The Pecan Park Eagle

What is it with these guys behind the red birds on the bat?

Last night, as they twice did in Game Seven against the Texas Rangers in the World Series last year, the St. Louis Cardinals twice survived a stand at that “one strike away” door into eternal baseball damnation one more time with a dazzling rally in the 9th and rolled to an amazing win over the Washington Nationals before their heartbroken fans.

If Nolan Ryan stayed awake to watch, and we have a hunch he did, it isn’t a big stretch to see him muttering something like the following with a deadpan face to his dear spouse: “Let’s change the channel, Ruth. I think we’ve seen this show before and I didn’t like it the first time it played.”

I watched the Cardinals-Nats Game Five at home with my adult son Neal and had drifted easily into one of those teaching modes that often come over me these days about things I care about. Neal doesn’t mind. He either likes it, or else, he has long-past-childhood mastered the “humor thy father as he needs” mode of attentive listening.

When the Nats pushed across an insurance run in the bottom of the 8th to give them a 7-5 two-run lead over the Cards, I commented to Neal that the extra run had most probably given Washington the cushion they would need to finish St. Louis in the 9th. “With closer Drew Storen pitching for the Nats,” I said, “it isn’t likely that the Cards will get the two runs they now need to tie the game in their final time at bat.”

With the Astros now AL-bound, Neal has shifted his loyalties from the Astros to the NL-icon Cardinals. That’s important here to the point of my son’s following response: “Dad, do your thoughts on probability take into account that the Nationals are playing the Cardinals?”

“Of course, they do,” I affirmed.

“Then you and I must have been watching two different Game Sevens in the World Series last year,” Neal said in that smirky tone he sometimes good-naturedly reserves for me alone. What actually happened next in the game is best summarized in the following graphic by that top of the 9th inning scoring cell for the St. Louis Cardinals:

The amazing, magical Cardinals did it again! Twice coming back from the fated door and escaping the “one-strike-away” plunge, the St. Louis Cardinals plated four RBI from the two-bottom position player hitters in the batting order to set up their own two-run lead as a margin that would break the hearts and smother the dreams of all Washington.

Daniel Descalso ripped a two-out bases loaded single that caromed off the glove of Nationals shortstop Ian Desmond to score the two runs that pulled the Cardinals into a 7-7 tie. Then Pete Kozma followed with an opposite field single to right that plated two more runs for the final 9-7 margin that closer Jason Motte would defend to the death of Washington hope in the bottom of the 9th.

Maybe the science of baseball statistics and the art of long-term baseball watchfulness have to be slightly adjusted when it comes to assessing probabilities in big games that include the St. Louis Cardinals in the Halloween month of October. – Makes you wonder if MLB has ever inspected their clubhouse for the bubbling hot presence of a witchcraft cauldron, plus the bells, books, and candles that are so popularly used in the darkly wishful arts.

Now the Cardinals are off to play the club that wears the orange and black Halloween colors, the San Francisco Giants, for the 2012 National League pennant. This one is a best four of seven match, pitting the 2011 World Series champion Cardinals against the club now representing the 2010 World Series champion Giants.

The Cardinals pulled off the greatest comeback in a single playoff game by coming back to win from a 6-0 deficit. The Giants became the first NL club to rally from an o-2 hole at home to win a five-game playoff series on the road against the Reds.

And now the Cardinals and Giants meet each other.

As Bette Davis mighty have said it, were she around today to express anything about the upcoming pennant series between the Cardinals and that other magical NL team, the Giants: “Hold on, baseball fans, we may be in for a long and bumpy night!”