All riiiight, we're into mid-October now and it's time for the World Series! It looks like the Red Sox did manage to get Justin Kindberg enough rest following his great Game 4 performance to take the mound tonight, and facing him will be Vince Bachler, who pitched 8 strong innings in his one appearance in the NLCS. The series opens at Fenway Park for 2 games before heaiding to Busch Stadium in St. Louis for the next 3 (assuming there's not a sweep of course). The weather has cooled down from the league championship series highs to 53 degrees, with the wind blowing left to right at 13MPH.
Top 1st: Justin Kindberg gets Jim James to ground out to 2B Brian Long on the first pitch and the 1971 World Series is under way! Depew grounds out to SS Oniji Handa. I suspect they're going to get to know Mr. Handa pretty well. Satterfield is the first strikeout victim of the night, whiffing on a 2-2 splitter. 0-0.
Bottom 1st: Glynn grounds out weakly to shortstop to lead off. Brian Long, the second baseman with some solid pop (at least for a middle infielder) jacks a 1-1 forkball into the right-center gap. It rolls all the way to the wall and by the time the ball gets in, he's on at 2nd with a double, his 2nd extra base hit of the postseason and first since Game 1 of the ALCS. Mike Miller singles up the middle. Long careens around third base and is juuuuust safe under the tag by Jon Stuart! It was a decent throw by CF Jim James but Long got himself a great jump. 1-0, Red Sox! Tom Brown, the ALCS MVP, comes to the plate trying to extend his hot hitting. The at-bat does start well, as Bachler misses way outside with a breaking pitch and it hurtles to the backstop for a wild pitch. Brown singles in front of CF Jim James, who was playing him extreeemely deep. Brown did finish in the top 10 in both doubles (32, 6th) and triples (7, 8th) so I guess that was for good reason. Anyway, we've got runners on the corners with only 1 out. Kristian Schneider hits a high fly to deep center which does come down but which also scores Mike Miller easily from third. 2-0, Sox! Tom Brown decides that maybe the Red Sox aren't done scoring... he steals 2nd on the first pitch. Jun Kim then walks and yeah, the inning's not over yet. Oniji Handa gives the fans a little bit of excitement, as he hits one that looks like it's going to bounce off the Green Monster before the wind catches it and turns it into a long out. 2-0, Red Sox.
Top 2nd: Lorenzo Martinez coaxes a 7-pitch at-bat into a walk. Rafael Disla connects with a 2-2 fastball and sends a hard groundball to Mike Miller, who starts up a 3-6-3 double play. Miller was the 1969 Gold Glove and has a good chance of repeating this year; he's no slouch out there. With the bases now empty, Mike Galeana flies to short right field and RF Jun Kim to retire the side. 2-0, Red Sox.
Bottom 2nd: C Jeremy Dolak, not exactly the picture of discipline (a .287 OBP during the regular season) draws a leadoff walk off of Vince Bachler. Justin Kindberg sacrifices his man along to 2nd as a pitcher does, 1-3. Bachler throws his 2nd wild pitch of this game and boom, Dolak's 90 feet away from making this a 3 run game. Bachler had just 4 WPs the entire regular season; suffice to say, he's wild tonight. Is the spotlight of the World Series getting to the 25 year old? Jon Glynn hits a fly to right field which does the sac-fly job and we do in fact have a 3-0 ballgame. Brian Long flies out to LF Rafael Disla, who stands in front of the scoreboard in left to clinch the final out. 3-0, Red Sox.
Top 3rd: Kindberg strikes out Jon Stuart looking at a 2-2 pitch. He has words with the umpire after the play but the ball looked in the zone to me. Dusty McCully, playing his first game in almost a week, flies out weakly to right. Vince Bachler pops out to center to retire the side. 3-0, Cardinals.
Bottom 3rd: Mike Miller slaps one back through the box and past Vince Bachler for a leadoff hit. The Red Sox have been getting to Bachler, that's for sure. Troy Brown hits a hard chopper to shortstop that Dusty McCully has to wait to come down and by the time he does, he can't get the throw off in time to catch the runner. It's an infield single! Runners on first and second. Kristian Schneider gives Bachler a big gift with a shot to shot to 2B Tom Depew that turns into a 4-6-3 DP. Mike Miller does take 3rd on the play. Schneider's now hitting just .150 for the postseason. Kim flies to left to retire the side. 3-0, Red Sox.
