Thursday, October 9, 2014

A rant about the St. Louis Cardinals: Debunking the "Small Ball" Myth

I am getting fed up with this whole SMALL BALL WINS CARDINALS PLAY THE RIGHT WAY BEST FANS IN BASEBALL thing.

David Eckstein was on w/ Herd yesterday and he was talking about how they get all these small hits etc .etc.   ok… let me make something clear:

The biggest damage done by STL in the division series had nothing to do with "small ball" or taking the extra base.   It was EXTRA BASE HITS.   Carpenter hit a HOME RUN… no taking extra bases or stealing or "putting the ball in play" B.S..  Then he hit a DOUBLE… a bases clearing double.

As a matter of fact, with all those singles the Cardinals had early on in the Game 1 7th inning, it would have been pretty deflating if Kershaw got one out between Carpenter's at bat and the one before.  I mean they had like 6 singles in a row and barely scored two runs.   That sounds like station to station baseball to me.

I don't mind people praising the Cardinals, but be accurate, ok?   The Cardinals basically got a) unexpected slugging, b) superior bullpen work, and c) a little luck to win their series.   Even as it was, the Cardinals won all three of their games by just one run or two runs.   I shall tip the cap to them, in fact I did, and they move on.

So Game 1… the Cardinals put away the game with… gasp, A HOME RUN.    They tied the score of Game 2 in the 8th with: A HOME RUN.  Then, in Game 3… the deciding factor was… you aren't going to believe this,  A HOME RUN.   Finally, in Game 4, when things got very intense, and the season on the line for LA, the Cardinals put them away with…

I know this is going to shock you: it was a home run.

The point of all this is… let's see how good this team really is when they play a more balanced pitching staff that has no fear of Carpenter whatsoever.  Good luck to the Giants.

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