ST. LOUIS — So now, to steal a catch phrase from an earlier St. Louis-Boston World Series, the Cardinals must achieve an Impossible Dream in order to claim their 12th championship.
Two straight wins at Fenway Park? Yeesh. Good luck with that. The 1967 Cardinals won Game 7 at Fenway to end the Red Sox’s season (and the aforementioned dream), yet they lost Game 6 right before that.
There’s no other route to the parade, not after the Cardinals dropped Game 5, 3-1 at Busch Stadium Monday night, to fall behind, 3-2, in this memorable Fall Classic. Game 6 is Wednesday night in Boston.
“We have great confidence in our team no matter where we play,” said Cardinals ace Adam Wainwright, who pitched very well in a losing effort. “This will be legendary if we go into Boston and win two games.”
For these Cardinals to attain such legend status, they really should hit some more; they’re batting a woeful .218 in this series. Yet if we assume these games will remain close and tight, then they’ll have to do a better job with their pitching decisions and matchups.
Lesson No. 1: Don’t pitch to David Ortiz with runners on base, especially early in the game with a base open.
Lesson No. 2: Know when to fold ’em on the starting pitchers, even with stud rookie (and Game 6 starter) Michael Wacha.
Ortiz, elevating his already pristine October reputation, went 3-for-4 with a doubles, two singles and an RBI, and he now has a logic-defying .733/.750/1.267 slash line. He drove home the game’s first run in the top of the first inning, following Dustin Pedroia’s one-out double with a double of his own, a hard grounder ripped down the first-base line off a first-pitch cut fastball.
Even with Wainwright on the mound, why would the Cardinals pitch to Ortiz in that situation? Especially in the NL park, where Boston’s other fearsome hitter, Mike Napoli, was chillaxing on the bench and the less imposing Jonny Gomes was hitting behind Ortiz?
“We’re going to make tough pitches,” Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said. “Sometimes we get more of the plate than what we’re looking to get. Sometimes they go out of the zone to get it. Right there, it was the idea of making it tough. And unfortunately, he found the spot.”
“In my view, I can get anybody out,” Wainwright said. “And I’m thinking, do not compound the inning.”
The notion of Cardinals manager Mike Matheny sticking too long with his starting pitchers has been a constant discussion point in this Series; I saw it first pointed out by Dave Cameron of FanGraphs. While St. Louis does have a strong starting rotation, it also has a very good bullpen. And it’s natural to conclude the stress of these games wears out a starter sooner than during the regular season.
Yet in the seventh inning Monday at 1-1, there was Wainwright giving up a one-out single to rookie Xander Bogaerts and then walking Stephen Drew on six pitches. He gave up a ground-rule double to catcher David Ross, which broke the tie, and he struck out Lester.
That drove up Wainwright’s pitch count to 105, and up came Jacoby Ellsbury, who admittedly hadn’t done much to that point against Wainwright, going hitless in three at-bats. Still, though: It had been a tiring inning for Wainwright, in a tiring game in a tiring season. And the Cardinals have two good left-handed options out of the bullpen in Randy Choate and Kevin Siegrist.
“We liked how he was throwing,” Matheny said of Wainwright. “We liked the fact that [Ellsbury] had had a couple of strikeouts and a pop-up in the previous three at-bats, and liked the way [Wainwright] was going about it to get us out of that.”
Ellsbury lined a single to center field, scoring Drew for an insurance run, which — given how dominant the pitching was — seemed like a huge deal. All the more so when the Red Sox called upon their dominant closer Koji Uehara to pick up the final four outs, and he did so with ease. The Cardinals suffered consecutive home losses for the first time since Aug. 7-10, when they dropped four straight games at Busch.
Forty-six years after the Cardinals thwarted Boston’s Impossible Dream, they have a Mission Impossible. There is no room for error, physical or mental. This St. Louis season is on the verge of self-destructing.