Suppan’s looking good out on the mound for the Cardinals as the game goes into the fifth inning.
In the bottom of the fourth, a pitch by Suppan to Jose Valentin jumped up and hit him in the chin.
8:37 p.m.-Belliard hits a single to left-field. Jeff Suppan is at the plate. UPDATE-8:38 p.m. (Suppan moves Belliard to first on a sacrifice bunt).
That pennant is comin’ Miss Kasi.
7:05 p.m.-Kasi just sent me a message. She’s had a long day.
7:12 p.m.-My friend Nichole just crossed her fingers in Chattanooga, so she’s doing pretty much the same thing that everybody in the Cardinal Nation is doing
First Inning
7:17 p.m.-Eckstein hits pop fly to right-center
7:19 p.m.-Spiezio strikes out looking.
7:20 p.m.-Delgado drops a routine fly ball that grants Pujols second base.
7:22 p.m.-Encarncion pops up to right field, leaving Pujols on second to end the inning for the Cardinals.
7:23 p.m.-Kasi just sent me a message about her sister.
7:26 p.m.-Jose Reyes hits grounder to short.
7:27 p.m.-LoDuca hit grounder to third.
7:28 p.m.-Kasi now is telling me that she realizes that she wants to live alone. Who doesn’t?
7:30 p.m.-Beltran hits a double to left-field.
7:34 p.m.-Delgado walks. David Wright (guy was on my Fantasy Baseball team) is at the plate.
7:35 p.m.-Wright hits a single scoring Beltran. Runners are at first and third.
7:36 p.m.-Green hits a smash to Rolen to get the Mets out of the inning.
Blue Balls 1 Cardinals 0
Second Inning
7:40 p.m.-Edmonds hits a single to rightfield. Scott Rolen is at the plate.
7:41 p.m.-Rolen popped up to center-field.
7:44 p.m.-Molina hits a flare to left-field, moving Edmonds to third because of a misplay by Reyes.
7:45 p.m.-Belliard scores Edmonds with a safety squeeze. And Kasi is now wishing like many of those listeners in Cardinal Nation when Mike Shannon talks about the full moon in New York City that she was here in town to share the pizza I had with my friends out in Cordova.
7:47 p.m. Suppan strikes out to end the Cardinals’ half of the second inning.
7:50 p.m.-Kasi is not believing me when I tell her that the pizza I had on last night was as big as a rug. Valentin pops out to Encarncion, who snags it from Belliard.
7:52 p.m.-Chavez hits a grounder to first.
7:53-Perez hits a popup to left field. Mets go down in order.
Cardinals 1 Blue Balls 1
Third Inning
7:57 p.m.-Eckstein hits a double that got inside the foul line for the Cardinals’ first extra-base hit of the night.
7:59 p.m.-Wilson strikes out for the first out of the top of the third.
8:03-Perez walked Pujols like a sissy. Encarncion hits into an inning-ending double play.
You’ve been through this before, Cardinal fans.
Game 7.
One game.
Win or go home.
Step your game up or fold like a bad hand in poker.
Scott Rolen, please cut out the crybaby crap.
No one’s buying it these days in the Cardinal Nation.
We thought for certain that the Cardinals would clinch on Wednesday night when the NLCS moved back to Shea Stadium.
Chris Carpenter was on the mound.
Some scrub whose last name is the same as a state up North was on the mound for the Mets and even had a better ERA than Carpenter.
So you knew that there was going to be a wild celebration in St. Louis on Wednesday night.
Wrong.
I myself had figured that the Mets were not going to lay down easily and come out swinging.
Which they did on Wednesday.
Now Cardinal fans, it’s time to sit at the edge of the seat.
Big Apple vs. the Gateway City.
Suppan vs. Perez.
And a possibilty that the ghost of that Aquarius girl who put a curse on
the Cardinals back in 2005 could reappear again in front of Scott Rolen or David
Eckstein.
Hopefully that will stay away from the confines of Shea Stadium.
