Matchup: Cards Boxos

world series begins tonight at fenway park, home of unlikely al champion red sox. they have just become the first team in history to rally from a 3-0 series deficit, upsetting the detested yankees in unprecedented fashion. matchup between these two teams is wide open. each led its league in runs scored — the first time that has happened since the great 1975 series between the red sox and the reds.

funny, because i (and many others) have likened this cardinals team to the big red machine: an overpowering lineup that hits, slugs, and runs, plays great defense, has impeccable fundamentals, and above all plays with intelligence. . . . coupled with just enough pitching to make it work. likewise, these red sox resemble the sox of 1975: strong starting pitching, up the middle defense, home-run power at nearly every position, and a heavily involved, multifaceted set of bench players. that team, too, reached the series by knocking off a dynastic opponent — the three-time defending champ oakland a’s.

consider how the game has changed: those ’75 boxos led the league in runs scored yet had only one player with 100+ runs, only two with 100+ rbis, and only two with more than 20 homers — rookies jim rice (22) and fred lynn (21). (rice, it will be recalled, missed the entire world series with an injury.) conversely, boxo pitchers that year tossed 62 complete games — 52 from the trio of el tiante, spaceman lee, and ex-cardinal rick wise. the bullpen "closer" was the forgettable dick drago, credited with 15 "saves."

to the numbers:

the ’xos led the majors with 949 runs scored. they outscored their opponents by 181 runs (vs cards 196) and outhomered them by 63 (vs cards’ 45). they were 4th in their league with 222 homers — eight more than the cards — and first in obp (.360) and slugging (.472). they were only 11th in their league in runs allowed, yielding 768, despite yielding the fewest home runs in the al (159) and allowing the league’s lowest on-base avg and baserunners per inning. to repeat: they gave up the fewest baserunners and the fewest homers, yet gave up the 11th-most runs. that’s because they gave up an ungodly 94 unearned runs, most in the american league, thanks to 118 errors (11th in loop) and only 129 double plays (13th). of course, the dp figure is depressed by the lack of men on base . . . . but it’s still a weak number. another factor in the inflated runs-against total: sox pitchers gave up 123 stolen bases, most in the league.

these figures suggest that the cards need to exploit their speed. the ’xos don’t give up homers and they don’t give up lots of baserunners — ie don’t give up long rallies. but you can get ’em by running and putting pressure on their weak defense. neither boxos playoff opponent to date has had much of a baserunning threat; st louis has womack (lumbars willing) and renteria, plus walker and sanders. these guys are gonna have to get on, and when they do they’re gonna have to run. whiteyball returns!

the cards have now yielded 21 homers in 98 postseason innings — two a game — and their staff now holds the record for hrs allowed in a single nlcs, 14 to houston. these figures stink. but the stl staff is the converse of the ’xos staff, in that despite the horrible hr figure they still keep the opponent off the board. their postseason era of 3.84 is the best among the eight participants, and they have yielded only 43 runs in 11 games — a run a game better than their next closest competitor. they have given up only 78 hits in 98 innings pitched; their oba against is a miserly .305. and the defense has been stellar, saving runs and committing only one error thus far. the home runs are the achilles’ heel — nearly got them beat against houston, and could cost them this series. but thus far the staff has managed to stave off the big inning, keep the team in the game long enough for the cardinal bats to post big innings of their own.

doing the same will be key against boston. the ’xos lineup is patient and powerful, boasting six regulars with obas of .380 or better and six with 18 or more home runs. however, their power is not well distributed — two players (manny ramirez and david ortiz) have 40+ homers, but nobody else has more than 20. they are going to swat some dingers, no doubt about it; the cards’ task is to otherwise keep them off base.

the ’xos have posted an unsightly 5.20 postseason era, but it’s inflated by that 19-run bruise sustained in game 3 against new york. set that to the side, and their pitching stats are comparable to the cards’. they will get four starts out of curt schilling and pedro martinez, with tim wakefield and derek lowe picking up the other three. schilling is wounded and pedro is fading, but they’re both still more dominating than anybody the cardinals will throw out there. they have a very good closer, keith foulke, and altho the bullpen has let them down this postseason it is not terrible. erstwhile starter bronson arroyo bolsters the setup corps, which otherwise features ex-card mike timlin and lefty one-hitter specialists alan embree and mike myers. those two will be asked to handle walker and edmonds from the 6th inning on, i reckon. both men had a spot of trouble with the longball — embree 7 dingers in 52 innings, myers 5 in 42.

it has the makings of a memorable series — both teams with obvious advantages over the other, the right equipment to attack each other’s vulnerabilities. boston has four games at home, a definite advantage; also the stronger starting pitchers. but they play ragged, inconsistent baseball — viz three straight losses followed by four straight wins in alcs. i think their best chance of victory is to blow the series open early, win it in four or five games. a longer series, imho, favors the steadier, sounder, more well-rounded team: the cardinals.

there’s a history there. i call it st louis in seven.

