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Cardinals-Pirates Division Series

MLB Coverage: St. Louis Locks Up 3rd Straight NLCS Trip

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It wasn’t a surprise ending, but an otherwise great St. Louis-Pittsburgh series had an anti-climactic ending last night. No one in Busch Stadium had any complaints as some familiar heroes–Adam Wainwright and David Freese–led the way for the Cardinals to win Game 5 by a 6-1 count and move on to the National League Championship Series for the third consecutive year.

The Pirates sent rookie Gerrit Cole to the mound and the kid held up well, going five good innings. But Freese got him for a two-run home run in the second. The Cards added another run in the sixth, and even though the game was close until the bottom of the eighth, it just seemed apparent that the Pittsburgh offense was not going to make anything happen.


While Marlon Byrd had three hits, Wainwright went the distance on just 107 pitches and put an 0-for-4 collar on Andrew McCutchen. St. Louis was able to break the game open against Mark Melancon with three runs in the bottom of the eighth. While Melancon was brilliant all year and as important as anyone outside McCutchen for the team’s reaching the Division Series, there is no denying the setup man was awful in this series. He nearly coughed up Game 3 and then gave away whatever hope there was of a comeback tonight.

The middle of the St. Louis order was also productive. Matt Holliday had a pair of hits in the three-hole. And cleanup hitter Matt Adams had the same, the last of which was a towering two-run shot in the eighth, a ball crushed so thoroughly that a farmer in southern Illinois likely finds it in his crop this morning.

Congratulations to the Pirates for an outstanding season and while it’s too easy to say we expect them to see them back at this round of play, we certainly don’t expect they’ll be sliding into obscurity anytime soon. In a lot of ways, the Pirates of 2013 are like the Baltimore Orioles of 2012–they’ve got their manager in place, they’ve got a decent core of talent and they’re at least going to stay on everyone’s radar in future seasons.

But the Orioles of 2012 ultimately lost in the playoffs because they ran into a team who had an ace pitcher that locked down Games 1 & 5 in the Division Series. It was C.C. Sabathia in that case. The Pirates of 2013 had the same problem, running into the whipsaw that was Adam Wainwright. The Cardinal ace gets two wins, and pitches 16 innings ,allowing just two runs. That’s called being a stopper.

St. Louis will begin LCS play against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday night and TheSportsNotebook’s MLB coverage will preview that series either late this evening or early tomorrow morning.

ANOTHER GAME 5 UP


The final spot in the LCS round is waiting for the winner of tonight’s Oakland-Detroit game. The A’s have opted to start Sonny Gray, the hero of Game 2 in matching zeroes against Justin Verlander. Oakland also had the option of going with veteran Bartolo Colon, who pitched well in Game 1 but lost.

I like the decision by Oakland. When you get in these short series, sometimes pitchers just get on a roll against a particular opponent, and Gray has a good track record in the second half of the season anyway. Detroit sends Verlander back to the mound, as he looks to win a Game 5 in Oakland for the second straight season. Game time is 8:07 PM ET on TBS and the winner goes to Boston to open the ALCS on Saturday.

MLB Coverage: NL Division Series Both Split Opening Sets

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The MLB playoffs are two days in and the National League has completed the first two games of each series. In both cases, the road teams–the Los Angeles Dodgers and Pittsburgh Pirates–found ways to get one win and take homefield advantage as the teams now shift venues for the middle games on Sunday and Monday.

There hasn’t been a lot of drama in these games thus far, with three of the four being blowouts, but Game 2 of the Braves-Dodgers series started to make up for it, a tight 4-3 win for Atlanta. Let’s briefly summarize what’s transpired in each series and look ahead to Sunday.


LA Dodgers-Atlanta: Game 1 was no contest, an easy 6-1 win for the Dodgers. Clayton Kershaw was brilliant, pitching seven innings of three-hit ball. Adrian Gonzalez hit a two-run shot of Kris Medlen in the third that opened the game up and the outcome was never in doubt. Atlanta simply did not look sharp, the second straight year they’ve opened the postseason with a home game by playing some sloppy baseball. At least this year it wasn’t the one-game wild-card knockout.