Top 4th: Jim James pops out to SS Oniji Handa near the pitchers' mound. That's 10 men up and 10 men down for St. Louis now. Tom Depew hits one right at Mike Miller at first base, who completes the unassisted putout. Casey Satterfield breaks up the nascent no-hit bid with a soft single up the middle that juuuust gets by Oniji Handa. And the first chance he has, Justin Kindberg puts one in the dirt that Jeremy Dolak can't handle. It's a wild pitch and the Cards have a runner in scoring position for the feared Lorenzo Martinez. Martinez hits one towards the hole between Mike Miller and Brian Long. Miller gets to it and tosses the ball to Kindberg for the final out of the inning. 3-0, Red Sox.
Bottom 4th: Hey, Bachler settled down a little last inning. Maybe he'll be able to stick? He also faces the bottom of the order in the 4th. Oniji Handa challenges 1B Lorenzo Martinez with a groundball to his right but Martinez is able to take it in and race to the bag in time to get the speedy Red Sox shortstop. Dolak hits a base hit up the middle to bring up the pitcher. Kindberg misses a bunt on a 1-2 fastball and is the 2nd out of the inning. That's also Bachler's first K, such as it is. He immediately gets his 2nd on Jon Glynn, who gets waaay in front of an 0-2 changeup to retire the side. 3-0, Red Sox.
Top 5th: Disla strikes out swinging on a 2-2 curve. Galeana hits a slow roller to his counterpart at third base, Kristian Schneider. Schneider doesn't even attempt a throw as Galeana chugs in to first base with an infield single. Kindberg promptly picks him off. No soup for you! Stuart strikes out to retire the side. 3-0, Red Sox.
Bottom 5th: Brian Long walks to lead off. That's already Bachler's 3rd base on balls. Mike Miller slaps a single into left in the next at-bat; he's been finding ways to get base hits in all October now (with a .458 average and a 3-3 game). Tom Brown swings like he wants to make it a 6 run game but he gets a little too under it and pushes it a little too much to the middle and it's just a long fly out to CF Jim James. Schneider flies out to Rafael Disla in left. Jun Kim also gives a pitch a good ride but like Tom Brown hits it into center field, where Jim James catches it on the warning track for the final out. 3-0, Red Sox.
Top 6th: Dusty McCully hits a weak grounder back to Kindberg, who tosses him out 1-3. I could bring out Vince Bachler... if it was the 21st century! He's at 85 pitches but hasn't completely, like, died, so he'll stay in. It helps that this is a very low leverage plate appearance. He hits a ball so pitcher-like that Oniji Handa, the first man to get to it, can't complete the throw by the time Bachler reaches first base. That's his first base hit all postseason and the 3rd allowed - all of them pretty weakly hit balls - by Justin Kindberg. Jim James hits a line drive towards shortstop that Oniji Handa leaps up to grab for out #2. Tom Depew hits one to 1B Mike Miller, who takes it himself for the final out. 3-0, Red Sox.
Bottom 6th: Oniji Handa Ks and gives Bachler 3 on the night to equal his number of walks. Jeremy Dolak also strikes out. Man. Bachler isn't, like, averse to the strikeout but he's defininitely more of a finesse guy, with 148 Ks in 233 innings in the regular season (5.7 per 9, which I guess is technically above average). Kindberg avoids him striking out the side by grounding out 3-1. 3-0, Red Sox.
Top 7th: Casey Satterfield belts it to deep center but Jon Glynn gets on his horse and makes the catch at the warning track for out #1. Lorenzo Martinez grounds out to Brian Long at 2nd. Kindberg strikes out Rafael Disla on a 2-2 splitter to retire the side. 5 Ks for Kindberg, who earned the old-timey nickname "The Ironworker" in the Boston press for his tenacity and work ethic. 3-0, Red Sox.
