Red Sox / Cardinals Game 2

Red Sox go up 2 game to 0 with last night's 6-2 win! Woo hoo!

Curt Schilling again came up huge for the Red Sox. He pitched 6 innings (94 pitches) and allowed only one run (unearned). Curt was huge but to me the real story of the game was Tony LaRussa's decision to pitch Matt Morris on three days rest instead of Jason Marquis who he ended up using for an inning of relief anyway (???).

Morris allowed 4 runs in 4 innings. He only gave up 4 hits but he also allowed 4 walks. Going up against a pitcher like Schilling - the Cardinals couldn't afford anyone who was less than 100% on the mound and Matt Morris quite honestly wasn't up to the job.

Pitching Morris was a huge mistake on the part of LaRussa but a big deal probably won't be made of the move because LaRussa is a super-genius.

The second major story line for last night's game was Larry Walker, Scott Rolen and Jim Edmonds going a combined 0-11 with 4 strikeouts. The Cardinals simply don't have a chance against the Red Sox unless the heart of their order comes through. Sure Albert Pujols went 3-4 but the Cardinals need more than one batter to come through per game to win.

The third major story line will be Bill Mueller's three errors last night. On Saturday I thought it was pretty funny that Fox played Andrew Gold's Lonely Boy after Manny's two error inning. There was no theme music for Mueller's miscues. I really felt bad for Mueller because he is truly one of the nicest guys in baseball and normally one of the best gloves. If I were Jason Varitek - I would hound the official scorer to get the first error changed from Mueller to Varitek because a guy like Mueller doesn't deserve a record for the most errors in a World Series game. (As an aside - Mueller was the only Boston hitter with more than one hit. The Cardinals did do a good job of holding the Red Sox offense in check except really for Morris who again should not have been pitching on three days rest.)

The announcers for these games pretty much suck. It was kinda funny to hear them talking about things that appeared in that day's Boston Globe without attribution. If I were Gordon Edes - I'd be pissed. How bad were they? Well the old lady did a much better job analyzing the game in her 30 seconds than McCarver in his 9 innings. Not bringing Al Leiter back for the Series was as big a mistake by Fox as pitching Morris was for LaRussa.

Some miscellaneous thoughts:

- It was cool to hear the crowd at Foxboro break into a "Who's your daddy?" chant during the closing moments of the Patriots win over the Jets ("Who's your daddy" may just supplant "Yankees suck" as the chant of choice and that's a good thing).

- Fox had Johnny Pesky on before the game and instead of asking him about the foul pole that is named after him - they tried to make him uncomfortable with veiled references to "Pesky held the ball!" Kevin Kennedy sucks as an announcer too. The guys at NESN run circles around the Fox guys.

- Speaking of Pesky - he disappointed me somewhat when he said that Schilling was the best pitcher the Red Sox have had since Clemens. What's Pedro? Chopped liver?