Hoppy's Senior Circuit Review – World Series bound again for the Redbirds?

Written by Jeff Hopkins

Sunday, 21 October 2012 12:16

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The wild card Cardinals continue to roll in the postseason as usual and the Giants continue to be a team that just cannot be put away, with some big hits and great pitching performances. Not much more I can really say, playoff baseball is great! Let’s get it!

Top Performances in the NLDS:

Marco Scutaro, 2B/SS, SF – 9-21, 3R, 2 2B, 2RBI: Scutaro continues to be the best pickup made by any team in the NL West in 2012 even after getting run over by a truck called Matt Holliday.
Yadier Molina, C, STL – 7-20, 2R, 2B, 2RBI: Molina is having a great NLCS leading the Cards as usual, only allowing one SB and hitting .350.
Peter, Kozma, SS, STL – 5-16, 3R, 2B, 2RBI, SB: The young infielder for STL continues to show up big in big spots in these playoffs.
Matt Carpenter, 1B/OF, STL – 2-6, 3R, 2B, HR, 2RBI: Getting his shot in Game 3 when Beltran tweaked his knee Carpenter crushed a 2 run home run to put his stamp on this NLCS and just reinforced the depth of the Cardinals.
Pablo Sandoval, 3B, SF – 6-21, 3R, 2HR, 4RBI: Kung Fu Panda is just hitting and hitting well for a Giants offense that needs more of it to beat STL. Without him SF would be in serious trouble.
Adam Wainwright, SP, STL – 7.0IP,W, 4H, ER, 5K:0BB: Massive comeback game for Wainwright after a disastrous game 5 in the NLDS.
Kyle Lohse, SP, STL - .5.2IP, W, 7H, ER, 2K:5BB: The Cardinals best pitcher in the regular season continues to show up for the Redbirds in the postseason.
Jason Motte, RP, STL – 3.0IP, 2-2 saves, H, 0ER: The only saves made in this series are both by the Cardinals flame throwing closer. For some reason I see one more in his future in this NLCS.
Ryan Vogelsong, SP, SF – 7.0IP, W, 4H, ER, 4K:2BB: Great outing for Vogelsong in Game 2 vs the new Mr. October in Chris Carpenter. Cannot say enough about how good of a pickup for such a bargain this guy is for SF.
Barry Zito, SP, SF – 7.2IP, W, 6H, 0ER, 6K:1BB: Zito pretty much saved the Giants season all by himself shutting down the Cardinals offense in Game 5 and getting an RBI bunt single in the process.

Rants and Ramblings:

What a great series for Cardinals fans! After a monumental comeback for the ages in the 9^th inning of game 5 in Washington, the Redbirds came into the NLCS on a wave of confidence and didn’t miss a beat coming into game 1 by the Bay. Last year’s playoff hero David Freese hit a 2 run bomb early followed by another by Carlos Beltran who continues to add to his legendary playoff stats.

With Lynn having a horrible outing in only 3 2/3 innings the home team made it interesting getting back to 6-4 but in the end the STL bullpen was just too good. Six relievers pitched 5 1/3 innings of 2 hit ball with Mujica grabbing the win and Motte closing it out. I don’t see how Jason Motte cannot be considered a top 5 closer in the NL now.

Lincecum made another solid appearance out of the bullpen to stem the tide after Bumgarner pitched poorly. Amazing how Lincecum out of the pen was a shot of his pre 2012 self, then he starts and gets bombed like his 2012 self…still think 2013 will be the better version.

Game 2 was all Giants from the start chasing Carpenter in a rare poor playoff start and Vogelsong throwing a gem. Other than Beltran going 2-3 with a walk, it was the Giants putting up 7 runs on 12 hits with a leadoff shot from Pagan in the bottom of the 1^st. Every Giant except Pence put up a hit and they left 16 on base to the Cardinals 5 this and 14 LOB.