Matchup: Cards Astros

cards-astros matchup breakdown:

macro indicators strongly favor cards. st louis outscored houstonians 855-803 and outpitched them 659-698; outscored opponents by 196 runs, vs astros’ 105-run differential. cards win era, 3.75 to 4.05; homers hit (214-187) and allowed (169-174); pitchers issued 85 fewer walks and 38 fewer hits; defense made fewer errors (97-101) and turned more dps (154-136). the cards had the highest defensive efficiency rating in the league; houston ranked 14th. cards advantaged in on-base avg, slugging, and batting average. the cards hold every statistical edge in this series; a clean sweep. whereas the cards finished at or near the top of the league in nearly every category, the astros were uniformly middling — between 6th and 9th place in almost every important benchmark, both hitting and pitching. these numbers point unambiguously to a st louis victory.

the caveats go like this:

1. houston has the two most dominant starters in the series, indeed arguably the two most dominant in the national league this year — rogers clemens and roy oswalt.

2. they are the hottest team in baseball, having played almost .800 ball over the final month and a half to storm into the playoffs.

3. they set a scoring record in the first round of the playoffs by scoring 36 runs in five games against atlanta — who, by the way, led the league in era by one point over the cardinals. in their three wins, houston scored 12, 9, and 8 runs. for the series, they outscored atlanta 36-21, and outhomered them 11-7.

4. they won the season series v st louis, 10-8, including 5 wins in 6 september outings. they swept the cards twice — at busch in april, and at enron in september.

the homers are of particular concern to me. though stl pitchers had the lowest first-round staff era (3.09), they yielded 7 homers in four games — mostly solo shots, but still. houston fields five starters with 20-plus dingers, plus a half-time outfielder who rapped 14. their ballpark generates nearly as many homers as coors field. ballpark factor cuts both ways — st louis hits ’em too, and at a faster rate than they give ’em up — but oswalt and clemens figure not to get tagged all that often.

the same cannot be said for the houston bullpen, which coughs up taters prodigiously. dan micelli (who otherwise pitched very well) gave up 10 in 77 innings. a pitcher named d wheeler (don’t know 1st name) allowed 10 in 65 ip. mike gallo: 12 in 49 ip; c harville: 8 in 53. cumulatively, that’s a dinger ev’y six innings. so the cards will need to work deep counts in the early innings and tire starters out before the 7th; that’ll give them five or six outs to work on the soft part of the bullpen.

the last three or four outs though belong to brad lidge, who struck out 157 guys in 94 innings and had a 1.90 era. he allowed the cardinals one lonely hit in 9-plus innings of work against them this year.

the cards catch a break in the rotation pairings, as clemens and oswalt both pitched twice in round 1 and thus will not appear until games 3 and 4 here. if they make subsequent starts, they’ll have to do so on short rest in games 6 and 7. journeymen brad backe and pete munro (4.30 and 5.15 eras, respectively) will divide the three remaining starts. when clemens does start, expect roger cedeno to be in left field — he’s a lifetime 10 for 23 against the rocket with 6 walks. scott rolen has touched clemens for 2 homers in 12 career at-bats, and tony womack’s a lifetime 4 for 10; but jim edmonds hits just .205 against him, pujols .222, renteria .235. the roster’s combined career avg v clemens: .226.

and just .244 v roy oswalt, though pujols (.344) and renteria (.320) do hit him.

no cardinal pitcher can boast such domination against the astros. on the contrary, hou hitters appear to be pretty comfortable against all our starters — combined career avg of .299 v williams, .281 v morris, .299 v suppan, .341 v marquis ……. these are really alarming numbers. this season, at least, both morris and williams pitched reasonably well against houston — they’ll starts games 1-2 and 5-6 against houston’s weakest pitchers, backe and munro.

nonetheless, micro numbers make clear that houston possesses the bats and the arms to win the series; no question about it. st louis will have to keep the ball in the park, limit hou to solo shots, maybe outslug them 8-6 once or twice. because the stros rely so heavily on oswalt and clemens, the pressure will really be on that tandem; if the cards steal just one win against either pitcher they likely win the series. houston meanwhile would probably be thrilled with a win in just one of the three munro - backe starts.

and what am i predicting? matt morris wins the clincher at home in game 6 vs a fading clemens. as much as the matchups seem to favor the astros, you can’t ignore the macro statistical markers — particularly when they’re as skewed to one side as they are here. houston will put up some runs, but the cards can score a little too. stl pitchers, underestimated all year, have generally risen to the occasion, and the bar is not high; all they need to do is grind out six innings, keep card bats within striking distance, then turn it over to the bullpen.

