Posted on 10/18/2005 12:02:49 AM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
HOUSTON -- Albert Pujols simply was not ready to call it a season.
Even after struggling through an ugly 0-for-4 on Monday night and leaving four runners on base, Pujols knew he needed just one more chance. One more at-bat, and he could turn around the game, the National League Championship Series and the Cardinals' season.
He got the chance, and he did what great players do -- he seized it.
Pujols obliterated a hanging slider from previously impenetrable Brad Lidge, depositing it 412 feet over the train tracks in left field at Minute Maid Park to give the Cardinals a 5-4 win over the Astros in an NLCS Game 5 for the ages. The Cardinals kept their season and Busch Stadium alive for at least two more days, and they are now two wins away from being the first team to win back-to-back National League pennants in nine years.
"I just wanted to relax and trust my hands, not try to do too much," Pujols said with a major degree of understatement. "Just try to hit a ball in the gap, hopefully get a base hit, get on base and let Reggie [Sanders] do the job. He gave me a good pitch to hit and I put my best swing of the night.
"I didn't know if I should let go of the bat or take it with me. I was shocked. I put my best swing of the night, and I didn't know what to do as I was running the bases."
Just to get to Pujols, the Cardinals had to do the improbable. John Rodriguez and John Mabry both struck out against Lidge, who has dominated the Cardinals over the years. A 1-2 count to David Eckstein meant St. Louis was down to its last strike. But 26 outs is not the same as 27, and Eckstein didn't give the last one away. He stroked a single through the left side, keeping the game going.
Jim Edmonds drew a walk from Lidge as the Minute Maid crowd grew tenser and tenser. After Pujols chased a low slider from Lidge, the right-hander hung one, and Pujols didn't miss it. It was the 10th home run of Pujols' postseason career. He's a lifetime .346 hitter in the playoffs.
"I was just thinking about, 'Don't swing at the same slider that I swung at the first pitch,'" Pujols said. "He's probably the best closer in the game besides Mariano [Rivera] right now. He has probably the best slider in the game. I just wanted to get a good pitch to hit and just put my best swing."
Pujols' best swing is a thing to marvel at, and so the Cardinals dugout exploded, while more than 43,000 fans went eerily quiet. Isringhausen still needed to get three more outs, but it almost seemed like a formality even at Minute Maid.
"It was awesome," said Larry Walker. "We all jumped up. There was more noise in our dugout than in the whole stadium at that moment. It was fun to be out there and be part of it."
Pujols' homer turned around what had been a brutal night for the game's best right-handed hitter. It also made a footnote of what would have been a gut-wrenching, season-ending three-run homer by Lance Berkman two innings earlier.
Berkman had taken Chris Carpenter deep in the seventh, putting Houston ahead, 4-2 and moving the Astros within six outs of their first World Series trip. It was the Cardinals' first win in six postseason games at Minute Maid Park.
The shot made a winner of Jason Isringhausen, who pitched two perfect innings in relief of Carpenter. Minute Maid had been a house of horrors for Isringhausen, who surrendered a game-ending homer to Jeff Kent here in Game 5 of last year's NLCS.
"I'm glad to get out of here," Isringhausen said. "There are so many times when you can make a good pitch down and away, like Carp did, and a lazy fly ball goes out of the ballpark. ... We're ready to get to a real ballpark where we can make good pitches and get balls to left field without them going over the wall."
The win ensures that Busch Stadium will host at least one more game, as the series shifts back to St. Louis for Game 6 on Wednesday night. Old Busch will be demolished once the season ends, as the Cardinals move into a new ballpark with the same name for 2006.
It appeared for all the world that Berkman had ended Busch's run when he poked his dinger against Carpenter. With the Astros' bullpen looking untouchable, the Cards' chances seemed remote at best.
Astros one strike away With two outs and two strikes in the ninth, Astros closer Brad Lidge allowed the Cards to rally and take Game 5. Count Batter Result 1-2, 2 outs David Eckstein Single 1-0, 2 outs Jim Edmonds Eckstein advanced to 2B 3-1, 2 outs Edmonds Walk 0-1, 2 outs Albert Pujols Three-run homer Carpenter didn't even view the pitch Berkman teed off on as a mistake. Houston's No. 3 hitter just did what left-handers can do at Minute Maid -- he reached out and practically placed the pitch in the left-field stands. The shot was set up by a Hector Luna error on Craig Biggio's one-out chopper and a single through the hole on the right side by Chris Burke.
The Cards had led for four full innings before Berkman went deep, on runs provided by Mark Grudzielanek and an exceptional effort by their staff ace. But in Houston, even a single slip-up can spell doom, and that was the case for Carpenter.
