Joe Buck (left) in his current form...
...and his ultimate destiny
Teams that swing at the first pitch in the postseason tend to lose, and lose quickly. The Cards only started scoring runs in this one when they stopped hacking at the first pitch and made the Mets throw strikes.
Why Guillermo Mota threw Scott Spiezio, who seemed constitutionally incapable of doing anything but sitting dead red, a fastball will remain one of the season's great baseball mysteries.
Albert Pujols seemed to be running a bit gingerly even before making the turn on his slump-busting single. Knowing supergenius Tony LaRussa's low tolerance for injured players being, well, injured, could it be possible that Pujols is playing hurt? It would explain his slow start, and slower trot.
Is it just me, or does it look like the aforementioned Spiezio's eerie chin hair is best explained by the notion that he swallowed a My Little Pony? My guess is the customized Red Butterscotch pony. but I could be wrong here.
Did Scott Spiezio eat this pony?
After watching Billy Wagner's 9th inning meltdown, Mets fans are learning what Phillies fans knew last year - that Wagner will inevitably pick the biggest stage and worst moment possible to melt down. So Taguchi may in fact be the only guy on the Cardinals roster whom Wagner could take in a fair fight (rumor has it that Eckstein is a master of the eye gouge), a slap-hitting defensive replacement type, and yet he still managed to get around on a Wagner pitch and pull it into the stands.
It appears clear that Carlos Delgado clearly has worked out whatever issues he and Jobu were having, as his home runs tonight could only be described as "swatted".
Chris Carpenter spent most of the night pitching with a look on his face like he'd just been sent to the principal's office. He didn't get his breaking stuff working until his last couple of innings, and his fastball seemed curiously straight. Cards fans can only hope that he'll have enough rest to pitch more like himself before his next start in this series, and rest assured, he will make another start.
Ronnie Belliard is what would happen if someone took Manny Ramirez' hair and put it on an OompaLoompa. That being said, his glove-hand toss to David Eckstein on a play where Eckstein got absolutely leveled may have been the defensive highlight of the series.
On the other hand, there was Shawn Green's microscopically mistimed leap on Spiezio's game-tying triple. That ball could have been caught, and I have no doubt that Joe Sheehan's going to be all over Green over at BP tomorrow for the defensive lapse.
Let me say it again - So Taguchi pulled a Billy Wagner pitch. Think about it.
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