Well we do have that one year on you guys. :p

And the thing about that Cardinals are built like an AL team.

TLR had an Alzheimer's moment.

Wonder if they can check the dugout phone out for that conversation, heh.

That's a lot of long-winded, erroneous stupidity.

It has no foundation of truth, it's exacerbated because the sacrifice is used so often due to the pitcher's spot.

NL teams sac bunt 33 more times per year on average (71) than AL teams (38).

The team with the greatest amount of sac bunts this year was Florida, with 84. They bunted with their pitcher 42 times.

So, the NL team who sacrificed more than any other had a whopping four more sac bunts by position players than did the average AL team.

There was one good thing from Game 5. This:

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/762236/carp.gif

I was at work so i just read this forum to see what was going on in the game. Hilarious at times.

Hama's you have a talent for language dude.

Article red hot from the morning stlToday.com paper

Bernie: Strange game to lose

World Series Game 5

ARLINGTON, Texas • Monday night at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, the Cardinals somehow lost World Series Game 5 to Texas. The score was 4-2, and no, I don't believe what I just saw and heard.

Positioned with an excellent chance to take a 3-2 series lead, the Cardinals played one of their worst and most incompetent games of the season.

And Tony La Russa managed one of his worst, and strangest, games of the year.

Really, the last thing I thought we'd see in this carnival-midway stadium was a smart, powerful, road-tested St. Louis lineup put in two consecutive worthless evenings. I didn't think we'd see the Cardinals succumb to pressure and confusion and spiral straight into a meltdown mode.

I didn't think we'd see La Russa and the bullpen have a ridiculous, inexcusable miscommunication that led to TLR being forced to stick with lefty reliever Marc Rzepczynski to face the Rangers' slugger Mike Napoli, who clubbed the game-winning, two-run double in the eighth inning.

Full disclosure: My brain is fried from trying to comprehend the events of Monday night. This must be why old-school sportswriters used to sip whiskey in the press box. This is too bizarre to absorb and understand on a tight deadline. Game 5 came down to phone calls? Really? And how do we possibly explain this? What do I look like, a Verizon, AT&T or Sprint salesman?

According to La Russa, he called the bullpen with orders to warm up Jason Motte and Rzepczynski. La Russa might as well have made a long-distance call to China, because the message got garbled and didn't make it through. Somehow, in the middle of all of this, Lance Lynn began loosening up even though the entire team knew that the plan was to give Lynn one more day of rest after he'd thrown 47 pitches in Game 3. La Russa attributed the problem to the very loud stadium noise.

"They heard ‘Rzepczynski' and they didn't hear ‘Motte,' and when I looked up there, Motte wasn't going," La Russa said. "(Later) I called back and said ‘Motte,' and they heard ‘Lynn.' So I went out there, wrong guy. (Lynn) is not going to pitch today. ... That's why - it must be loud. I give the fans credit."

Rzep heated up, but Motte sat.

That left Rzepczynski to deal with Napoli.

Result: Boom! Ballgame.

La Russa said he called later, asking for Motte, only to have bullpen coaches Derek Lilliquist and Jeff Murphy get Lynn ready instead. Again, the excuse was crowd noise. What the heck was going on out there near the bullpen, an AC-DC concert?

And even if crowd noise was a factor, how does anyone get 'Rzepczynski' confused with 'Motte' or 'Lynn' mixed up with 'Motte.' Do any of those names sound alike to you? Here's an idea: Whitey Herzog does those hearing-aid commercials; please have him send a few units to the Cardinals bullpen.

After Rzep gave up the double to Napoli, imagine La Russa's shock when he signaled for a pitching change two batters later, only to see Lynn walking in to pitch to leadoff man Ian Kinsler. By this time La Russa must have thought he'd used up all of his minutes on his phone plan.

"I thought it was Motte, and they were yelling at me as I went out," La Russa said. "I didn't hear them. It wasn't Motte. So I saw Lynn. I went, ‘Oh, what are you doing here?' "

Lynn was told to lob four pitches to intentionally walk Kinsler. Motte was finally and belatedly summoned to take care of No. 2 hitter Elvis Andrus.

I guess the phone call went through this time. What are the Cardinals using out there in the bullpen, one of those automated-voice answering services?

"For Marc Rzepczynski, Press 1."

"For Jason Motte, Press 2."

