A matchup of lefties as the Series gets underway on a chilly evening at Royals Stadium. Lonnie Smith leads off the home 1st with a double, but is stranded on third and the innings begin to march by without a score. It's been nothing but goose eggs when Darrell Porter comes to the plate with one away in the 5th, but the Cardinal catcher yanks one fair and long inside the right-field foul pole and St. Louis strikes first. In the 7th, Tito Landrum and Cesar Cedeño single to start the inning for the visitors and, after a groundout, Porter is walked intentionally to load the bases with the pitcher's spot coming up. Tudor has spun a five-hit shutout to this point, so Whitey Herzog leaves him in to hit; he bounces a two-hopper to short which Buddy Biancalana fumbles on the exchange to allow a run to score while reloading the bases. Willie McGee then lofts a sac fly to center to make it 3-0, and it looks to be too much for the Royals tonight; Steve Balboni homers with the bases empty after the stretch, but Tudor holds KC there for another two innings and Jeff Lahti comes on to polish them off in the 9th. St. Louis 3-7-0, Kansas City 1-8-1. [scoresheet] [broadcast]
For the second evening in a row, the starters hold sway in the early going. Cox bloops a double and then scores on McGee's single in the 3rd, but that is all of the scoring through the first six innings as the two pitchers trade zeroes. In the 7th, though, Leibrandt suddenly loses the feel - two singles and a double start the STL inning with another run, and Joe Beckwith can't put out the fire. Two more hits, a walk, and Beckwith's own error lead to three more Cardinal tallies and a tight contest is suddenly a 5-0 St. Louis bulge. Beckwith fares no better in his second inning of work, as he allows three more hits, including consecutive RBI doubles from Cox (again) and McGee to make the score 8-0. George Brett avoids the shutout by homering off Cox with a man on in the 8th, but Cox responds by setting the next four Royals down in order, including two strikeouts, to close out the game. McGee reached base three times and stole a base, and Cedeño had two hits for the second straight game. St. Louis 8-10-0, Kansas City 2-7-1. [scoresheet]
Having been swept out of their own ballpark in the first two games, the Royals looked to grab the momentum early in Game Three. Lonnie Smith and Willie Wilson each singled and stole second to start the game. putting two men immediately in scoring position, but Brett popped to shallow left and two ground outs followed which could only push one of the potential runs across the plate. St. Louis equalized in the 3rd when Ozzie Smith doubled, stole third and trotted home on Tommy Herr's fly ball to center. Once again, the offenses found it hard sledding against the starting pitchers and it was still a 1-1 game into the 7th. With two outs in the visitors' half of the inning the Royals put together three straight singles, with Brett singling home Smith on the first pitch from reliever Ken Dayley to put KC back in front. Saberhagen allowed a leadoff double to Terry Pendleton in the 7th, and a leadoff single to McGee to start the 8th, but escaped unscathed on both occasions and finished off the complete-game victory with a 1-2-3 9th inning that ended when Porter drove Wilson to the track with a deep fly to straightaway center field that the centerfielder corralled for the final out of the game. Smith and Wilson combined at the top of the Royals' lineup to go 5-for-10 with three stolen bases and score both KC runs. Kansas City 2-8-0, St. Louis 1-7-2. [scoresheet]
Forgive me if you've seen this movie before, but once again the clubs found scoring at a premium as Game Four got underway. With the scoreboard still empty in the 4th, the Cardinals broke in front when Herr led off the inning with a fly ball to left that found its way into the third row of seats for the first STL home run since Game One. That would provide a bit of foreshadowing as, in the 6th with the score still just 1-0, Tito Landrum chased Black from the mound with a two-out two-run homer and Cedeño followed him by greeting Mark Gucza with a back-to-back jack that made the score 4-0. With the way Tudor was pitching in the Series, this looked as if it was enough support to last a month - the STL lefty had yet to allow a Royals hit in the game and had faced just two over the minimum. The bid for a no-no ended when Brett led off the 7th with a base hit, but Tudor took the mound in the 9th with a one-hitter going and looking like a hot knife slicing through butter. But then, suddenly, he wasn't - Smith and Wilson singled to begin the inning and then Brett slammed his second long ball of the Series to make it, just like that, a one-run game. That brought out Whitey, followed soon by Lahti, and the Cardinal closer retired the final three men in order to make that run stand up and give STL a commanding lead in the Series. St. Louis 4-10-0, Kansas City 3-4-0. [scoresheet]
