Let me take you back to the rubber-game of the first I-70 Series this season. The Cardinals sent Jaime Garcia and his 1.68 ERA to the hill in the bottom of the 6^th inning with the game and the series in hand. The Cardinals had jumped out to a 7-2 lead in Kansas City, and the team was in cruise-control. The Cardinals’ oft-criticized manager, Tony LaRussa, made a number of questionable decisions that day, including bringing Tyler Greene into the game as a defensive replacement for Allen Craig. Not only was Craig 2 for 2 with a homerun and 2 RBIs in the game, but Greene also made a crucial error, letting an infield pop-up fall to give the Royals a run. I wrote a full article about the game here on i70baseball.com back in May.

Though I stand behind most of my criticism in that article, I must offer my apologies to the Cardinals’ manager on my questioning of one decision: taking Jaime Garcia out of the game early.

At the time it seemed ridiculous. Garcia’s 84^th and final pitch was crushed over the right field fence to make the game 7-3, and La Russa went immediately to the bullpen. 84 pitches. That’s it. Asking Brian Tallet, Trevor Miller, Ryan Franklin, and Miguel Batista to protect a 4-run lead for four full innings seems as crazy then as it does now, but I understand why the skipper did what he did.

LaRussa was saving Garcia for another day, or really any day in the second-half of the season. Since joining the Cardinals’ rotation last season, Jaime Garcia has hit the ground running from Opening Day through June, but something happens to the Cardinals’ lefty as the dog days of summer wear on. The numbers paint an interesting picture.

Perhaps a more telling stat is this: in 13 career starts in August or September, Garcia has failed to pitch at least 6 innings 8 times. He’s pitched more than 7 innings just once. Since the trade deadline this year, he’s made it to the 6^th inning just once in five tries.

The Cardinals know Chris Carpenter’s clock is ticking, and by handing Jaime a $27 million contract, they’ve established him as the team’s future #2 starter behind Adam Wainwright (or at least a #3 starter). The Cardinals him down early last season, and they’re skipping at least one of his starts this season. The Cardinals may be out of the race at this point, but there’s still plenty of things to watch for as the season winds down. And one of, if not the top things should be Garcia’s ability to handle the workload in September. Because if he can’t handle September, how will he handle October down the road?

When the New York Giants (57-27) came into St. Louis on July 15, 1954, manager Eddie Stanky knew he had his hands full. The Giants were a very solid team and were playing exceptional baseball. Their pitching was very good, and if the opposition somehow got into the bullpen, they had to contend with the likes of Hoyt Willhem (12-4) and Marv Grissom (10-7), both with ERA’s hovering around 2 runs per game. If that wasn’t enough, manning center field was a young slugger named Willie Mays. Mays would go on to win the first of his two Most Valuable Player awards, the other coming in 1965.

The Cardinals would split the first two of this early summer three game series. They would be shut out in the opener, 4-0, but after nearly blowing a lead late, Ray Jablonski drove in Wally Moon with a 2 out walk off single in the ninth. That set up an exciting rubber game on Saturday.

Royce Lint would get the start for the Cardinals. The rookie left-hander would start the season in the bullpen, and had been shaky at times. He had also been able to work long relief, often 5 innings or more. Thanks to a doubleheader in Chicago on July 4, Lint would make his first major league start and it was a dandy – a complete game shutout at Wrigley Field. That would earn him another start, and he pitched well enough to win, but the Cardinals bats did not cooperate. This game would be his third start, and also the shortest of his brief career, lasting just 1/3 of an inning.

Cot Deal

Three of the first four Giants batters would reach base against Lint. With the score 2-0, Stanky goes to his bullpen for Cot Deal. Deal was a veteran who had been called up several times, but failed to stay with the big club for long. Entering the game in a difficult situation, he gets Willie Mays to hit into a double play, ending the inning without any further damage.

Deal would retire the Giants in order in the second inning, but totally fell apart in the third. Deal would face seven men in that brutal inning, not retiring any of them. A pair of errors by Ray Jablonski, the late inning hero the day before, extended the inning and led to a barrage of subsequent hits and runs.

Ralph Beard would enter the game with runners on the corners and a 7-0 deficit. A pair of fly balls would give the Giants two more runs and a seemingly insurmountable 9-0 lead. Or that’s what the modest crowd at Sportman’s Park thought.

Beard would pitch three more scoreless innings, doing all that he could to give the Cardinals a chance for a comeback. That comeback would start in the sixth inning.

Giants starter, Johnny Antonelli, had been cruising until the Cardinals bats came to life in the sixth inning. And that inning reads like a Who’s Who in Cardinals history: Wally Moon, Stan Musial, Joe Cunningham and Red Schoendienst. The big blow in the inning was a two out double by Red, cutting the Giants lead to 9-5. The Cardinals also managed to chase Atonelli, with Hoyt Willhem taking over in relief.

The Cardinals would pull even closer in the seventh. With Ray Jablonski on first base with two outs, pinch hitter Solly Hemus draws a walk. Pinch hitter Joe Frazier would rip a triple, scoring Jablonski and Hemus. That would be the end of Wilhelm’s appearance, a rare short and ineffective outing. Frazier would not stay on third base for long. A Rip Repulski single brought the Cardinals to within a run at 9-8.

Meanwhile the Cardinals bullpen was just brilliant. The Giants had not been able to mount anything resembling a rally against Ralph Beard, Joe Presko, and the new Cardinals hurler, Al Brazle.

Harry "Peanuts" Lowrey

With the score still 9-8 in favor of the Giants, the Cardinals were about to accomplish the unthinkable. After chasing Hoyt Willhem, they were about to tie the game against the Giants All Star reliever, Marv Grissom. And it was just the kind of run you would expect in a game like this. With runners at first and second base with one out, Joe Cunningham grounded into what looked like an inning ending double play. But the 3-6-3 is one of the hardest to turn, and the Giants failed to do so. Dick Schofield, grandfather of the Washington Nationals right fielder Jayson Werth, scored from second base when a throw went wild, tying the game. Solly Hemus would extend the inning with a single, putting the go-ahead run on third base. Unfortunately, Peanuts Lowrey was unable to drive Cunningham home.

The game would go into the ninth inning tied at 9 runs apiece. Marv Grissom and Harvey Haddix were now the pitchers of record. They would still be on the mound when the Giants took the lead in the 11th inning, and it was a beautifully manufactured run, typical of how that Giants team won many of those 58 games. A lead-off single, sacrifice bunt and infield single would put the potential winning run on third base. That run would score on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Don Mueller. Haddix limited the damage to just one run, but that would prove to be enough as Windy McCall retires the now disappointed Cardinals in order in the bottom of the 11th.

Marv Grissom failed to earn the save, but a courageous long relief effort was enough to earn him the win. McCall would pick up the save. Harvey Haddix would take the loss for the Cardinals.

Following this series, the Giants would continue steamrolling over opponents in the National League. They would go on to win 97 games, capturing the NL Pennant by 5 games over their crosstown rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers. In a workman like fashion, they would sweep the Cleveland Indians in the World Series.

Bob Netherton covers Cardinals history for i70baseball.com and writes at On the Outside Corner. You may follow Bob on Twitter here or on Facebook here.

Former major league pitcher, Scott Bailes, once told all a manager has to do to be great is stay out of the way.

“A great manager is worth maybe 4 wins a year,” he said when I asked how important managers really are in the game of baseball. Most would agree that Tony La Russa is a great manager, but that doesn’t mean he won’t drive you crazy sometimes.

Sunday’s rubber game of the I-70 series was a perfect example of La Russa overthinking and over-managing his ballclub. The Cardinals jumped out to a seemingly insurmountable 6-1 lead in the top of the 5^th, so Tony decided to protect the 5 run cushion with a defensive replacement for 2^nd baseman Allen Craig. Craig walked, mashed a 2-run home run, and ripped a single right through Royals’ 1^st baseman, Eric Hosmer. It was after that 5^th inning single that Craig was lifted in favor of Tyler Greene. Greene eventually came around to score on an RBI fielder’s choice by Matt Holliday, who just so happened to be the next casualty to La Russa’s lineup shuffle.

La Russa felt Holliday might have aggravated his sore quad muscle, so he decided to “play it safe” and lift Holliday for backup catcher, Gerald Laird. Holliday was already the designated hitter, and could’ve easily stayed in the game, but La Russa yanked him anyway. Now at the time, this was probably the right move, but it’s tough to take two big bats out of the lineup in a matter of five minutes…even with a 7-1 lead.

In the bottom of the 5^th, the writing on the wall became clear. With two outs and runners at the corners, Jaime Garcia induced what would’ve been an inning ending pop-up to short. But pop-up was dropped by… you guessed it… Tony’s defensive replacement, Tyler Greene. This was Greene’s second such drop of a pop up in a week, the first of which also came during a Jaime Garcia start. The Cardinals were still in control though with a 7-2 lead through five.

The biggest head scratcher was La Russa’s quick hook with Jaime Garcia in the 6^th. Garcia had only thrown 84 pitches and still held a 7-3 lead after giving up a leadoff home run. Garcia is among the league leaders in innings pitched and typically goes deep into games, but pulling him with 12 outs to go seemed incredibly premature. Not surprisingly, the Royals exploited the Cardinals bullpen for 4 runs in the next 2 innings, tying the game up at 7.

You thought Tony was done making questionable moves? Think again. With 2 on and no outs in the Top of the 9^th, Tony ordered Daniel Descalso to bunt the runners over. That’s all well and good, but you know what else moves the runners up? A Walk. Yet La Russa had Descalso lay down a sacrifice on a 3-0 pitch. 3-0! The move backfired, and the Cardinals limped into extra innings.

Fortunately for Cardinals fans, the only thing that can overcome inept managing is inept pitching, and that’s exactly what the Royals offered in the 10^th. The Cardinals were able to plate two runs on a leadoff walk, an error, a hit batsman, and two more walks with the bases loaded.

The Cardinals were lucky to survive their manager and claim the first of two I-70 series this year. The rematch comes in mid-June back home at Busch.

The good news is: The Cardinals will again be the favorites to win the next installment of the series.

The bad news is: Tony is already salivating at the chance to out-smart and American League manager in a national league park.