Grudzielanek's two-run bloop single ended a string of nearly four solid games in which the Cardinals had not scored more than one run in an inning, and helped get him off a postseason-long schneid. Grudzielanek entered the game hitting .133 (2-for-15) in the NLCS and .143 for the postseason. But Astros lefty Andy Pettitte locked in after the third.
Carpenter worked out of trouble in the first and fourth and minimized a potentially big second inning before settling in to cruise through the fifth and sixth.
Pettitte did essentially the same thing to the Cards over the first two innings before the Redbirds at last broke through. Eckstein led off the third with a single, then Eckstein stole second and Edmonds walked. Pujols and Sanders both struck out, but Walker worked a base on balls before Grudzielanek looped his soft single into shallow right-center.
That erased a 1-0 deficit that could have been much worse. Jason Lane's single and Brad Ausmus' double down the line put Carpenter in almost as deep a hole as a pitcher can face -- second and third, no outs. But he struck out Adam Everett for the first out and got some help from his defense for the second.
Home | News | Video | Audio | Photos Pettitte hit a bouncer to Pujols, and Pujols fired home. Catcher Yadier Molina had to lunge awkwardly for the ball, but managed to twist around and put a tag on Lane for out No. 2. Biggio's single made it 1-0, but Carpenter struck out Burke to escape what had the potential to be a "crooked number" inning.
Molina took a couple of dings on the night. In addition to taking Lane's knee to his head on the play, he was also banged on his bare right hand by a foul ball. But it didn't matter.
"I'm fine right now," he said with a grin. "Nothing hurts. I'm just happy."
Like it or not, the White Sox prevailed in the ALCS because the team was well-rested compared to the Angels, not to mention the fact the White Sox pitching staff can actually do complete games backed up by an excellent relief staff. 
I am SO GLAD I fell asleep at the bottom of the 8th, secure in the fact that Lidge would come in and close it out.
Boy was I wrong!
Pujols is da man. So is Chris Carpenter.
I still have faith in Roy Oswalt to give us the win on Wednesday.
Go Astros!!!
I
Astros blew it....big time. Why did Lidge throw that meatball to Puljos?
It was a high heat slider.....Puljos just did good....man did he smak that one out of the ball park!
From Houston:
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HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Sports
Oct. 18, 2005, 1:56AM
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Pujols didn't want the Cardinals' 100-win, Central Division championship march to end with him in the dugout or the on-deck circle, for that matter. He wanted to be in the batter's box, taking the best that Brad Lidge had to offer. So, although he was due up fifth in the Cardinals's last-gasp ninth Monday night, Pujols came in from the field and immediately pulled his batting gloves on.
"I just did a little prayer," he said, "that I hopefully I might be the last guy to make that out."
Lost in translation? A little. But everybody knows what he meant.
And everybody who cares about baseball in Houston knows what he did. Pujols, generally acknowledged as the game's best hitter of the early 21st century, took a two-out, two-strike Lidge slider and whacked it so hard into the Crawford Boxes that Astros left-fielder Lance Berkman barely had time to flinch.
"I was praying, 'just give me the strength, Lord, to ... hopefully come through for my teammates," Pujols said. Earlier in the game, I hadn't. I had chances to drive some runs in (he'd stranded five base-runners) and I didn't come through. It couldn't be better than this."
Asked if it was his biggest hit ever — he has had a few because he has never batted lower than .314 in the majors — Pujols replied, "Definitely."
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PHAT ALBERT
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How Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols has fared in his 12 postseason games against the Astros:
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Remember, Pujols has also never driven in fewer than 117 runs in the majors, and the guys behind him, Reggie Sanders and Larry Walker, have been known to whack the ball around, too.
If Pujols isn't coming through, you begin to assume the Cardinals aren't, either.
"The hitting coach, Hal McRae, told me after (Andy) Pettitte struck me out (in the third) with a great cutter down and in, 'Relax, you've got two more at-bats,' " Pujols said. "Obviously, I had three more at-bats."
"It's pretty calming to step in there in that situation," Eckstein insisted. "I don't know why, but it's a feeling that comes over you. (The fans) are so loud, but you just understand it's you versus him — that's all that matters at that point."
Then Jim Edmonds coaxed his way on base with a walk and there came Pujols, past due. Way past.
"With Albert coming to the plate," Eckstein said, "you just felt good about the situation."
Imagine that.
"An unbelievable feeling," Cardinals starter Chris Carpenter said. "As soon as he hit it, you knew it was gone." dale.robertson@chron.com
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