Cards have rough time with Burnett

[redsrbetter]

Burnett tames Cards
By Derrick Goold
Of the Post-Dispatch
08/04/2005

Standard pregame programming on the two televisions suspended over the middle of the Cardinals' clubhouse is video of that day's opposing pitcher. Players sink into the couch and watch, or stretch on the ground and watch.

On Thursday, a reliever took a gander at that night's starter.

He watched Florida righthander A.J. Burnett work over a batter and shook his head. A fastball that buzzes at 97 mph. A changeup. And "a hammer," the pitcher said, referring to Burnett's curve. The Cardinal walked away, saying to the hitters:

"Good luck, boys."

Indeed.

Riddling the Cardinals with his caustic assortment of pitches, Burnett took a shutout into the eighth inning and combined with slugging savant Miguel Cabrera for a 4-3 victory against the Cardinals on Thursday night. The Cardinals jolted Burnett for three runs in the eighth and put the tying run on third base before closer Todd Jones was summoned to nail down the win.

Jones worked a perfect 1 1/3 innings for his 22nd save.

The victory was Burnett's fourth consecutive - tying a career best - and gave the Marlins a split of the four-game series at Busch Stadium.

As the video showed, Burnett's arsenal was wicked.

Consider the Cardinals' sixth inning. Burnett started leadoff hitter John Rodriguez with an 80 mph off-speed pitch. Burnett followed with a 97 mph fastball low and in on the rookie's ankles; then the righthander bored a 101 mph fastball into the strike zone. Rodriguez grounded it to second base. Albert Pujols did the same to the second pitch he saw, an upper-90s fastball. And Jim Edmonds ended the inning by popping a 98 mph pitch out into foul territory, the pitch after Burnett started him with an 87 mph changeup.

Good luck, boys.

"That shows he's become a pitcher," said the Cardinals' John Mabry, a teammate of Burnett's in Florida in 2001. "He used to try to throw that 97 mph by everybody. ... Now he's got that easy cheese, on the black of the plate, at the knees. It's tough to square it up. The different speeds gets you out front of everything and you just ground out to second base.

"He's pitching, not trying to dazzle everyone anymore."

Cardinals starter Jeff Suppan worked 6 2/3 innings and was only scathed by the heft of the Marlins' order. Cabrera, vying with Derrek Lee and Pujols for the batting title, had four hits in four at-bats - including a two-run laser of a homer to start the scoring in the first inning. He scored twice as well and chased Suppan (10-8) from the game with a double in the seventh.

Florida scored four runs (all earned), all with two outs, off Suppan, as the righthander struck out five and allowed 10 hits.

Nine of those hits came from three Marlins.

Eight came after two outs.

"He got to two outs and nobody on and then boom-boom," Cards manager Tony La Russa said. "It's a good way to win and a tough way to lose. That's one of those formulas - you've got to get that guy out with runners in scoring position. They did."

Burnett (9-6) did not allow a runner to reach third until an errant throw advanced Hector Luna there after he stole second in the eighth. Rodriguez smoked a 94 mph fastball down the right-field line to drive in Luna and scuttle Burnett's shutout bid. Pujols hit a 96 mph fastball to right - and Juan Encarnacion lost it in the lights - to bring in Rodriguez and cut the Marlins' lead to 4-2.

Edmonds walked. Mabry doubled to score Pujols. Edmonds was halted at third, safe there as the tying run. Jones replaced Burnett to face So Taguchi, the previous night's hero. His three-run pinch-hit homer put the Cardinals ahead to win Wednesday.

Jones coaxed a groundout from Taguchi to squelch the threat.

"It got real exciting," La Russa said. "Sometimes lightning strikes twice."

As Sunday's non-waiver deadline approached, Burnett kept waiting for the promised lightning to strike and send him off to another team. He even said himself that he expected to be traded before he could take the mound for his scheduled start July 19 in Arizona. He was supposed to be bound for Baltimore that day. Instead, he pitched six innings and won - and hasn't lost a start since.

The scorch of his fastball is widely regarded and he entered the game with the most strikeouts of any Marlins pitcher, but he motored through the first 6 1/3 innings of Thursday's game without a strikeout. To complement his two strikeouts, Burnett got 14 groundouts.

"I wanted to put it in play," he said. "They just kept hitting it into the ground."

Florida's No. 3, 4 and 5 hitters - Jeff Conine, Cabrera and Paul Lo Duca, respectively - had eight hits in their first nine at-bats against Suppan. Only Conine failed to reach in one of his first three looks at Suppan. He singled with two out in the first, and that was followed by Cabrera's 24th home run.

There have been many home runs to go farther than Cabrera's two-run launch, but few have gone as far faster than the 69th home run of the 22-year-old's career.

It zipped toward center field and was deep in the grass behind the fence before center fielder Edmonds was within a stride of the warning track.

Cabrera, second in the National League in batting with a .348 average entering Thursday's game, had hits in all four at-bats against Suppan. He singled to open the fourth and scored on Alex Gonzalez's single. The "left fielder," as La Russa called him in the postgame interview, raised his average to .355.

Cabrera provided plenty for Burnett to preserve.

"He could have gone all the way," Florida manager Jack McKeon said. "But when he got in a rut (in the eighth), everything went against him."

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/spo...D?OpenDocument

[awefullspellare]

I still think Florida has an outside chance at the Wild Card. They kept that chance when they didn't make the trades.

[redsrbetter]

Well they just beat the Reds today. I think they are still 5.0 games back in the East. Its a long shot, but it can be done.