"For Octavio Dotel, Press 3."

"For Arthur Rhodes, Press 4."

And so on ...

This is craziness, no?

How about sending a text message next time?

You knew there was a problem when Ryan Franklin strolled in from the pen in the eighth ...

The Cardinals once won a World Series behind an amazing pitching performance by Grover Cleveland Alexander.

Now they may lose a World Series game because they don't know how to use Alexander Graham Bell's invention?

Others in the bullpen offered a different version of events of the phone calls and instructions, so who really knows what happened?

I was, however, surprised when the pizza-delivery man showed up on the pitcher's mound with a large pepperoni (extra cheese) in the bottom of the eighth.

While the Cardinals were doing their Abbott and Costello routine, the Rangers were staying calm, winning Game 5, and seizing control of the best-of-seven series.

I think we'll see one of the cell-phone companies jump on this opportunity, because La Russa and the Cardinals just gave them a fantastic idea for a commercial. But there was more to this than Bullpen-phone-gate.

I didn't think we'd see La Russa twice take the bat out of Albert Pujols' hands by ordering sacrifice bunts in front of him. Texas manager Ron Washington undoubtedly is appreciative.

I didn't think we'd see two botched hit-and-run plays that led to a non-sprinter, Allen Craig, getting thrown out at second base by the length of a coast line, with Pujols at bat.

I didn't know that Pujols is making strategy decisions in crucial situations. Pujols called the second hit-and-run on his own, in the ninth inning. And then he didn't even bother to swing as Craig got cut down at second.

Maybe the Cardinals can convince Pujols to stay by offering him the job of player-manager.

I don't know why Ron Washington is smart enough to pitch around Pujols, but La Russa continues to allow Napoli to beat the Cardinals in important situations. Napoli has nine RBIs in this World Series and is slugging .846. Is there a reason why it makes sense to challenge him?

Even with the bizarre decisions and phone-call follies, the Cardinals should have won Game 5.

They scored 16 runs in nine innings in Game 3. They've followed up with two runs, total, in 18 innings in Games 4 and 5.

It's unfathomable, really, to see the Cardinals self-destruct so dramatically. They gagged in Game 5, wasting a strong performance by starting pitcher Chris Carpenter, who went seven strong innings, allowing only solo homers on mistake pitches to Mitch Moreland and Adrian Beltre. It shouldn't have mattered. The homers would have been meaningless had the Cardinals blown Game 5 wide open.

The Cardinals put so many runners on base in Game 5, I thought someone would set up a toll booth at second base to aid the Texas economy. But after scoring two runs in the second, the Cardinals went poof.

It's a shame to see the Cardinals do this to themselves after rallying with such admirable tenacity to save the season.

This became a different team on Aug. 25.

Now the Cardinals are looking like the Aug. 24 version.

After winning the first game of the World Series, the Cardinals let the Rangers escape in Game 2. After beating up the Rangers with a 16-7 smackdown in Game 3, the Cardinals allowed the Rangers to recover for two consecutive wins.

Overall the Cardinals sent 41 hitters to the box to take at-bats in Game 5. They received nine walks, a hit batsmen, and put 17 men on base. They could only scrounge for two runs, and we didn't think that was mathematically possible.

Cleanup hitter Matt Holliday twice came up empty in crucial situations that could have won Game 5 for St. Louis. He's having a brutal World Series, with three hits in 18 at-bats (.167), four strikeouts and three ground-out double plays.

"It hurts to let the team down," Holliday said.

Holliday wasn't by himself. David Freese stranded five runners overall in Game 5. There were misses by just about everyone as the Cardinals went one for 12 with runners in scoring position.

Had the Cardinals' hitters done even a remotely respectable job, the lead would have been so huge, the bullpen could have hung up on La Russa or prank-dialed him in the dugout.

Game 5 should have ended with a happy flight home, but after all of the screw-ups Monday night, we can't be sure the Cardinals even made it to DFW airport. They might have gotten lost along the way.

The Rangers are in control now. They're delivering the money hits. They are getting better managing. And they have the superior phone plan. With his staggered team suddenly down 3-2, La Russa's next call may be to 911.

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/sports/colum...#ixzz1bmBz0mhG

Alnorth is a good guy and a good poster. he doesn't cuss.

anyone watch Baseball Tonight last night?

