The Nut-Shot Heard 'Round the World

LA swept the Cubs out of the playoffs a year ago and the whole experience left me feeling like I had just been water-boarded in a urinal. It left me both physically and emotionally fragile. Our offense was clicking, nearly everyone was healthy, and nay a better pitching staff could be found.

(flush)

The Cardinals drew the Dodgers for the first round of the playoffs this year too. Their offense was firing on all cylinders and a combination of Carpenter and Wainwright virtually guaranteed leaving the coast with no worse than a split. Carpenter came up short in game one, but those two pitchers had only lost back-to-back games once this year.

Wainwright and Kershaw both pitched excellent games. One side note: Can we please avoid any more unpleasant close-up shots of Kershaw's "facial hair"? I know the guy is twelve years old but it looks like he rolled around on the floor of a salon after eating cotton candy.

The Cards were up 2-1 in the bottom of the ninth with two outs and James Loney was facing Ryan Franklin and a 2-2 count. Loney hit a fly ball to left field and what should have been the last out of the game screamed over Holliday's outstretched glove and hit him right in the ball sac.

Now, Holliday says that he lost the ball in the lights and Wainwright said that he probably lost the ball in the sea of 50 thousand spinning white towels (which are mostly blue). Holliday also said that the ball hit him in the stomach. Roll clip 2:12.


This was a bad error. A really bad error. An error that made me laugh and laugh because it felt like at least some sort of sweet justice was being served for all the crap I've had to hear for the last year. But it didn't end there.

There were still two outs and the Cardinals were completely in control of closing out the game. That is until Franklin (eventually) walked Casey Blake, gave up a single to former National Ronnie Belliard, threw a wild pitch, walked Russel Martin, and finally gave up the game winning single to Mark Loretta.

The team many expected would sail through the postseason, including the LA Times, is now down 0-2 and heading back to St. Louis on the verge of being swept. In the first round. By LA. I can't wait to see how the "best fans in baseball" handle this.