Carlos Beltran homers twice as Cardinals blow out Nationals in Game 2, 12-4

Garcia’s day was finished after throwing 51 pitches, walking three and allowing the one run. The Cardinals went on to win the game 12-4.

The results of the MRI won’t be available until Tuesday.

Garcia threw only two innings, walking three, allowing a run, and throwing 51 pitches.

Harper made the second out of the inning at third, down by four. He probably won’t do that again, so have your yuks now, National League.

So the series is all evened up as the two teams shift to Washington, D.C., where they’ll resume the series Wednesday.

Back on Oct. 8, 2012, the St. Louis Cardinals hosted a playoff game against the Washington Nationals. In this game, Carlos Beltran hit a home run in the sixth inning to push the Cardinals’ lead to 8-3.

Why are you reading this? Because here’s a piece of trivia: That’s the same Nationals/Cardinals game that is still going on this very minute. I’m assuming it’s Oct. 14, 2023, and we have flying cars now. One of these days, I’ll go outside and ride in one.

... and in a game the Cardinals desperately need to win, who knows how important it was? The Cardinals were up 7-1, but now it’s 7-3 in the sixth and a leadoff double or triple probably would have made it 7-4, hardly a fail-safe score for St. Louis.

Cardinals pitcher Jaime Garcia went only two innings, though he managed to squeeze a game’s worth of pitches in there, and that meant it was a bullpen game for the Cards. They were pretty good at the bullpen games last year, as they didn’t have a starter record an out in the sixth inning of any of the NLCS. It looks like Mike Matheny found the index cards that Tony La Russa left.

And if it’s a bullpen game that early, that probably means Lance Lynn, who was converted from a reliever to a starter to a reliever to a starter this year. He might have been a better option to start instead of Lance Lynn, in retrospect.

We’re two hours and four innings into this one, and the Cardinals have a commanding 7-1 lead.

The ball barely stayed fair, and it went about as far as you’d gather from that swing. The solo homer pushed the Cardinals lead to 5-1.

In 32 starts for Zimmermann during the regular season, he allowed more than four runs just once. The bad news for Zimmermann? That outing was against the Cardinals, who knocked him around on Sept. 1, pounding out eight runs on eight hits, a walk, and two home runs.

Boy, that lead didn’t last long.

In the top of the second inning, the Washington Nationals grabbed a 1-0 lead when Jaime Garcia gave up an RBI to his opposite number, Jordan Zimmermann. Garcia did recover and retired the next two Nationals.

Last postseason, I wouldn’t shut up about Jaime Garcia’s inning-by-inning splits, as he was like Jimmy Key in the first third of a game and Jimmy Gobble by the end. It was like that all 2011, from April through the playoffs.

This year? Not so much:

Bryce Harper used to do this all the time when he was playing college ball, but he stopped when he got to the pros. I figured it was because someone told him to knock it off, or because he felt like it wasn’t professional.

Surprise, suckers! It’s back for the playoffs:

During the Tony La Russa years in St. Louis, you could often count on La Russa to shake up lineups in the postseason, especially if the team had lost the previous day.

Mike Matheny is no Tony La Russa. His lineup for Game 2 is precisely the same as the lineup for Game 1, except, of course, for the pitcher:

I’m starting to get used to the idea of Jayson Werth leading off, though I’m sure he’ll be back in the middle of the lineup next year. Pretty sure the Nationals weren’t looking for an expensive leadoff hitter when they got Werth.

Considering that Bryce Harper is a teenager, his .240/.300/.415 line against left-handers is kind of impressive. The other lefty in the lineup -- LaRoche -- has some platoon splits as well, but he still hits for power against southpaws, with a career line of .250/.305/.445.

In October, the angle of the sun is lower and it sets earlier (6:34 p.m. for October 7) and that meant significant shadows across the playing field during the game. Cardinals players were not happy:

That almost happened, as the Cardinals took a 2-1 lead before the Nats rallied late to win 3-2. The same thing might happen Monday afternoon, with a 3:30 p.m. CT starting time. The problem is summed up well here: