Cardinals defeat Brewers, four games to two.
Key stat: the highest innings pitched total in a start for a Cardinals starter was five innings by Chris Carpenter in game three.
Top hitters (Cardinals): David Freese only played in 97 games during the regular season, but in his six games in the NLCS, he was a beast. Freese hit .545/.600/1.091 with three homers, three doubles, seven runs and nine RBI. The performance was enough to earn him the NLCS MVP award. Albert Pujols was no sloutch either, hitting .478/.556/.913 in six games, seemingly as a response to the inflammantory tweets posted by Nyjer Morgan earlier this eason. Matt Holliday, dealing with a hand injury, was also solid in the series, hitting .435/.500/.652. Those three powered the heart of the Cardinals order to a series win.
Top pitchers (Cardinals): the Cardinals starters were awful, and on short leashes during this series. Thus, it came down to the bullpen, and that’s where St Louis flourished. Lance Lynn threw 5 1/3 scoreless innings, despite only one strikeout. Closer Jason Motte threw 4 2/3 perfect innings. Fernando Salas allowed just one run in six innings, while striking out six. It was a pretty dominant performance from the St Louis pen in this series.
Top hitters (Brewers): out of all of Milwaukee’s big hitters, the one with the highest OPS in the series was…Jerry Hairston Jr? Yeah, the part-time player acquired at the trade deadline had a 1.005 OPS in 23 at bats, despite not homering at all. The dynamic duo, Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder, had mixed results. Braun drove in six runs, but only walked once, while Fielder drove in just three, but homered twice and had a team high four walks.
Top pitchers (Brewers): this wasn’t too pretty. But hey, the Brewers best four relievers (John Axford, Francisco Rodriguez, Takashi Saito, LaTroy Hawkins) allowed just one run in 13 innings, while walking three and striking out 13. The rest of the staff was pretty putrid, highlighted by Shaun Marcum going just a total of five innings in two starts, and allowing nine runs. Chris Narveson also got into four games, throwing five innings, and allowed six runs thanks to three homers. But hey, he struck out eight and only walked one!
The series could have had a different result if…one of either two things happened: the Brewers got some offense going against the Cardinals bullpen, or the Brewers starting pitching turned in more than one quality start. Milwaukee’s starters turned in a 7.22 ERA in the series. That’s not going to get it done in the playoffs, especially when your three long relievers turned in a fantastic 12.19 ERA to give the Brewers no bridge to the back of their pen.
Series MVP: Freese stepped up big-time in a series that he needed to show up in. Special tip of the cap to Salas, who threw 77 pitches combined in games four and six, allowing just one run, to help bail out the beleaguered starting staff.
Next up…World Series, baby. Cardinals and Rangers. The series will start in St Louis on Wednesday, with CJ Wilson and Chris Carpenter.
