After defeating the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-2 in the NLCS, the St. Louis Cardinals are moving on to the World Series where they will face the Boston Red Sox.
Their offense, which had been quiet for much of the NLCS, pounded the Dodgers for nine runs in the deciding Game 6, while the pitching held the Pirates and Dodgers to a combined 2.5 runs per game.
The strength of the Cardinal lineup is the top, where Matt Carpenter, Carlos Beltran, Matt Holliday, and Yadier Molina form a formidable foursome. Since stepping in for the injured Allen Craig, Matt Adams has been productive as well, and postseason hero David Freese is a competent big-league hitter. The real problems lie at the bottom of the lineup, where Jon Jay (or Shane Robinson, in Game 6), Pete Kozma, and the pitcher are located.
Matt Carpenter has been one of the Cardinals’ best players in 2013, which has to be shocking considering this is the first time he’s ever played a full season at second base. In his breakout year, he demonstrated a superb ability to hit line drives—29 percent of his balls in play, as compared to the league average of 20 percent—and supplemented that by being one of the leaders in infield hits.
His advanced approach is evident in his spray chart, as he shows a tendency to hit the ball over the field (although, not shockingly, his power is to his pull side).
Carlos Beltran is one of the game’s premier postseason hitters, as he has the highest career playoff OPS of anyone with his number of plate appearances.
His success this October has roots in his plate discipline. He has rarely chased unhittable pitches, falling victim only to breaking balls falling out of the zone. He doesn’t offer at pitches up, though, and neither is he tempted to expand his strike zone horizontally.
Matt Holliday’s forte is strength, and he has demonstrated that while admittedly struggling with contact thus far in October. He has hit as many balls to the outfield as he has to the infield and is driving the ball to the tune of a .500 SLG over the Cardinals’ first two series.
His capacity to hit for power to all fields makes him a huge threat in the middle of the St. Louis lineup, and he has demonstrated his worth with a couple big hits, including an incredibly long home run off Ricky Nolasco in Game 4 against the Dodgers.
The final member of the elite section of the Cardinal lineup is Yadier Molina, the catcher who has augmented his elite defense with excellent defense to become an MVP candidate in recent years. He is less disciplined than the rest of the Cardinal studs, but, like Carpenter, makes a tremendous amount of hard contact—he hits line drives on 28 percent of the balls he puts in play, which compares favorably to the previously-mentioned 20 percent mark that is league average. His ability to have success on pitches outside the strike zone makes him just as dangerous a hitter to face as the guys above him.
For as good as the top of the lineup is, the bottom is equally as bad.
Pete Kozma, the regular shortstop, managed just a .548 OPS in 2013, and he has continued to struggle in the playoffs. He struggles to make contact, obviously, but he cannot make up for it with power the way many other poor hitters can. In fact, he has hit just ten balls to the outfield in the entire postseason, and only two of those could even be considered medium depth.
He can be attacked low, as he managed just twelve hits all season on pitches in the bottom third of the strike zone or lower. In addition, he struggled with sliders, as he hit just .189 on sliders he put in play—a mark that is well below the league average of .318.
The Cardinals have also ridden their pitching staff to success, as Adam Wainwright and Michael Wacha have been dominant in October and are being backed up by a bullpen led by flamethrowers Carlos Martinez and Trevor Rosenthal.
Adam Wainwright, the deserved ace of the staff, succeeds by throwing strikes. Simple though it may seem, Wainwright’s pinpoint command makes him difficult to square up and enables him to avoid the free pass (he walked just 3.7 percent of hitters he faced this year). He has utilized this talent, which forces hitters to be aggressive, by throwing his wipeout breaking ball in the dirt and inducing tons of swings and misses.
The aforementioned curveball is his pitch to watch out for: he throws it with an incredible amount of spin—1879 rpm, which is significantly higher than the 1403 that is the major league average—and, thus far in October, has been able to bury it and force swings over the top of it.
Michael Wacha has been the surprise of the playoffs, thrusting himself into the national spotlight with dominant performances against the Pirates and Dodgers. Like Wainwright, his success has come from throwing strikes.
Unlike Wainwright, though, he works off of his fastball, a pitch he has thrown over 70 percent of the time in the playoffs (and that number is roughly in line with his regular season tendencies). Its elite spin (2416 rpm, compared to a 2081 major league average) is what feeds his success.
Carlos Martinez and Trevor Rosenthal, both of whom throw extremely hard, anchor the bullpen. Martinez has consistently been in the upper 90s during his appearances in October, and Rosenthal throws even harder and uses his fastball almost exclusively.
Neither of the two has pinpoint command, but their velocity and movement is enough to make them dominant one-inning relievers.
Contrary to popular opinion, the Cardinals are actually relatively top-heavy. The bottom of the lineup is Kozma and the pitcher, but the elite hitters at the top and the high-end arms at the top of the rotation and in the back of the bullpen make them a match for the Red Sox.
NOTE: All statistics accurate as of 10/19/13
By Seth Victor
AriBall.com