All the pressure shifted to Mike Minor for Game 2 and he delivered, battling Zack Greinke in a good pitcher’s duel and leaving with a 2-1 lead in the seventh. The Dodgers had a couple chances to tie the game, but in one case couldn’t get the two-out hit and in another hit into a double play with runners on first and third and one out.

It still had the feel of a game where Los Angeles would rip Atlanta’s heart out late, but the Braves grabbed two huge runs in the bottom of the seventh to stretch the lead to 4-1. Those runs proved necessary when Hanley Ramirez–who had three hits on the night–hit a two-run homer off David Carpenter in the eighth.

The Dodger ninth provided more drama. Craig Kimbrel came in and looked unsettled with his control. Mark Ellis drew a walk and Dee Gordon pinch-ran. Gordon took off for second and appeared to make it, but was called out. Replays showed that the call was closer than it appeared, as shortstop Andrelton Simmons skillfully kept his glove on Gordon’s rear end as the ball arrived. Even with replay, I can’t tell you for sure if Gordon was safe or out.


Kimbrel walked one more batter, and finally struck out Carl Crawford to end the inning.

The Dodgers have taken homefield advantage, but Kershaw is not scheduled to pitch either game back in Los Angeles. Maybe it’s the Braves who need to take advantage of this and win Games 3 & 4, because I think you’d rather have the ace in Game 5 as opposed to homefield.

Pittsburgh-St. Louis: Carlos Beltran hit a three-run homer in the third inning of Game 1 and St. Louis scored seven times off a floundering A.J. Burnett to win 9-1. I had to question why Pittsburgh manager Clint Hurdle left Burnett out there to give up seven runs. In the postseason, you can’t let a game get away that early and you can’t lose in routs, lest there to be too much pressure to get all the breaks in every close game.

Pittsburgh addressed that latter problem–the law of averages in close games–in a way I was not expecting in Game 2. They came out and peppered Lance Lynn, scoring in three different innings early and taking a 5-0 lead by the fifth. Pedro Alvarez homered for the second straight game. The first one was no big deal because it came swinging from his heels when his team was getting blown out. The second one was huge and staked rookie Gerrit Cole to a 3-zip lead.

St. Louis manager Mike Matheny was quicker on the hook with Lynn than Hurdle had been with Burnett, but Cole was pitching too well for it to matter. Here, I have a different bone to pick with the Cardinal manager–Lynn is notoriously inconsistent, while Shelby Miller has had a solid year. Even if he’s a rookie, Miller was a better choice than Lynn to get a start in this series.

Pittsburgh now has some real opportunity in front of them. Francisco Liriano pitches Game 3, after winning the wild-card game and Liriano is demonstrably better at home. Then St. Louis throws rookie Michael Wacha. Even allowing that Wacha nearly pitched a no-hitter in the last week of the season, I’m not sure he’s who Matheny wants pitching if the season is on the line.

This is now a real battle to see if St. Louis can get the scenario of Adam Wainwright–dominant in Game 1–to be on the mound at home for a Game 5.

GAME 3 SCHEDULE

TBS will carry a National League doubleheader on Sunday with Cards-Pirates at 4:30 PM ET, followed by Braves-Dodgers at 8  PM ET. The pitching matchups are Liriano-Joe Kelly and Hyun-Jin Ru against Julio Teheran.

I’m not changing my picks of St. Louis and Los Angeles to advance, but I will pick Pittsburgh to win on Sunday. The Dodgers can’t get the sweep I predicted, but Ru should at least ensure they get their chance with Kershaw in a fifth game.

TheSportsNotebook’s MLB coverage will have a look at the American League playoffs on Sunday. Boston-Tampa and Oakland-Detroit each play Game 2 on Saturday and then travel the following day.