Jason Motte (R) #30 and Yadier Molina #4 of the St. Louis Cardinals celebrate after they won 7-1 against the Milwaukee Brewers during Game Five of the National League Championship Series at Busch Stadium on October 14, 2011 in St Louis, Missouri. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)Jamie Squire/Getty Images
Managers Ron Roenicke and Tony La Russa did not hide their concerns ahead of the fifth game of the National League Championship Series between their team.
Roenicke, the Milwaukee Brewers manager, knew that his starter Zach Greinke has difficulty on the road and handling the erratic defensive stylings of the team. La Russa of the St. Louis Cardinals has told people he sometimes worried about Greinke's counterpart, Jaime Garcia. A tell-tale sign things are getting away from him is he fidgets. Starts looking around.
Both fears materialized Friday night. But while La Russa could manage his way around his – aided by former Toronto Blue Jays Octavio Dotel and money in the bank Marc Rzepczynski - Roenicke was helpless: his team couldn't catch the ball.
"That is an unbelievably tough lineup," said Dotel. "You face a team like that, you got to have some better luck than them if you want to win."
The Cardinals grabbed a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series with a 7-1 win at Busch Stadium. Yadier Molina and Matt Holliday had three hits each and the Brewers committed four errors leading to three unearned runs, including a two-run error and obstruction call on Jerry Hairston in the Cardinals three-run second inning, a throwing error by second baseman Rickie Weeks in a fifth inning that ended with the bases loaded, and a shocking mis-play by shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt. Three of the Cardinals first five runs were unearned, including the fifth when Betancourt misplayed a bouncer off the bat of John Jay. Just two batters earlier, Betancourt made a virtuoso play – aided by a deft catch by first baseman Prince Fielder – on a ball hit deep into the hole.
Hairston also made a strong play just two pitches before his error. But then that's the Brewers: athleticism all over the place and 111 errors, five less than the Cardinals but still the ninth-worst in baseball.
Shaun Marcum, another former Blue Jays pitcher, will get the start for the Brewers in Game 6 on Sunday despite an erratic post-season and concerns about fatigue. But it is essentially a defeault move. "I'm not going to bring Yovani (Gallardo) back on short rest," said Roenicke.
La Russa has managed the hell out of his team this season. With runners in scoring position after a Nick Punto sacrifice bunt in the fourth, he put on the contact play with Garcia at the plate, and the pitcher chopped a ball to the right of the pitcher's mound to drive in David Freese.
He also made a gutsy call on Garcia, who had been in control until the fifth. With two out and Jonathan Lucroy on second after a Greinke sacrifice bunt, Corey Hart drove in the Brewers first run after a battling nine-pitch at bat. Hart fouled off an 83 miles per hour change-up and with his bat speeded up, Garcia and catcher Yadier Molina tossed Hart a 92 miles per hour fastball. Clearly agitated, pitching coach Dave Duncan walked to the mound and Octavio Dotel got up in the bullpen, with Ryan Braun on deck and Jerry Hairston at the plate. After Hairston's single, Garcia started fidgeting: blowing into his hands and shuffling his feet. Albert Pujols called time out and La Russa walked out to yank a visibly upset Garcia.
"It was quick," said Dotel, who had barely thrown eight warm-up pitches. "I was thinking I might be coming in to face Weeks. It was kind of hard to believe. I got to think in the regular season, he (Garcia) stays in."
La Russa seemed to agree. "There was a lot of conversation about how in Game 1 … how quickly they (the Brewers) put runs up on the board," he said. "We just notice … I don't know, maybe it's just that it's a long season for a young guy, but he gets in some innings where he elevates the ball. He recovers some times, but as he gets some innings in him, it gets harder."
Dotel, part of the bullpen bounty the Cardinals received in their trade with the Blue Jays for Colby Rasmus, threw five cutters to Braun before getting him to swing and miss at a slider to end the threat. "I got to say: I honestly think that was the game," Dotel said matter-of-factly. Molina must have agreed, because he reacted as if the game was over, pumping his fist and firing the ball into the crowd behind the Cardinals dug-out. Braun is 2-for-10 with eight strikeouts against Dotel.
It was Rzepczynki's turn to shine in the eighth, when with runners on the corners and one out he was brought on to face the lefty-mashing Fielder. Rzepczynski struck out Fielder on four pitches, capping it off with an 86 MPH slider, before Jason Motte induced an inning-ending bouncer from Weeks.
Rzepczynski has appeared in four games in the series, striking out three in 2 1/3 innings. Fielder stared back at Rzepczynski and shook his head as he walked off. It was the second time in the series Rzepczynski got him.
"He's exciting, to me," La Russa said of Rzepczynksi. "He's got a lot of live stuff. If you look at Fielder, he's hitting left-handers like he hits right-handers. But he has not seen him that much and if he makes a pitch, it's tough. Another 10 or 15 times that Fielder sees him, then he'll have a better shot."
The Cardinals scored two more runs in the eighth when Brewers reliever Marco Estrada was charged with a throwing error on a throw to first. But that one was all on Fielder, who was slow getting to the bag on a play that summed up the Brewers lost night.
Molina's RBI double in the second inning snapped an 0-for-22 Cardinals slump with runners in scoring position, going back to the first inning of Game 3. That is the longest post-season hitless streak with runners in scoring position for the Cardinals since the 1934 team went 0-for-24 in that years World Series.