World Series?

Hey now, game one in the bag! What's up with St. Louis? I'm sure they have more to offer than what we saw tonight. Anybody follow them this year? Curious of your thoughts. Red Sox looked right about on par tonight, taking advantage of mistakes and employing solid fundamentals. Lester has his act together now, so it played out as expected to some degree, enhanced by Cardinal mistakes.

Tomorrow is up in the air. Never know what Lackey will bring but he's been pretty good this year and usually keeps the Sox in the game. Game 3 Bucky has 5 good innings to give, but will tire. Possible injury being hidden by sneaky Red Sox people. Game 4 Peavy? Flip a coin. If it's tails, give me Iglesias back...

I wonder if the St. Louis pitching looks great in the NL but now is facing the big boys and an offense that just wears you down and can hit anyone. After facing stellar pitching from Tampa Bay and Detroit, St. Louis looks about the same if not a tick below. Radar guns don't impress me, nor do gaudy stats from an NL season.

My bigger question is about the Cardinals offense. How does it work? It seems like Carpenter is the key, and he looks sneaky dangerous. Who else?

Help me, Missourians. Fill my heart with fear, and if not, help me to enjoy the WS more with your insight into the Cardinals. I'm not trying to be a jerk after game one, I'm looking for honest evaluations. I know St. Louis had a bad night and Boston had a good one. Long way to go.

The Cardinals were definitely tight last night; reminded me of the way they played in 2004, only worse, because they were flat in 2004, ridiculously sloppy yesterday. They've been prone to an occasional bad game like that, including a lengthy stretch around late August.

Here's a scouting report on the Cards from the St. Louis newspaper; says it better than I can.

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball ... 5fa66.html

They relied on excellent pitching and solid defense in the playoffs. Their bats were COLD. If they can't get back on track pitching-wise, they're cooked, because I don't think their offense will generate too many runs. If Beltran is out for a few games, that's obviously a huge loss.

There are Matheny haters in St. Louis. I'm not one of them, but I don't trust him to make the right moves. Clint Hurdle outstrategized him for most of the regular season.

Interesting game tonight. Not super exciting. Sort of fell on Breslow and Salty for mistakes. I feel for Breslow, he's been great. Salty is...not very good.


More games for all!

Both games showed how these teams will capitalize on the others mistakes. StL has an edge in the bullpen and makes it a seven-inning game. The scene shifts to St. Louis and have to give the Cards the edge as Boston loses Napoli and Ortiz has to play IB. IMO the Cards roster is more flexible for the NL game. This is going 7

StL has an edge in the bullpen and makes it a seven-inning game.

An edge with pure stuff perhaps, but so far we've seen Boston's hitters are more than capable of hitting them. These pitchers are good, but the Red Sox are quite used to seeing electric arms come out late in games and that cuts the advantage down a bit. Plus, as you've seen in games one and two, the starter will not get past the 7th because that's the game plan for Boston so that pen better be ready every night.

I think this will be an enjoyable series for the purist! Sure looks like the team that executes will win, as opposed to the team with the big payroll.

I suspect it may go seven games also. The Cardinal pitching has been very good late in the regular season. The young guys - Wacha, Kelly, Martinez, Siegrist, and Rosenthal have been very tough much of the time.

Wainwright usually pitches much better than his performance in game 1 - Lynn is the weakest link among the starters. A little surprised they have not used Shelby Miller more. Cardinal offense can be streaky.

If Craig starts hitting then watch out - he can carry the team when hot.

huge game tonight ... if St. Louis doesn't win, I don't see how they can win both games in Fenway.

As a Cardinals fan, I was distressed at their terrible execution last night with runners in scoring position. When you have a guy on third with no outs -- twice -- and can't even manage a sac fly???

I also don't understand why Shelby Miller has completely disappeared.

And Kolton Wong ... why is he even on the roster? He hit about a buck fifty this season ... clearly not ready for the bigs. It's a shame that the GM couldn't be bothered to acquire a veteran bat for the bench back in August.

I'm a big Cards Fan, and Tom is right. The Cards Must win tonight.

I'm really hoping the Cards come back from that game yesterday, but not nearly hoping as much as Kolton Wong is. There should be some real concern about Wong and Nick Punto....it is horrible to have an EPIC FAIL in the spotlight moment before of all of the world's baseball fans.