Three thoughts on World Series Game 2, a 4-2 Cardinals win over the Red Sox:
1. The Mets and Yankees are going to have to ask themselves how much this postseason matters for player of interest Stephen Drew because his offensive performance is ranking among the worst ever.
He is 4-for-42 with one extra-base hit (a triple), one walk and 15 strikeouts. He is hitting .095, making Nick Swisher look productive at this time of year. Also, Drew is about to become more important to the Red Sox lineup, which is likely to lose Mike Napoli (so David Ortiz can play first) in Games 3-5 in the NL city St. Louis.
Boston manager John Farrell could switch Xander Bogaerts from third to short and re-insert Will Middlebrooks at third. But I don’t think he will do that because St. Louis has an all-righty rotation (and Drew hits lefty). But mainly because whatever his offensive faults, Drew has not taken them into the field. I have been at every Red Sox game this postseason and one of my “I didn’t know that” realizations is just how good a defender Drew is. Which is something else the Mets and Yankees must consider.
Drew has terrific hands and an accurate arm and way more range than I was anticipating for someone who missed the second half of the 2011 season and the first half of 2012 after fracturing his right ankle.
He positions himself well, but he also has good range both ways and an accurate arm. Drew produces a couple of plays a game that makes you take notice, that make you put a star in your scorebook.
Drew is a free agent this offseason. He turns 31 in March, and after hitting 13 homers and producing a .777 OPS this year to go along with the strong defense, the expectation is the Red Sox will put the $14.1 million qualifying offer on him and probably would like to keep him.
He is looking at a three- or four-year contract in the $12-million-per-year territory. The Mets are looking to replace Ruben Tejada, but might not want to allocate those kind of funds for Drew.
The Yanks need insurance on both Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez — when I ask Red Sox people, they believe Drew could handle third base. The Yanks are trying to get under the $189 million luxury-tax threshold for next season, and who else takes – or doesn’t take – their money will motivate how hard they push on Drew.
2. Michael Wacha gave up two runs in six innings in Game 2. Just to accentuate how great he has been in this postseason, that was one more run than he had given up in his first three starts, covering 21 innings.
Still, he was impressive against the best lineup in the majors, getting through the Boston order the first time with mainly his fastball and changeup before mixing in his curve. He improved to 4-0 in four postseason starts this October. Yes, the Cardinals have won eight games in these playoffs, and a kid with nine career regular-season starts has half of them.
At 22 years, 114 days old, he became the youngest righty to start and win a World Series game since Cleveland’s Jaret Wright (21 years, 297 games) won Game 4 of the 1997 Fall Classic against the Marlins. He is the youngest Cardinal to win a World Series game since rookie Paul “Daffy” Dean earned the victories in Games 3 and 6 (22 years and 55 days old in Game 6) to help the Gashouse Gang beat the Tigers in 1934. His older brother, Dizzy, produced the other two St. Louis wins in the Series.
“[Wacha] continues to impress,” Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said. “I don’t know what else you can say.”
Eighteen teams passed on Wacha in the first round of the 2012 draft. Among them were the Mets, who with the 12th pick selected high school shortstop Gavin Cecchini. He is just 19, but has yet to play above short-season Single-A at Brooklyn.
3. Ortiz did not hit a postseason homer in his first 14 games and 50 at-bats, a period in which he played in October for the Twins and Red Sox and hit .200.
But in his past 64 playoff games, Ortiz has hit 17 homers. He is kind of the anti-A-Rod: He has essentially skated on associations with illegal performance-enhancers, and there is a perception that all he hits is big homers, especially at this time of year.
He hit another huge one in World Series Game 2, the two-run shot off Wacha that gave Boston a 2-1 lead in the sixth. That was the ninth of the 17 homers that have either tied the score or put the Red Sox ahead. Actually, only one tied the score: his two-out, eighth-inning grand slam off Tigers closer Joaquin Benoit in Game 2 of this year’s ALCS.
Ortiz has two walk-off blasts. The first, a two-run shot off Jarrod Washburn in the 10th inning, clinched the 2004 Division Series sweep of the Angels. In the 2004 ALCS, he hit a two-run homer off Paul Quantrill in the 12th inning of Game 4, which would be the first of four straight Boston wins en route to ending The Curse.
The next night he would homer leading off the eighth to pull Boston within 4-3 and get the walk-off single against Esteban Loaiza to win Game 5.