Bottom 7th: Vince Bachler is up to 110 pitches but has pitched well the past few innings. I'm going to give him a shot at pitching through the 7th and coming out for a pinch hitter. Glynn tops a low change and pulls it to Mike Galeana at third, who throws it in time for out number 1. Long walks on 4 pitches, his 2nd walk of the game and Bachler's 4th. He's on thin ice. So thin in fact that with a L-R-L configuration on its way I'm going to pull him for lefty specialist Kevin Kading. Bachler finishes with 6.1 IP, 4 walks, 4 strikeouts, 7 hits, and 3 runs so far - he is of course responsible for Brian Long.
Kading gave up 1 run in his last outing and overall had 1.1 IP in 2 appearances in the NLCS with 1 walk and 1 strikeout. He had kind of a rough year overall, finishing with an ERA of 5.00, but the 35 year old proved he can still get lefties out, as he held them to a .239 BA in 1971. He gets his shot against the red-hot Mike Miller... and he manages to use that hotness against him(?), as Miller hits a hard groundball to Mike Galeana, who initiates an around the horn 5-4-3 double play.
Top 8th: Justin Kindberg by the way is still sitting pretty at 84 pitches and has a shot at a Maddux tonight. He gets Mike Galeana to just barely break his wrists on a 1-2 forkball (which by my eyes was in the strike zone anyway). Jon Stuart hits a flare to right but Jun Kim's having nothing to do with it - he charges in and makes a diving catch for out #2. I probably should have pinch-hit for Dusty McCully, who's clearly still recovering from the strained oblique that kept him out of the last 2 games of the NLCS. I did not and he flies out harmlessly to center field. 3-0, Red Sox.
Bottom 8th: I chose to leave Kevin Kading for reasons entirely purposeful and not at all related to having to hop out of OOTP for a call and then accidentally going into continuous mode. Anyway, he stays in to face Tom Brown, and allows a single to left. Then Kristian Schneider, a lefty, walks in and breaks out of a bad slump with a hot shot into the hole between 1st and 2nd. Tom Brown gets all the way to 3rd on the play. At this point, it's in for a penny, in for a pound, so I leave Kading in to face one more lefty, RF Jun Kim. John Stuart can't handle a very handle-able pitch and it's a 4-0 contest thanks to the passed ball! Schneider gets up to 2nd. That looks fortuitous for Boston because Kim hits a hard groundball to 2nd that almost certainly would have been a double play if Schneider was still on 2nd base. As it stands, he sneaks over to 3rd on the play, which is going to be the last for Kading.
In for Kading for the final 2/3rds (barring a major breakdown) is setup man Rick Legere. He's due up 1st in the 9th and I want to save Billy Munoz just in case there's a comeback. Handa is the first man to face him and he strikes out looking for 2 down. That brings up Jeremy Dolak, or rather Sam Marks in place of the catcher, to try and get Kristian Schneider home and make this one a 5-run ballgame. He grounds out easily to 3rd base to retire the side. 4-0, Red Sox.
Top 9th: The Cards have their work cut out for them and Justin Kindberg has been on cruise control. Sid Bartoszek comes in as the late-inning defensive replacement for Jeremy Dolak for the 3rd time in October. Pinch-hitting against the lefty Kindberg will be Dylan Dockery (.355, 1, 14), a career .226 hitter and former starting CF for the A's who had some success with the Cards this year as a right-handed pinch-hitter. As a former AL guy he's also one of the few players on this team with experience against Kindberg. It's all for naught, though, as Kindberg strikes him out on 3 pitches. That brings up CF Jim James, whom I'm also removing for a right-handed PH, this time backup catcher Jose Medina (.262, 0, 17). He flies out to left for 2 away. And now Tom Depew, also a lefty but a solid enough hitter that he gets to take his cuts. Depew hits a soft line drive towards the hole that Mike Miller is able to flag down for out #3. 4-0, Red Sox win!
Justin Kindberg looks like he's got the NL's number just as much as he had the AL's this year. Man. It's going to be haaaaard for the Cardinals to win this if they're going to spot the Sox 2 and maybe 3 wins like the one tonight.