Cardinals take 2-1 series lead over Nats
BY HOWARD FENDRICH Associated Press
Thursday, October 11, 2012
10/11/12 at 4:04 AM
Owasso graduate Pete Kozma
was nearly left off 40-man roster
a few times this season.
WASHINGTON — Chris Carpenter
was every bit the postseason
ace he’s been in the past for
St. Louis.
Taking the mound for only the
fourth time in 2012, missing a rib
after surgery to cure numbness
on his right side, the 37-year-old
Carpenter pitched scoreless ball
into the sixth inning, rookie and
former Owasso standout Pete
Kozma delivered a three-run
homer, and the defending champion
Cardinals beat Washington
8-0 Wednesday to take a 2-1 lead
in their NL division series.
“If the baseball world doesn’t
know what an amazing competitor
he is by now, they haven’t been
paying any attention,” Carpenter’s
teammate Matt Holliday, a
Stillwater graduate, said. “Every
guy on this team has watched him
work his way back, watches him
in between starts. He’s a stud. Just
a guy that you want out there.”
All in all, it was quite a damper
on the day for a Nationals Parkrecord
45,017 red-wearing, toweltwirling
fans witnessing the first
major league postseason game in
the nation’s capital in 79 years.
Three relievers finished the
shutout for the Cardinals, who
can end the best-of-five series in
Thursday’s Game 4 at Washington.
“We’re not out of this, by a long
shot,” Nationals manager Davey
Johnson said. “Shoot, I’ve had my
back to worse walls than this.”
Kyle Lohse will start for St.
Louis. Ross Detwiler pitches for
Washington, which is sticking to its long-stated plan of keeping
Stephen Strasburg on the
sideline the rest of the way.
The Cardinals won 10 fewer
games than the majorsbest
Nationals this season
and finished second in the
NL Central, nine games behind
Cincinnati, sneaking
into the postseason as the
league’s second wild-card
under this year’s new format.
But the Cardinals become a
different bunch in the highpressure
playoffs — no matter
that slugger Albert Pujols and
manager Tony La Russa are
no longer around.
Carpenter still is, even
though even he didn’t expect
to be pitching this year
when he encountered problems
during spring training
and needed an operation in
July to correct a nerve problem.
The top rib on his right
side was removed, along with
connecting muscles.
He returned Sept. 21, going
0-2 in three starts totaling
17 innings, so it wasn’t clear
how he’d fare Wednesday.
Yeah, right.
“I’m not going to go out
there and compete,” Carpenter
said, “if I’m not good
enough to compete.”
Carpenter allowed seven
hits and walked two across
his 5 ? innings to improve
to 10-2 over his career in the
postseason. That includes
a 4-0 mark while helping
another group of wild-card
Cardinals take the title in the
2011 World Series, when he
won Game 7 against Texas.
With the exception of
Ian Desmond — 3-for-4 on
Wednesday, 7-for-12 in the
series — the Nationals’ hitters
are struggling mightily.
They’ve scored a total of
seven runs in the playoffs and
went 0-for-8 with runners in
scoring position and left 11 on
base in Game 3.
Rookie phenom Bryce
Harper’s woes, in particular,
stand out: He went 0-for-5,
dropping to 1-for-15. He went
to the plate with an ash bat
and no gloves in the first inning,
tried wearing anti-glare
tinted contact lenses on a
sun-splashed afternoon —
nothing helped.
“Carp’s been a dominant
pitcher his whole career. Biggame
pitcher. He showed up,”
Washington’s Jayson Werth
said. “He pitched well today.
We had him in some spots.
We had him on the ropes a
couple of times. We were just
one bloop away from a totally
different ballgame.”
Carpenter was pretty good
with a bat in his hands, too,
collecting a pair of hits, including
a double off the wall
that was about a foot or two
away from being a homer.
When he reached second
base, he raised his right fist.
Similarly, neither club
could be sure which Edwin
Jackson would show up for
NL East champion Washington,
a year after he was part of
the Cardinals’ championship
team: The one who struck out
10 and allowed one unearned
run in eight innings against
St. Louis on Aug. 30, or the
one who lasted only 1 ? innings
in a loss to the Cardinals
on Sept. 28.
Much closer to the second
version, it turned out, although
he did recover from
a rough start to retire eight of
his last 10 batters Wednesday.
Still, Jackson was done after
five innings and four runs.
“I didn’t feel like I was out
of rhythm. I didn’t feel like I
couldn’t throw strikes. I just
missed across the plate with
a couple of balls and it cost
me,” Jackson said.
The Cardinals tacked on
four runs off relievers Craig
Stammen, Christian Garcia
and Ryan Mattheus.
Not since the original Senators
lost to the New York
Giants in the 1933 World Series
had big league baseball
stretched past the regular
season in Washington.
The Cardinals opened the
second inning with four consecutive
hits, the biggest being
Kozma’s first-pitch homer
into the first row in left off
a 94 mph fastball to make it
4-0.
Kozma took over as the
Cardinals’ everyday shortstop
in September, replacing
injured All-Star Rafael Furcal,
and only had 72 at-bats
during the regular season.
Notes: Holliday fouled a ball
off his left leg in the eighth,
stayed in to deliver a tworun
single, then left for a
pinch runner. … Frank Robinson,
the first manager of the
Washington Nationals, threw
out the ceremonial first pitch.
NLDS: CARDINALS LEAD SERIES, 2-1
Cardinals vs. Nationals
1. Washington 3, St. Louis 2
Nats come from behind in Game 1
2. St. Louis 12, Washington 4
Cards shell Jordan Zimmerman
3. St. Louis 8, Washington 0
Carpenter, Kozma lead rout
4. 3:07 p.m. Thursday, TBS-47
(Lohse 16-3 vs. Detwiler 10-8)
5. 7:37 p.m. Friday (if necessary),
TBS-47 (pitchers TBA)
Games 1 and 2 in St. Louis, 3-5 in Washington
Around the league
Game 4: San Francisco 8, Cincinnati 3
Series tied 2-2
Game 3: N.Y. Yankees 3, Baltimore 2
(12 innings). New York leads series, 2-1
Game 4: Oakland 4, Detroit 3.
Series tied 2-2
Associated Images:
St. Louis pitcher Chris Carpenter pitched 5 2/3 scoreless innings Wednesday in the Cardinals’ NLDS victory over Washington. PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS / Associated Press
St. Louis’ Pete Kozma, an Owasso graduate, hits a three-run home run in the second inning Wednesday against Washington. ALEX BRANDON / Associated Press
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