Matchup: Cards LA

cardinals finish the season a major-league best 105-57. they scored the most runs in the league (855) and allowed the least (659), and even set the pace in "defensive efficiency ratio," ie the percentage of batted balls converted into outs. led the loop in assorted other statistical categories as well, and ranked among the top three or four in most ev’ything else. they enter the playoffs with only one chink in the statistical armor: 169 homers allowed, 7th-best in the league.

could be trouble — their first-round opponent, the dodgers, swatted 203 homers, 4th best in nl. but l.a. offense does not impress overall — just 9th in runs scored, 10th in batting average, 8th in both on-base and slugging. and their pitchers will have their own problems keeping the cards in the park — they allowed 178 homers, 10th in the league; also 4th in era, 6th in runs allowed. the cards outhomered the dodgers 216-203, out-differentialed them 196-77, out-era’d them by a quarter of a run (3.75-4.01); they yielded fewer walks, fewer hits, fewer homers. the dodgers hold only one significant statistical advantage: they committed just 73 errors (leading the league) to the cards’ 97.

by the numbers, it should not be a difficult matchup for the cards; nearly every leading indicator forecasts victory. however, they enter the postseason without their best pitcher (chris carpenter, lost to an unusual nerve ailment) and with bruises and scrapes plaguing scott rolen, steve kline, tony womack, and albert pujols. so the playoff health hex remains alive and well. a second starting pitcher, matt morris, is less healthy than he lets on; finally admits to a tender shoulder after a frightfully inconsistent season in which he failed to pitch out of the third inning on half a dozen or so occasions. as it was entering the regular season, the starting pitching is a big question mark: will it be good enough? of the four pitchers they will throw at l.a., three (morris suppan and williams) had era’s over 4.00; jason marquis set the pace at 3.71. all four of them allowed more than a hit per inning.

again, though, the dodger offense appears ill-equipped to attack these exposed flanks. and they have exposed flanks of their own, beginning w lame-armed ace brad penny, who ironically has the same nerve thing that ails stl ace carpenter. the dodgers do have perhaps the best starter in the series, odalis perez, who compiled a 3.25 era and a 44-128 walk-k ratio. but he didn’t throw any cgs and, thanks to unlucky bullpen support, finished with just 7 wins (v 6 losses). their two other starters, jeff weaver and jose lima, are as hittable as the cards’ starters, though weaver has the profile of a good postseason performer (220 innings, 153 ks, only 19 hr allowed). none of the three won more than 13 games.

perez and weaver will pitch two games apiece, giving l.a. a slight advantage in the rotations. but the bullpen edge goes to the cards, who as a group yielded a very impressive 73 fewer hits than innings pitched (290 h in 363 ip) and only 26 hr. remove gopher-prone cal eldred from the equation and that hr ratio is 15 allowed in 296 ip. these are comforting stats, suggesting the cards are well-armed for the type of tight wins the postseason demands. but the dodgers have the game’s most unhittable closer, greg gagne, and a capable bullpen corps of their own. the cards did stumble down the stretch, going 13-13 in their last 26 games; but l.a. finished in an 11-11 funk that nearly cost them their playoff berth. i think the cards can and will take them.

btw, the scariest nl team in the tournament is also the least likely and probably least deserving — the astros, who snuck in as the wild card. they took forever to get their act together, were under .500 as late as early august but finished with a torrid six weeks to get to 92 wins. they have two dominating starters, roger clemens and roy oswalt, and an explosive lineup; they swept the cardinals two weeks ago and will likely face them again in the nlcs, after dispatching the braves. astros are about as mediocre statistically as you can be — finished between 6th and 9th in nearly ev’y key category, led the league in nothing, indeed finished top 4 in almost nothing. but nobody wants to play them this month.

x-factor: "astros" is an anagram for "ass rot."