ndugan1 wrote:
It took major huevos to go after Beltran the way Wainwright did, even if he knew he had Delgado on deck. And the pitch he got Floyd on was a preview, although it wasn't nearly as nasty as when he rung up Beltran.
Speaking of the backwards-K, I was thinking about it, and over the past several years, I've seen just about every playoff-series-clinching out, and as best I can recall, it's almost always been either a ball in play, or, very rarely, a swinging strikeout. I can't remember the last series I saw end on a called strike three.
The Cards might not get a game off the Tigers. Hell, I'll be happy if they take just one, and I hope Kenny Rogers has gotten all the postgame pitching heroics out of his system. But I have to admit, I feel pretty good going into this one. Definitely better than in '04, when they had to modify each player's uniform once they got to Fenway to account for the giant fork.
I can't recall any postseason series ending on a called strike three, either. I can definitely recall one that ended on a walkoff walk, though, and that was the 1999 NLCS. On the mound? The Gambler, of course, for those New York Metropolitans against the Bravos. (Poor Bravos; all they earned was the right to be swept by the Yanks.) That was typical Kenny Rogers until this 2006 postseason.
Someone pointed out this morning on XM that whichever manager wins will have recorded the accolade of having won the World Series once in each league. Interesting, eh?