Is it unreasonable for Cardinals fans to ask themselves whether their team is trying, literally, to throw this National League Championship Series to the Giants? Bad enough the Cardinals lost Game 3 on a walk-off throwing error. Putting the Giants on the threshold of the World Series with two bad throws in Game 4's sixth inning is worse.
So what do you call the Giants' ability to score runs and win games with, without, or despite base hits, seemingly? With or without the Cardinals handing them the openings to do just that? First baseman Brandon Belt tried to explain it after the Cardinals beat themselves 3-1 Wednesday. "We might find some weird ways to score runs, but we're getting people on base first," Belt said. "That's the main thing."
One of the cleverest if saddest tweets throughout this NLCS has been the one saying, "Giants key to winning — let the other guys screw up!" That could be a World Series indicator if the Giants wind up going there. The Royals don't make mistakes. At least, their eight-straight swath to the Series hasn't shown any. The Giants may have to find a new strategy fast if they get to the Series.
For now, of course, they won't try to fix what doesn't need a repairman so far. If the Cardinals seem that bent on gifting them games, the Giants aren't exactly going to file any formal complaints.
Rest assured that poor Matt Adams will be fitted for the proverbial goat horns. Some might think they should be shared with Cardinal manager Mike Matheny. He thought removing reliever Carlos Martinez to open the bottom of the sixth would keep a precarious enough 4-3 Cardinal lead intact.
Martinez may get a little weary as he passes 25 pitches but he'd only thrown 17 in the fifth, has started in the past, and is a multiple inning option worth playing especially if he might have had at least eight more pitches to work with for three outs. Matheny went instead to rookie Marco Gonzales, who'd only walked one man in five and a third thus far this postseason.
Juan Perez — that almighty .170 hitter himself — opened by working Gonzales for a full count walk. Brandon Crawford singled to right four pitches later. Matt Duffy, pinch-hitting for Giants reliever Yusmeiro Petit, pushed the runners to full scoring position with what they used to call a textbook bunt, except that these Giants weren't exactly renowned for bunting during the season.
So why did manager Bruce Bochy turn to it this time? Aside from the fact that he couldn't care less about any Book? "It's a little different in the postseason," he said after the game, words a few postseason managers would have done well to heed. "You've got to grind out every run you can, especially late in the games. It's a very important part of the game. And it does put a lot of pressure on the defense."
Does it ever. And with the Cardinal infield now in for a play at the plate, Gregor Blanco whacked a grounder up to first. Adams stumbled a sliver backhanding the ball, then threw it to the plate on the run and on a bounce. The bounce was all the room Perez needed to score.
Then Joe Panik whacked a 2-0 service on the ground to first. Adams picked it cleanly enough, stepped on the pad, and threw an air mail past second base, enabling Crawford, who'd hesitated initially, to chug to the plate without obstruction.
Adams didn't flinch after the game. The man who'd made himself a postseason hero when he accepted the gift of a Clayton Kershaw fastball down the pipe and drilled it over the fence to win the National League division series had now made himself an NLCS horror story.
"The play at home, there's a fast runner at third and I was going in on the ball and threw on the run," he said honestly. "Just should've made the throw, though. The second one, I should've just touched first and checked home. They're both fast runners, so I tried to get the ball out as quickly as possible, and make the throws."
Just like that the Giants overthrew the Cardinals and held a 5-4 lead. Matheny hooked Gonzales for Sean Maness and, just like that, Buster Posey slapped a two-strike service to left for an RBI single.
Just like that, Pierzynski's tie-breaking RBI single in the second, Jhonny Peralta's run-scoring double play in the third, and Kolten Wong's full-count bomb six pitches later disappeared into the memory chips.
Credit Petit for another lockdown middle relief job, after he spelled starter Ryan Vogelsong to start fourth. The man who threw 6 scoreless in the extras that shouldn't-have-been 18-inning marathon against the Nationals threw 3 scoreless Wednesday, his only blemish a base hit turned into a prompt double play and a walk.
"The difference in the game," said Cardinals third baseman Matt Carpenter, "was Petit coming into the game and shutting us down."
Credit the Giants bullpen for going Royals on the Cardinals again, with Jeremy Affeldt, Jean Machi, Javier Lopez, Sergio Romo, and Santiago Casilla keeping the Cardinals caged once Petit's night's work was done.
Casilla surrendered an excuse-me single to Jon Jay with two out in the ninth. He'd only gone 35 days and 40 hitters between hits off him. "What do you know," Lopez cracked after the game. "He's only human after all."
What about these Giants as a whole, though? What do you call a team who can win games without base hits figuring in a lot of the scoring?
They've been powerless, in hitting terms, ever since Belt whacked that eighteenth-inning bomb in a division series Game 2 they'd have lost if Washington manager Matt Williams had thrown out The Book (his book, anyway) and let Jordan Zimmermann finish the 3-hit shutout from which he was a measly out away.
If you're scoring at home, be advised the Giants now average 2.2 runs per game without base hits bringing them in over their past six postseason games. "We lead the league in RTIs," cracked third base coach Tim Flannery Tuesday, after St. Louis reliever Randy Choate threw the Game 3-winning run home with a throw into the bullpen in the bottom of the 10th. "RTIs" in Flanneryspeak means "runs thrown in."
They play like midgets more than giants these days. But David versus Goliath wasn't exactly just a cute bedtime story. The Royals proved that when they ran the Orioles out of postseason town. Now the Giants are on the threshold of putting the Cardinals to bed for the winter.
How delicious can this be for Giant fans and how desperate for Cardinal fans? Madison Bumgarner against Adam Wainwright in Game 5. With a healthy Wainwright it might be a duel to the death. But with Wainwright ailing it's not unreasonable to believe the Giants enter the game with a very unfair advantage.
In this set, for these Giants, ground outs, double plays, and bases on balls are as dangerous as 3-run homers. "If it works and it wins you a game," Panik said Thursday, "we'll take it." That's exactly what these Cardinals ought to fear.
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