League playing time.
Even
though all these factors seemed stacked against this team, the Cardinals had a
chance to advance to the World Series and even looked destined to do so after
taking a 3 games to 1 lead in the series.
And then it was time for Game 5.
I remember being almost giddy with excitement as I watched Lance Lynn
blowing Giants hitters away with a dominant fastball and wondering just how
good this guy could be. He seemed
confident and ready to take the next step forward as a pitcher capable of
rising to the occasion of a big game. On
top of this, the Cardinals seemed ready to break through against Barry Zito in
these early innings. I mean, just how
many times can the Cardinals get runners in scoring position and not score right? The answer, unfortunately, was answered far
too many times over the next three games as Barry Zito’s 84 mph fastball was made
to look like it was 98. Unfortunately,
this was the closest the Cardinals would come for the rest of the season.
While a
finger could be directed in any direction when trying to assign blame for the
collapse of the Cardinals, there were a couple issues that seemed particularly
glaring. After a few clutch performances
in the NLDS, it became evident that Pete Kozma was in completely over his
head. His defense was shaky, and his
offensive approach left me wanting to tear my hair out as he seemed to be swinging
for a homerun in situations with a runner on third base and less than two
outs. Then there was Matt Holliday who
hit only .200 in the World Series with 2 RBI’s.
As the veteran leader and third batter, this was completely
unacceptable.
And then
there was Mike Matheny’s management of the bullpen. In Game 7, Matheny found himself in a pretty
difficult spot. In the 3rd
inning, the game was in danger of being lost and it eventually was. There was one move in particular that had me
screaming, though. Matheny had found a
combination that worked for him. I
really can’t blame him for that. His go
to move was to bring in Joe Kelly first and then go with Rosenthal to fill the
innings before eventually getting to his Mujica, Boggs, and Motte. This combination had been shown to work, but
Matheny cannot be inflexible in a Game 7 of the NLCS.
When the
Cardinal’s manager took out Lohse, the bases were loaded with 0 outs and the
Cardinals already down by 2 runs. In
this situation, the Cardinals were desperate.
Any more runs allowed could turn out to be disastrous, and eventually it
sealed the fate of the 2012 Cardinal season.
It does not take an inspired baseball mind to recognize that in this
situation, the Cardinals needed at least one strikeout, and luckily for
Matheny, he had a pitcher in his bullpen who would end up striking out 15
batters in 8.2 playoff innings including 4 strikeouts in two innings in this
game. Of course, this guy was Trevor
Rosenthal, and of course, he was not the pitcher that Matheny elected to go
with. Instead, Joe Kelly was brought in,
and the rest is history.
As with
any team that loses a series that it was up 3 games to 1 in, there is
definitely enough blame to go around. We
can only hope that this team can learn some things from the experience and
improve in the future, especially the relatively inexperienced manager who will
be trusted to make these types of decisions going forward. The Cardinal front office has hopefully
realized that it needs a more experienced and capable shortstop if they are
going to make deep playoff runs whether that is Furcal or someone else. And hopefully, the Cardinals offensive
players can learn how to be consistent as opposed to the boom or bust unit that
the Cardinals have seen far too much of this season. 2012 was an exciting year for the St. Louis
Cardinals, and even though it ended in frustration, it was one heck of a ride.
No comments:
Post a Comment