MVN - Most Valuable Network

A Pleasant Way to End The Home Schedule

I’ll admit it - I had no intentions of watching last night’s game.  Call me a fair weather fan, call me a cynic, whatever.  With Roy Oswalt on the hill for Houston, and Wellemeyer starting for us, I believed I already knew the outcome.

Oswalt killed us in the 2005 NLCS.  He pitched great, shut down the Cardinals lineup completely.  Since that post season, here’s his line against the Cardinals:

7 starts, 46 1/3 innings pitched, 7 ER, 4-2 record with 1 no decision.  Yep, that’s an ERA of 1.36 since the start of the 2006 season.  Seeing as the club has staggered through September, last night’s result was a foregone conclusion.

Except Wellemeyer out pitched the great Oswalt for 5 innings, and the Cardinals had Oswalt on the loser’s hook for 6 innings.  Unfortunately, the bullpen coughed up a hairball over the next 3 frames, including the usually reliable Izzy, leaving the Cardinals staring at a 3-1 deficit as the ninth inning started.

Seeing as the Cowboys were routing the Bears, I casually flipped to the game and realized it was the bottom of the ninth; that the Cardinals had runners on first and second, no one out; that Brad Lidge was pitching; and that Albert Pujols was about to step into the box.  Instant interest; instant flash back to Game 5 of the 2005 NLCS; lots of anticipation.

Albert swung and missed at a 97 MPH fastball down and in.  He took a cutter low for a ball.  Lidge then fired a high fastball that Albert crushed.  I thought it was out when he hit it; it wasn’t, just a laser of a line drive that missed going over the left field wall by 6 feet.  Cairo scored making it 3-2.  Albert left the game to a standing ovation, and was visibly upset he had just missed hitting the ball out.

So that brought the ‘rookie’ Rick Ankiel in to face the once-mighty Lidge.  He worked the count to 1 and 2 (fouling off some tough pitches), then hit a hard ground ball between the Astros first baseman and the bag that headed into the RF corner.  Oquendo never hesitated; he started waving in Braden (pinch-running for Pujols) before Braden reached the second base bag.  Relay throw to the plate was not close.  4-3, Cardinals win.

Not as emotionally charged as winning the World Series; not as professionally rewarding as clinching a playoff spot; but an immensely satisfying win nonetheless.  I missed most of the game due to my harbinger of doom, but I saw the inning that counted, and that’s good enough.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 24th, 2007 at 11:44 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.