The Royals decided that, with their backs against the wall in Game Five, their best hope was to run out the winning approach from Game Three - get the top of the order on base and run, especially with Tom Nieto and his sub-20% CS percentage behind the plate for the Cardinals. And this worked like a charm in the 1st inning - Smith and Wilson singled, executed a double steal, and both scored when Frank White tripled to left-center. But White was cut down at home trying to score on Pat Sheridan's grounder to Ozzie and the Royals would leave two men stranded at the end of a potentially big inning after plating only the two runs. In the 5th, St. Louis would draw even when they started the inning with three straight singles and a Jim Sundberg passed ball, but KC answered with a run in the 6th on a walk, Sundberg's double and a run-scoring groundout by Biancalana that pushed them in front once more. Jackson, who had pitched so well in the Series opener only to be let down by his defense, got the first out of the 6th but then the St. Louis speed struck. Ozzie drove one just over the head of Wilson in center and raced around the bases; as he hit third, he decided to test Willie's weak arm and beat the relay home for an inside-the-park home run that tied the game (the first since Mule Haas of the Philadelphia Athletics circled the bags against the Cubs in the 1929 Series). One out later, Jack Clark walked and Landrum drove one into the left-center field gap; having seen the previous play, Clark decided to challenge Wilson as well and scored the go-ahead run in advance of the throw. That was the end of the evening for Forsch, and Ricky Horton came on only to be greeted by Cedeño's RBI single. It was now 5-2 for St. Louis and matters were headed in the wrong direction for Kansas City. The Cardinal bullpen nursed the lead over the next couple of innings - KC failing again to capitalize when Smith reached third with no outs in the 7th on a Herr error and a stolen base - and Lahti came out for the 9th with a two-run lead, having retired six of the seven men he'd faced so far in the Series. He retired the first man, but John Wathan laced a double and Smith followed with another two-bagger, and it was quickly a one-run game with the tying Royal in scoring position. Wilson popped out, but Brett walked and White scratched out an infield single to load the bases with one out's worth of life remaining for Kansas City. That life was used up by Darryl Motley's ground ball to second base - Herr flipped to Ozzie for the force at second that ended the game and the Series. The Royals couldn't complain that they hadn't had their chances in Game Five, as they left ten men on base, six of those in scoring position and four of them at third base. St. Louis 5-11-1, Kansas City 4-10-1. [scoresheet]
While the vaunted Cardinal running game was stifled (3 SB, 3 CS) by the absence of Vince Coleman - lost to a freak injury during the NLCS - and the arm of Jim Sundberg, their pitching stifled Kansas City in return, holding them to a sub-.600 OPS over the five games. The Cardinals had more extra-base hits (13) than the Royals scored runs (12), and three spots in the KC order hit .100 or worse for the Series. It's hard to look at this Royals lineup, with Biancalana at SS, Motley/Sheridan in RF, and White being asked to hit cleanup, and see where the runs are coming from - Wilson and Smith did their job at the top of the order (16-for-44, 7 stolen bases) but after that it was Brett or nothing. The Cards got outstanding Series performances from Landrum and Cedeño at the plate, but their pitching staff struck out 35 Royals in 45 innings and was dominant for long stretches. [Series stats]
The aforementioned performances from the outfielders notwithstanding, St. Louis won this Series with pitching and it started with LHP John Tudor, who seemed nearly unhittable for most of his 16 innings (and, in fact, was unhittable for the first six innings of Game Four). His 0.81 WHIP and twelve strikeouts were just the agate type that described his dominance; the feeling of resignation that accompanied the KC offense when he was on the mound, and as they anticipated a potential Game Seven re-run, told the real story.
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