I’ll be liveblogging Game 7 tonight, so look for up-to-date scoring reports throughout the evening.
Go Cards!!!!!
When we look back on the 2006 NLCS, the one thing that will be on the minds of people in the Cardinal Nation is that twice during the series, there were postponements due to the account of rain in both St. Louis and New York City.
For the Cardinals, it meant that Jeff Weaver got an extra day off because of the rainout and a possible chance of pitching the Cardinals to a victory and one game away from the World Series.
All this coming on three days’ rest.
Early this morning, I read on Derrick Goode’s Post-Dispatch blog that there was even talk of pitching Chris Carpenter in place of Weaver for game 6, mainly because Carpenter has a very strong home E.R.A. and has been the Cardinals’ workhorse for the last two years and is well on his way to pitching 250-plus innings for the second straight year.
Which would have resulted in Carpenter pitching on four days’ rest and Weaver would get the ball for Game 6 and a possible close to the series.
Not only that, the soap opera antics of Scott Rolen, who was moved down in the batting order on Sunday night, has pretty much been the storyline of the series for the Cardinals.
Not to mention Pujols’ hamstring, which was reported in this morning’s Post-Dispatch (http://www.stltoday.com/sports/cards
Of course, here’s one stat.
Since 1996, according to the good people at Viva El Birdos, pitchers that got short rest during the postseason have started 34 games.
And have finished with a combined record of 5-15 with a 5.54 E.R.A.
Tom Glavine did it against San Francisco in 2002 while with the Braves and got shelled for seven runs in three and a half innings of work.
That should give you some solace, Cardinal fans.
The Emperor once again got a 2-run triple for the Cardinals in the bottom of the first inning to put the Cardinals on the board and Jeff Suppan hit a homer that barely got over the left-field wall to give the Cardinals a 3-0 lead in the second inning.
David Eckstein scored on a wild pitch thrown by Steve Traschel and Preston Wilson scored on a fielder’s choice grounder by Jim Edmonds to make the score 5-0, which is where the score stands now.
The Mets now have Darren Oliver pitching for the Mets after Traschel left the game because of a line drive that was hit off his foot into left field by Preston Wilson.
And so far, Oliver’s looking goo but he’s overshadowed by Suppan’s outstanding performance.
Carlos Beltran hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the sixth inning to give the Mets a 2-0 lead, which is where the score stands at in the bottom of the eighth inning with Paul LoDuca on first with a single.
10:03 p.m.- Carlos Delgado went the opposite way to move LoDuca to third with a standup double. David Wright is now at the plate with one out in the bottom of the eighth.
10:05 p.m.-Wright hits grounder to second. Chavez hits a looper that hangs up for Edmonds in medium left-center.
Score remains 2-0 as we go to the top of the ninth inning in New York City.
Last year, me and my friend Kasi was talking periodically during the 2005 NLCS through instant messaging.
And happened to be talking on instant messaging at the same time when Albert Pujols hit that homer against the Astros in Game 6 of last year’s NLCS.
With the Cardinals in the NLCS again and me talking to her again on instant messaging, the song Deja Vu is in my mind as I write the first report of tonight’s game.
Molina and Weaver got hits in the third inning and David Wright made a great defensive play that robbed the Cardinals of at least a run to get the Mets out of the top of the third inning for the Cardinals.
And well, you know the rest.
With the extra day off, Jeff Weaver will have the start on tomorrow night for the Cardinals against Tom Glavine of the Mets.
Cliff Floyd will also be in the lineup tomorrow night and start in left field. He was orignally not supposed to be in the lineup because of tenditis problems but with the day off, he gets a chance to be in the lineup for Game 1.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Mets do a moment of silence for Cory Lidle, who was killed today in a plane crash on Manahattan’s Upper East Side and began his career for the Mets, before tomorrow’s game. My friend Rita and I talked a bit about it tonight and it’s still kinda shocking to have a guy at such a young age have his life cut short.
