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October 18, 2005

Prospectus Today

Not Dead Yet

by Joe Sheehan

"I live for that."

"Okay, that baserunning error by Pujols. He just made up for it."

"What a beautiful freakin' game."

Those were just some of the comments that showed up in my inbox following last night's NLCS Game Five, won by the Cardinals' on a ninth-inning, two-out, three-run home run by Albert Pujols. Down to their final strike in the ninth, the Cards got a scratch single, a walk and Pujols' monster blast to send the series back to St. Louis.

I do mean "monster." On 0-1, Brad Lidge hung his slider in the zone, and you could actually hear Pujols' mind go "Yippee!" when he saw the pitch. There was no doubt this was gone, and it was no Crawford Box "blast." The ball landed up by the train tracks at Minute Maid Park, and when it did, the Cardinals had staved off elimination for one more day.

Pujols had to be thrilled not only by the pitch he saw and what he did with it, but by getting another chance at all. He'd had a horrible night, going 0-for-4 and leaving five runners on base. He'd come up with two on and no one out in both the first and the third innings and failed to so much as advance a runner. He had been as much a part of the Cardinals' struggles with men on base as any of his teammates,