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Mariners vs. Yankees |
Mets vs. Cardinals
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Tuesday, October 10
Five questions: Mets vs. Cardinals
By Jayson Stark
ESPN.com
1. Can the Mets' left-handers shut down the Cardinals' bats?
The Cardinals almost certainly have the best offense of any team left in the postseason. The bad news for them is: The pitching staff they match up worst against happens to be the one they're facing.
|  | | Will Mike Piazza have a Mr. October-like NLCS? The series may hinge on the answer to this question. |
Awaiting in Games 1 and 2 are Mike Hampton and Al Leiter, who had a 1.93 ERA against the Cardinals this year. And it's no mystery why.
With Mark McGwire still in Manny Mota mode, virtually all of the Cardinals' key hitters are left-handed: Jim Edmonds, Will Clark, Fernando Vina, Ray Lankford, J.D. Drew.
So it figures that the Cardinals hit .255 and slugged .430 versus left-handers this year, as opposed to .276 and .464 against right-handers. The Cardinals also depend heavily on the home run, and the Mets allowed the third fewest in the league. The two starters most vulnerable to the long ball: Rick Reed (28 gopherballs) and Bobby Jones (25 in only 154 2/3 innings).
Of course, the Cardinals weren't exactly facing the Chillicothe Paints staff in the first round, and they averaged eight runs a game against Atlanta. But over the course of the season, the Cardinals hit .233 against the Mets -- their lowest average against any team in the league. So don't don't bet your stash of subway tokens that they'll score eight times a game in this round.
2. Which manager will win the battle of the brainstorms?
Bobby Valentine and Tony La Russa are two of the most innovative managers alive. And if you get them together in the same series, who knows what we might see? Pitchers batting leadoff? Mark McGwire pinch-running? Bases-loaded hit-and-runs? Just about anything is possible.
"Both these guys have a stubbornness about them that they can outdo the other guy," says one NL scout. "They can get into so many mind games, you may get some very crazy games and possibly some very ugly games. I think this series will write a whole new chapter in people saying after games, 'Why did he do that?' "
3. What's the state of the Cardinals' rotation?
On one hand, the Mets have a lineup that can be pitched to. They batted just .210 against the Giants during the Division Series. They scored 80 fewer runs than the Cardinals during the regular season. And their most-feared hitter, Mike Piazza, has hit .228 over the last six weeks (including .231 with no RBI in the first round).
But do the Cardinals have a rotation that can stop this team? Once you get beyond Darryl Kile, there are big doubts about that.
Andy Benes had a 7.36 ERA in two starts against the Mets this year -- and those came when he was healthy. Now he has a bum knee and hasn't pitched since the last day of the regular season. One scouting report: "Way too helter-skelter for my tastes."
Pat Hentgen pitched well against the Mets this season (3.00 ERA in two starts) -- but hasn't pitched since Sept. 30 and owns one win since Sept. 4. Scouting report on him: "He can gut it out with the best of them. But he can't get by with his fastball anymore. Too straight. And the Mets will be very patient with him. They'll make him throw fastballs if they can."
And then there's Rick Ankiel, last seen throwing five wild pitches in one inning against the Braves.
"Ankiel, to me, is the big X factor," says one scout. "My big question is: Which Rick Ankiel will show up? He's a talented guy. But I've never seen him be that wild in my life. And once a guy has that experience in the back of his mind, for him to be able to bounce back like nothing happened would be a miracle. I wonder how many shrinks he's seen this week."
4. Can the Cardinals win the bullpen wars?
The Mets seem to think it's illegal to play a postseason game that doesn't come down to the last swing. And if that's the kind of series this is, that wouldn't seem like a good thing for the Cardinals.
The Mets' bullpen would have been unscored on in the Giants' series if Armando Benitez hadn't given up that three-run homer to J.T. Snow. But Benitez dominated the Cardinals more than any other team this year (three saves, one hit in 4 1/3 innings). And no current St. Louis hitter has ever gotten an extra-base hit off him (28 strikeouts, five hits -- all singles).
The Cardinals, meanwhile, had a 4.84 bullpen ERA this year -- the fifth-worst in the league and half a run higher than the Mets' bullpen ERA (4.37). "That bullpen," says one scout, frankly, "just doesn't excite you."
Nevertheless, that relief crew did an amazing job on the Braves. In 13 2/3 innings against Atlanta, the Cardinals' bullpen allowed only seven hits and two earned runs -- both those runs off Mike Timlin. Without Britt Reames and Mike James (7 2/3 innings, one hit, zero runs), in fact, it might have been a totally different series.
They'll have to keep that up, though, because four of the last five games between these teams were decided in the winning team's final at-bat. And in five of their nine games during the season, the Cardinals' pitcher of record was a relief pitcher. So the Cardinals have to figure out a way to win those games.
5. Will Piazza step forward?
Mike Piazza isn't going to be a .211 hitter in the postseason for the rest of his career. Is he? He's too good, too tough, too fearless. Isn't he?
Well, if Piazza is ever going to get his October act together, this would seem to be a perfect occasion. He's hit .338 in his career against the Cardinals. He's a .344 lifetime hitter against Kile, a .407 hitter against Benes and a .300 hitter against Hentgen. He batted .348 against the Cardinals' staff this year.
But just as big a Piazza question is whether the Cardinals will be able to run on Piazza, who threw out just 32 of 142 base-stealers this year (22.5 percent). Only five NL teams stole fewer bases than the Cardinals this year, but they were 6-for-8 stealing against the Mets.
"You know Tony will look very carefully at where they can exploit the Mets' weaknesses," says an NL scout. "And that will be one area where they'll try to challenge them. I'd expect them to run at every opportunity, especially against Leiter (who permitted 22 steals in 35 attempts) and Bobby Jones (21 for 24). They'll want to take them out of their game early if that's at all possible."
Of course, the Giants thought the same thing. And they were able to muster up exactly two stolen-base attempts in the entire series (both successful). So it isn't as easy as it sounds.
Jayson Stark is a senior writer at ESPN.com
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