Three takeaways from World Series Game 1:
1. As the NLCS wore on, the young troika of the Cardinals’ bullpen — Kevin Siegrist, Carlos Martinez and Trevor Rosenthal — was giving off a sense of growing into a lock-down, fire-balling force. And this was supposed to be an area in which St. Louis had a huge edge because the Red Sox were perceived as a team that did not handle high octane well, a theory only enhanced by how Detroit’s dart-throwing rotation overpowered Boston in the ALCS.
But in Game 1, Siegrist and Martinez had their sense of invulnerability removed instantly.
Siegrist, a lefty, is going to have one main job in this Series: Retire David Ortiz. And Siegrist came on in the bottom of the seventh to face Ortiz, who crushed the first pitch he saw — a 96-mph fastball — for a homer.
Martinez, who threw 4 2/3 shutout innings in the NLCS, had his 95-mph heater turned around for a leadoff double by Daniel Nava in the eighth. He followed with a wild pitch that moved Nava to third and Xander Bogaerts hit a sacrifice fly.
The Cardinals did not unleash 100-mph closer Rosenthal in the game. But one belief coming into this series was, unlike the Tigers in the ALCS, the Cardinals’ late-game pen could match the excellence of its Red Sox opposites. Perhaps this was a small sample or Game 1 nerves, but in the opener, Boston made a statement it could handle the Cardinal relievers’ heat.
2. In the World Series last year, the Giants used Hector Sanchez and Ryan Theriot as their DHs in two AL-city games. Both batted eighth. San Francisco mainly used them because the rules said it had to do so.
The Cardinals are different. The return of Allen Craig to the lineup as a DH provided a belief the NL leaders in runs scored would have an AL-like lineup. Craig, after all, is viewed as the Cardinals’ best clutch hitter. And St. Louis immediately inserted him not eighth, but in the cleanup spot.
St. Louis then went out and scored just one run — and that was off Ryan Dempster in the ninth inning of what was an 8-0 game.
But the larger problem now revolves around Carlos Beltran.
If Beltran misses time or is curtailed in effectiveness after bruising his ribs in Game 1, then the lineup, while not 2012 Giants-esque, will take a big hit by having fewer big hitters.
Beltran is so much tougher than the caricature that was presented of him when he was a Met, and I would expect he would do everything to try to play. But the Cardinals just saw firsthand when the Dodgers’ Hanley Ramirez tried to play with cracked ribs how compromised the shortstop was.
Beltran is among the best postseason hitters ever, and, obviously, his loss or diminishment would be, at minimum, problematic for the Cardinals, who took Adron Chambers off their World Series roster to put on Craig and thus do not have a ton of outfield depth — particularly because Craig can’t go out there yet after recovering from a foot injury that kept him out from Sept. 4 until World Series Game 1.
3. By coincidence I was chatting with a major league official at just the moment that second base umpire Dana DeMuth blew a call in the first inning. DeMuth ruled St. Louis shortstop Pete Kozma had lost a double-play pivot on the exchange from glove to hand. Had the call stood, Boston would have had first and third and two outs.
But after Red Sox manager John Farrell argued, the umps met and overturned a call that no one could remember being overturned by umpire committee before. The reality is, though, the umps reversed to the proper call and Boston had bases loaded, one out and went on to score three runs and set the tone for an 8-1 rout.
As the play happened, I turned to the MLB official and said the ump blew it. No way Kozma had the ball long enough. The official watched the replay and said, “Next year, we will get that right like that” and snapped his fingers. He meant next year there would be instant replay expansion that would cover a play just like this.
But what I believe was instructional is this: Part of the anti-instant replay crowd moans about pace of the game being impacted by adding replay. But without replay, there was an argument by Farrell, an umpire meeting, a new decision and a longer argument from Cardinals manager Mike Matheny. In all, several minutes were wasted on a call that a replay monitor/umpire could have relayed to the earpiece of the crew chief in under 30 seconds.
Put me down as someone who believes we will improve the pace of game in many instances, as long as part of the reform is on-field arguments are now banned as part of the protocol. Once a replay is requested, no one should be allowed to leave the bench to argue the call or face suspension if they do.