Los Angeles-St. Louis: Dodgers Eschew Formula, Sweep Two from Cards at Home

(Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images)

Two down, one to go.

My fellow Dodgers Featured Columnist, P.J. Ross, and I have been saying the same thing for the past few days:

Not only was it imperative for the Boys in Blue to ding up Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright during the first two games at home, but they would indeed do just that and head to St. Louis with a 2-0 lead in their National League Division Series playoff matchup.

Maybe the Dodgers didn’t follow our blueprint to the last detail, but they got the job done, roughing up NL Cy Young candidate Chris Carpenter to the tune of four earned runs in five innings on the way to a 5-3 Game-One triumph.

Wainwright then silenced the Dodgers for eight innings, giving up only a fourth-inning solo homer to Andre Ethier. The Boys in Blue scratched out two unearned runs in the bottom of the ninth off Cardinals' closer Ryan Franklin to escape Game Two with a 3-2 win.

The Dodgers followed no blueprint at all in the second outing, except for “hold on until the Cardinal bullpen appears in the game.”

Here’s the basic formula that PJ and I agreed the Dodgers needed to follow:

1)  Randy Wolf and Clayton Kershaw needed to pitch deep into the games

2)  Carpenter and Wainwright had to be made to leave early, with a deficit

3)  The superior Dodger ‘pen had to hold the lead

4)  The Dodgers needed to keep Albert Pujols in check

To paraphrase Meatloaf, “Two-and-a-half-outta-four ain’t bad.”

In Game One, Wolf hit the showers early; but then again, so did Carpenter. The Dodgers won the battle of the bullpens and Albert Pujols was 0-for-3 with two intentional passes in five plate appearances.

Each team had ample opportunities to score more runs—stranding 30 base runners, a major league postseason record, including 16 by the Dodgers—but clutch pitching with runners in scoring position depressed scoring in the 3-hour, 52-minute tilt, the longest in division series history.

L.A.’s bullpen—widely lauded as the best in the majors—saved the day.

With Wolf clearly not at his best, giving up six hits and two earned runs in just 3.2 innings (while laboring to throw 82 pitches), the ‘pen hurled 5.1 solid innings to keep the Dodgers in the game.

Jeff Weaver came in with the bases juiced and got the home team out of the fourth with just a single run across and allowed a single hit in an inning and a third.

He was followed by Ronald Belisario (perfect inning); Hong-Chih Kuo, who labored a bit (two hits) but struck out two in his shut-out seventh; George Sherrill, who retired both batters he faced; and Jonathon Broxton.

Broxton got the Machine, Albert Pujols, to ground out meekly to end the eighth, and then went on his all-too-familiar high wire act in the ninth, giving up two hits and the ‘pen’s only run before finally shutting the door and picking up the save.

Game Two was nerve-wracking for Dodger fans, but it underscored that this team refuses to go down without a determined effort.

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