Dodgers-Cardinals: Los Angeles Dominates, Sweeps St. Louis

Sweeping teams in the NLDS is starting to become old hat for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Last year, the Dodgers swept the Chicago Cubs right out of the NLDS and this year they took their brooms out against the St. Louis Cardinals. The Dodgers beat the Cardinals yesterday 5-1 to win their best-of-five Division Series three games to none.

My poor buddy and resident Cardinals fan, Tom.

The Cardinals are his life. Now, instead of watching of watching the Cardinals today, he will be reduced to watching reruns of Phineas and Ferb with his daughter and shopping for wicker chairs at Fortunoff’s with his wife.

I already Fedex’d him a rope.

The Dodgers in this series really whipped the Cardinals in every way imaginable. They out hit, out defensed, out managed, out hustled, out pitched, and just flat-out out played the Cardinals.

Yesterday’s game was a microcosm of the entire series.

Here is what I said about the Vicente Padilla when the Dodgers signed him: “To be honest, I actually like this move for the Dodgers. Going from the launching pad known as Arlington Stadium to the friendly confines of Dodger Stadium, should benefit Padilla tremendously. “

I always feel like the Dodgers can plug in any pitcher and they will be serviceable in Dodger Stadium. IE: Jose Lima in 2004.”

I thought Padilla would be good, but not this good. Yesterday, Padilla was very good. Padilla allowed just four hits, walked one, struck out out four, and most importantly gave up zero runs in seven rock-solid innings of work.

And give Padilla and catcher Russell Martin a lot of credit in this game. They realized early on that the Cardinals were impatient and very aggressive with their hitting approach.

So what do you do when a team is impatient? You throw pitches off the plate. Not too much where even Vladimir Guerrero wouldn’t swing at the pitch. But just enough where the pitch is close enough to be called a strike.

Case in point: The Yadier Molina AB in the first inning.

I thought this was the most important AB of the game. The Dodgers had already scored a run in the first inning and the Cardinals came back to load the bases with two outs in the first inning.

Up came Molina and Molina played right into Padilla’s hands. You could tell that when Molina went up to the plate, Padilla could have thrown a ball five feet over his head and Molina still would have swung at it.

Martin sets up very inside, Padilla throws the ball about five inches off the plate inside, and Molina grounds weakly to short. If Molina gets a big hit there, it could have been the jump start the Cardinals needed.

One last note about the Padilla-Lima comparison I referenced to earlier. Lima shutout the Cardinals in Game Three of the NLDS back in 2004.

Oh the humanity.

Andre Ethier hit a two-run bomb off of Joel Pineiro to make the score 3-0 and the game was essentially over. And speaking of Pineiro, I am going to get on Tony LaRussa here for a second.

I felt LaRussa really, really had a bad game yesterday. It was like he was asleep at the wheel.

For a guy who makes five pitching changes to get one out in the seventh inning of a meaningless game in San Diego, how can he leave Pineiro in the game for as long as he did?

It was clear early on that Pineiro didn’t have his sinker working and was leaving the ball up. When I was on the phone with Tom (resident Cardinal fan from early), he noticed this right away.

As soon as Pineiro gave up that bomb to Ethier, LaRussa should have been warming someone up. The way the Cardinals’ offense was going, three runs was like 10.

LaRussa left Pineiro in the fourth, he gave up another run, AND HE WAS STILL IN THE GAME!! It wasn’t until the fifth that LaRussa took Pineiro out. The damage was done however, as the Cardinals were down 4-0.

Not only did LaRussa fall asleep in handling Pineiro, he fell asleep in the seventh inning as well. The Dodgers were still up 4-0, they had a runner on third with two outs and Manny Ramirez was coming to the plate.

Ramirez had already doubled twice and was swinging a hot bat this game. So of course you walk him right? Not if you are LaRussa. LaRussa decided to pitch to Manny and of course, Manny singled to make the game an unreachable 5-0.

For a guy who over manages every situation of every game, he decided to under manage in his team’s most important game of the season. Now he can under manage his golf game because LaRussa’s and the rest of the Cardinals’ season is over.

The Dodgers will play the winner of the Colorado Rockies-Philadelphia Phillies series, which is currently tied at one game apiece. Which ever team they play, the Dodgers will be the favorite in the series.

But for now, the Dodgers can sit back, relax, and enjoy the moment.

They are headed to the NLCS.