DeRosa shows he belongs
Despite some Cardinals fans pining for a benching or even leaving him off the playoff roster entirely, third baseman Mark DeRosa was one of the few bright spots for the club in their 5-3 NLDS game one loss Wednesday night in Los Angeles.
With three hits, DeRosa became the 16th Cardinals player to do so in an Division Series game. Fernando Vina is the only one with four hits, accomplished in game two of the 2002 NLDS. Jim Edmonds’ four three-hit NLDS games is tops on the Cardinals and second to Andruw Jones’ five such games in MLB history.
DeRosa has been consistently great in the first round. His all-time LDS average of .415 is second-best all-time, with only Hall of Famer Cal Ripken’s .441 better.
Stand by me
Posters here already know my opinion that leaving the 14 Cardinals runners on base was the single biggest factor in Wednesday night’s loss.
Not once in their long post-season history had the Cardinals left 14 runners on base in one game. Their previous playoff record was 13 stranded in game seven of the 1982 World Series, a game which they still won by a 6-3 score.
Other post-season games with high runners stranded counts include 12 in game five of the same 1982 World Series (a 6-4 loss), while they left 11 on base ten different times. The most recent was in game three of the 2006 World Series (a 5-0 win over Detroit).
Walk on by
Albert Pujols tied Barry Bonds for the MLB record of three post-season games with two intentional walks. Albert still has something to strive for as Bonds had three intentional free passes in one of those games.
It was the sixth time a Cardinals player has been intentionally walked twice in a post-season game. Along with Albert’s three, Jack Clark in 1985, Harry Walker in 1946 and Marty Marion in 1944 are the others.
Double down again
As if Cardinals fans didn’t suspect it already, catcher Yadier Molina officially owns MLB’s highest rate of grounding into double plays this season. He added another to finish off the first inning threat on Wednesday night, not included here, when he was inexplicably batting sixth in the order.
Listed below are all MLB players with at least 20 GIDP during the 2009 regular season, ranked by highest rate of GIDP. Pujols finished tenth.
Player | GIDP | AB | Team | AB/GIDP |
Yadier Molina | 27 | 481 | STL | 17.81 |
Mike Lowell | 24 | 445 | BOS | 18.54 |
Kevin Kouzmanoff | 25 | 529 | SDP | 21.16 |
Ivan Rodriguez | 20 | 425 | TOT | 21.25 |
Evan Longoria | 27 | 584 | TBR | 21.63 |
Miguel Tejada | 29 | 635 | HOU | 21.90 |
Hunter Pence | 25 | 585 | HOU | 23.40 |
Adrian Gonzalez | 23 | 552 | SDP | 24.00 |
Jose Lopez | 25 | 613 | SEA | 24.52 |
Albert Pujols | 23 | 568 | STL | 24.70 |
Yunel Escobar | 21 | 528 | ATL | 25.14 |
Michael Cuddyer | 22 | 588 | MIN | 26.73 |
Troy Tulowitzki | 20 | 543 | COL | 27.15 |
Alexis Rios | 21 | 582 | TOT | 27.71 |
Ryan Zimmerman | 22 | 610 | WSN | 27.73 |
Miguel Cabrera | 22 | 611 | DET | 27.77 |
Brandon Phillips | 21 | 584 | CIN | 27.81 |
Robinson Cano | 22 | 637 | NYY | 28.95 |
Carlos Lee | 21 | 610 | HOU | 29.05 |
Jhonny Peralta | 20 | 582 | CLE | 29.10 |
Orlando Cabrera | 22 | 656 | TOT | 29.82 |
Billy Butler | 20 | 608 | KCR | 30.40 |
As always, thanks to Tom Orf for sending along these factoids.