Kurkjian explained the entire fiasco...

now I know the cynics on here will call it all a big excuse...but people really believe LaRussa called up Lynn to IBB?

He wanted Motte and the bullpen coach didn't understand him...

people just want to bash, and bash, and bash LaRussa who has won constantly in St. Louis...like he's an idiot

but it's not his fault the Cards can't hit when they have runners on base...or is it? I bet it is. Nevermind. It's all LaRussa's fault!

anyone watch Baseball Tonight last night?

Kurkjian explained the entire fiasco...

now I know the cynics on here will call it all a big excuse...but people really believe LaRussa called up Lynn to IBB?

He wanted Motte and the bullpen coach didn't understand him...

people just want to bash, and bash, and bash LaRussa who has won constantly in St. Louis...like he's an idiot

but it's not his fault the Cards can't hit when they have runners on base...or is it? I bet it is. Nevermind. It's all LaRussa's fault!

Yup, because it's not like you couldn't bring in an infielder and have him throw warmup pitches to buy Motte time, or have Rzep continually check over and go on and off the mound.

The Cardinals have had this happen before and they used cellphones to get around it. It's a bullshit excuse.

Even if it were a legit excuse, and it's not, explain to me why

1) Craig is running in the 9th
2) Theriot comes in to sac bunt over Schumaker and is then promptly replaced by Jay when Jay has more sac bunts than Theriot anyway and Schumaker can handle the bunt perfectly fine.
3) The person who is sac bunting in this situation is moving over Yadier Molina, who can't score from second on anything less than a solid double
4) Craig sac bunts in the 3rd, ensuring that Albert will be walked and the DP will be in order
5) Furcal sac bunts in the 6th with runners on 1st and 2nd and no one out
6) Rzepczynski stays in to face Napoli when any RH pitcher other than Boggs makes more sense. Lynn, even if not available, is a better matchup than Scrabble there

There is literally no one on Earth defending Tony La Russa today. That should illustrate something to you.

LaRussa managed poorly, the team hit worse. There wasn't anything LaRussa could've done to win that game once Beltre hit it out. Every last player on the team was resigned to taking shitty ABs in clutch situations.

That said - this is absolutely not a new thing for LaRussa coached baseball teams. I've seen season after season of TLR teams get way too tight when the pressure is on and I think it's in large part due to how tense LaRussa is. Notice that they suddenly stopped hitting once the momentum shifted their way in the series?

LaRussa is a bad frontrunner and he has been for the last decade. He's a great underdog (it frees him up to do whatever he wants and his team plays more loose). But once they got that lead and Pujols looked like a destroyer of worlds, I think he started to get tense again and I think his team can feel it.

If this was a one-time thing, I'd absolve LaRussa of blame. But this is a pattern for his teams and I think there's something to it. Last night every last guy on that team walked to the plate in an RBI situation like they were facing a firing squad. I wish he could've done something to loosen them up a bit and get them relaxing at the plate.

He's getting a savage beating and I'm not sure it's justified. He does, however, deserve some criticism on unrelated grounds.

That game was absolutely over once it was tied, but even with that being said there is no excuse for his management of the game at any point leading up to or after that point. It was immersion learning in self destructive idiocy.

It doesn't illustrate anything to me. I know how it works, a team loses, they look for someone to blame.

It's baseball...

and the Cards have had as much success as anyone under Tony LaRussa. 3 World Series in 7 years? Middle market team?

I'm not a Cards fan...I tend to believe the report on ESPN...apparently you can't see who's warming up in Arlington from the visitor's dugout...and every time he wanted Motte, Motte wasn't available because he wasn't warming up...

I have a hard time believing a guy who is notorious for pitching the matchups is purposely going to leave a lefty in to face Mike Napoli.

That said, I don't give a shit. I hope Texas wins it all. I am in full riot mode...hopefully I make it on TV! I'm going to torch a car or climb a light poll and get domed by an empty vodka bottle or something.

yet, if Matt Holliday gets a hit once or twice the Cards win the game...

TLR should have pinch hit McGwire or something...

oh that's right, Holliday shouldn't even be in the lineup! Again, LaRussa's fault!!!!

I honestly think Hamas thinks he is a better manager than Tony LaRussa. Just like he thinks he's a better GM than Pioli, and a better coach them Haley.

Sorry Hamas, sometimes you need to pump the brakes a little bit.