Game 5: Napoli’s Heroics Propel Rangers To 4-2 Win, Series Lead

On Monday, the story of the day was Ron Washington succeeding on the strength of his character and motivational techniques, not through deft strategic moves. This was supposed to be in stark contrast to the thinks-six-moves-ahead-in-a-game-of-Uno reputation of his counterpart, Tony La Russa. Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch gets another mention for his foreboding tweet after Game 3:

TLR playing chess. The other dugout playing checkers.But in Game 5, La Russa was the one playing checkers. Wait, no, he was the one playing a game of Life with missing pieces, so he had to use broken spaghetti noodles to represent the family. Wait, no. Washington was playing “Manage the Baseball Game,” whereas La Russa was playing a game of “Point to the Doll Where the Baseball Game Touched You.” It was quite possibly the most memorable managerial performance in recent postseason history.

Monday night, the St. Louis Cardinals lost a close contest to the Texas Rangers, falling behind three games to two in the World Series. They didn’t lose for any single reason, as a number of different things went wrong, but by far the biggest problem was that they couldn’t cash in enough of their numerous opportunities. They batted 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position. They put 17 runners on base, and two of them scored. During the regular season, a team put 17 runners on base 217 times. They averaged 6.9 runs in those games.

But the Cardinals didn’t score 6.9 runs, or even 5.9 runs. They scored two runs, while the Rangers scored four runs. The third and fourth of which scored in the bottom of the eighth, when Mike Napoli doubled against Marc Rzepczynski. That’s a matchup that never should’ve happened, so the story became Tony La Russa’s poor managing. La Russa seemed to make a number of strategic blunders during the game, with the Napoli/Rzepczynski showdown capping everything, and people were left to wonder how a Hall of Fame manager had screwed so much up. There were immediate suggestions that the bottom of the eighth was the worst-managed half-inning of La Russa’s entire career.

Is a walk as a good as a hit?

Monday night in Game 5 of the 2011 World Series, the St. Louis Cardinals drew nine walks ... but only two of the walkers scored.

But when the Cardinals actually get quality innings from their starting pitcher before turning to the bullpen in the eighth inning, like a normal team, that should be gravy, right? Like, that would be even better?

Shoulda stuck to the template, Cards.

The idea behind this .gif was that we were all going to play amateur lipreading sleuths together. This is from the end of the sixth inning:

But, uh, there isn’t a lot of guesswork that’s left. Carpenter almost certainly says something like ...

So it’s only the seventh and this game might last for a long while yet, but the top of the seventh inning has taken the lead in the “Weirdest Half-Inning of Game 5 Pageant”.

In the radio booth, ESPN’s Bobby Valentine said, “I don’t get that play at all.”

Carpenter didn’t hang it. It wasn’t a bad curveball. It was a good curveball. And Adrian Beltre maimed it to tie the score. It’s not the first time Beltre has hit a home run while going to his knee, and it’s not the tenth time Beltre has hit a home run while going to his knee, but every time he does it, it still feels fresh.

2-2. Seventh inning. Wow!

Except he came out for the sixth.

Yep.

Of course, a lot people also ignored two salient facts:

1. St. Louis starters were exceptionally unlikely to continue pitching so poorly, and

Well, Wilson’s wound up somewhere kind of in-between. I’m assuming that his day is done, having allowed two runs in five innings of work. But it could have been much worse.

But Ron Washington didn’t bring in the help, and on Wilson’s 100th pitch of the game, he gave Holliday a 3-2 fastball that jammed him, and Holliday grounded out to short.

Are there any conclusions to draw from this data? You might not think so, but there truly is. Just based on each sentence, you can tell that Carpenter was pitching at home in the first game, and he’s on the road tonight. That makes a big difference.

There’s no easy way to put this. But, well, enjoy the baseball tonight. It might be the last game you see for a couple of days.

Nope.

Hey, what’s Skip Shumaker doing in there?

Getting Jay out of the lineup isn’t the worst thing in the world, especially against a lefty. It’s just too bad for La Russa he doesn’t have a right-handed-hitting alternative.

In terms of results, it’s easy to see where Wilson has struggled. While he is still missing bats thanks to throwing plenty of strikes (striking out 8.8 batters per nine over 21-plus playoff innings, half-a-strikeout higher than his regular season rate), he hasn’t had the kind of control or command that befits the #throwstrikes hashtag on Twitter. Wilson has walked 14 batters in those 21 frames, with 13 of them coming in the last 16 innings. He has allowed six homers in the playoffs -- 2.5 per nine -- another indication that he’s not putting the ball where he wants to, or should.

A look at his pitch selection sheds some light on why. Wilson uses a wide variety of pitches on the mound, throwing three different kinds of fastballs (a two-seamer, a four-seamer, and a cutter) as well as two breaking balls (both a slider and a curve), and, for good measure, a change-up. During the regular season, Wilson threw roughly an equal number of two- and four-seam heaters, with his slider and cutter coming up next, then the curve, with the change lagging behind. He threw the two- and four-seamers for strikes at above-averages rates, despite inducing swings-and-misses on them less often than average, and complimented them primarily with his slider, which drew whiffs nearly 19 percent of the time (13 percent average). His cutter, while used as often, was below-average both in terms of swings-and-misses and in total percentage of strikes. While you might be thinking, “A slider and a cutter are similar pitches -- does Pitch f/x know the difference?”, there is a clear velocity difference of 5-6 miles per hour between his cutter and slider.