Renteria Slams Door On Phillies and Padilla
Rick Hummel Of The Post-Dispatch
August 19, 2002
It was a rare match of All-Star pitchers, the Cardinals' Matt Morris against the Philadelphia Phillies' Vicente Padilla. More than 58,000 were in the seats at Veterans Stadium. "It's a throwback," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said before Sunday's game.
Indeed it was for five innings, as both righthanders fired blanks. But, in such a confrontation, just one blink can make the difference. It occurred when Phillies first baseman Travis Lee was fooled by Jim Edmonds' potential double-play grounder that sailed through his legs in the sixth inning.
Albert Pujols seized the moment by singling in J.D. Drew. Edgar Renteria embraced the moment by smashing the first grand slam of his six-season career as the Cardinals erupted for five runs in the sixth and Morris proceeded to his 15th win of the season, 5-1 on Sunday.
Morris, the best righthander in the league not named Schilling, was sullied only by Bobby Abreu's solo home run in the eighth inning before he turned over the ninth to Dave Veres. For the third start of his past four, Morris didn't walk a batter. He has passed just two in his past 29 innings.
"Us capitalizing in that (sixth) inning, took the wind out of their sails," Morris said. "They kind of gave up after that. Well, I don't want to say gave up, but it was hard for them to fight back.
"The atmosphere here was pretty good and I just wanted to ruin their day. I got up there (to bat) in the eighth inning and I was talking to (Mike) Lieberthal and he said, 'Well, it was a good game.'"
Morris won his 15th game on the way to 22 last year on Aug. 14, so he is one start behind that pace. He already has eight wins away from home, compared with seven last year.
This was the fourth start in the past five for the Cardinals staff in which the starter allowed two runs or fewer, with the only exception Chuck Finley's modest allotment of three runs in seven innings on Friday.
The Phillies scored just six runs in the series, all coming on four home runs. Cardinals pitching walked just one hitter unintentionally in the series, and the Phillies are leading the league in walks drawn.
"The Cardinals' pitching just really shut us down," Phillies manager Larry Bowa said. "We didn't generate any offense. Their pitching just dominated our hitters."
La Russa, asked if he took any satisfaction in the statistic or the encomium from Bowa, said, "I don't take any satisfaction when I look at the calendar and it's Aug. 18. There's knowledge that our pitching has been as outstanding as our position players, but the satisfaction comes six weeks from now if we keep playing like this and keep pitching like this."
Proud pitching coach Dave Duncan said, "I thought we had a good idea about pitching to them. Most of the balls that were hit were mistakes. They were ready to hit the mistakes, but we didn't make a lot of them."
The Cardinals, for the second time this season, moved to 15 games over .500 as they won for the eighth time in their past nine games.
Their lead in the National League Central Division also reached five games (over Houston), tying a season high. But Renteria, considering the task ahead, said, "We have to play every game like it's the seventh game of the World Series."
Morris, also looking forward said, "Now it's about staying on top and trying to pull away. You can start looking at the end a little. I think this team is starting to smell it and really locking in."
The Cardinals had the first big chance early. But, with the bases loaded in the third, Edmonds, who fanned eight times in the series, struck out and Phillies left fielder Pat Burrell made a sliding catch to take a hit from Pujols.
Drew singled to open the sixth and Lee, normally an excellent first baseman, fanned on Edmonds' grounder, with Drew going to third.
"It was probably a double play," said Bowa.
Pujols, who has delivered a remarkable 17 of 23 runners from third base with under two outs, singled to right for his 93rd run batted in.
"Last year, I struggled with men at third base and less than two outs," said Pujols. "I was pulling everything, hitting a ground ball to third base or a fly ball. In that situation, you just want to hit the ball the other way behind the runner."
Tino Martinez, who has hit safely in 11 of his past 12 games, singled to right, loading the bases for Renteria.
In the 3,622nd at-bat of his career, Renteria hit the first four-run homer of his career, also a drive to the opposite field.
"The stroke Pujols put on that base hit and the one Edgar used were as close to perfect, considering the pitches they had," said La Russa. "You could put that on tape and show it to big-league hitters, minor-league hitters, high-school hitters. Those were of such high quality."
Renteria has 61 runs batted in, 15 off his single-season high set in 2000 with the Cardinals. Renteria nearly had another slam in his next at-bat, but Burrell went to the track for his bases-full drive in the seventh.
Renteria said he was aware he didn't have any slams. "I know I'm not a power hitter," he said. "I was trying to hit a fly ball to bring one run in (in the sixth)."
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