Game 3 saw the pendulum swing back the other way with a solid game by the Cardinals at home. Loshe threw one run ball for 5.2 inning for the win and Jason Motte converted his first two inning save on 19 pitches for his second save. Motte was throwing straight heat too, hitting 99 MPH on the gun many times and three consecutive in one AB. Matt Cain put up a good 6.2 innings but the damage was done by Matt Carpenter on a 2-out 2-run bomb in the 3^rd inning. Carpenter was playing in relief of Carlos Beltran who left the game with a strain knee to make Cardinals Nation tremor in fear for a short time…needless to say Carpenter made the most of his shot. Scutaro had a solid game after Holliday played runaway train trying to break up a double play two days before.

Game 4 was all Cardinals from the get go. Lincecum had a horrible outing getting the start this time going 4 2/3 innings giving up 4 runs and Kontos and Mota getting tagged for 2 more runs each. On the other side Wainwright threw 7 innings of 1-run ball for the win and Salas giving up a 9^th inning 2-run home run to Fung Fu Panda. The outing was huge for Wainwright after a demoralizing outing in Game 5 of the NLCS vs the Nationals. I still can’t figure out how but every year Marco Scutaro seems to get drafted super low, if at all, in most leagues, with low projections on the full season. Then, every year or two he lands on a new team and puts up decent numbers playing one or more of the 2B-SS-3B positions – usually 75-85 runs, 7-10 homeruns, 60RBI, 7-9SB and a .285 average. Not top shelf fantasy performance but good for #6 in the NL and #9 ranked shortstop in Yahoo! Holliday, Molina and Jay put up to RBIs each and Kozma went 2-4 with a run and RBI continuing his solid playoffs.

Game 5 was a different story for the Giants with this time turning into their offensive night and another poor outing for Lance Lynn who couldn’t make it through 4 innings again. Barry Zito threw a phenomenal game using his uber good curve ball like the good ole days in winning his last 8 starts and the Giants blew the lead up in the 4^th inning. The Cardinals offense suffered one of their notorious and not uncommon power outages in where they looked helpless at the plate at times and over matched by a pitcher who doesn’t over match anyone anymore.

Game 6 became the critical game with Carpenter facing Vogelsong back in the Bay state – can Mr. October get his groove back or will we get game 7?

Things that I think we can likely take away from the NLCS, and the whole of the NL playoffs to date:

Peter Kozma has easily played himself into a real good chance at a starting job in the spring, with a an almost sure thing to play once Furcal gets hurt during the year or Kotlen Wong needs more time. Kozma isn’t going to be the next coming of Nomar in his prime or anything, but like David Freese has shown, once you conquer the pressure levels of the off season the regular season may become a little easier when handling the long grind and ups and downs.
Adam Wainwright will once again be a force to be reckoned with next season as he is like Carpenter and can so quickly forget a bad outing and be a true ace only days later.
Ryan Vogelsong will continue to prove to be such a great bargain for the Giants who are pitching rich right now and should expect another solid year from him in 2013.
Mike Matheny is a good manager, rookie or not, and should get NL manager of the year for 2012.
Jason Motte will be a very good closer for years to come, regardless of how bad his eye sight is.
Kyle Loshe is going to get paid and paid a lot this offseason…somewhere other than St. Louis of course.
Pablo Sandoval is so ridiculously good when he is focused and healthy, especially for a guy that looks like a round, puffy dough ball of sorts.
The Giants have proven that buying the big name, high priced players may not always be the answer – see LA Dodgers and their payroll all golfing. Marco Scutaro might have been more valuable than Hanley for like 1/10^th the price or something.
Albert Pujols, as much as he meant to Cardinal Nation, the team and the city was replaced without missing a beat or $250 million dollars. And to boot, the St. Louis Cardinals will be even better next year with youngsters like Kozma, Miller, Alvarez, Wong and Martinez knocking on the major league door and current young guns on Craig, Freese and Jon Jay already entrenched in starting jobs. Beltran will likely have one more solid and mostly healthy year left as he guns for one more shot at the playoffs, and Wainwright and Motte will easily anchor the staff with fire ballers like Rosenhals, Boggs, Kelly and Salas in the pen.