Wreck of Cards

In a span of two weeks, St. Louis went from first place to out of the race

As the 2003 Cardinals went down without much of a fight against the Astros this past weekend, a paperback sat on the desk of St. Louis manager Tony La Russa. It was titled The Last Jihad. His team went quietly in Houston, losing all three games by a combined score of 20-6, while hitting .143 and raising questions about its commitment and about the conviction of its manager.

Even before the sweep got under way, La Russa was perplexed about how his team, with so many talented hitters in the primes of their careers, could go 3-3 against the Reds and Rockies in its previous homestand. The Cardinals were the first club with a winning record to lose a series at home to Colorado in 16 months.

"You can't lose them the way we lost them," La Russa said. "When you score one or two against a pitching staff that's last in the league. It's a mystery."

There's no mystery as to when the Cardinals' season fell apart. They were in first place on Sept. 1 when they went to Wrigley Field for a five-game series. St. Louis lost four of those games while La Russa blew his cool, erupting at Chicago manager Dusty Baker, bringing a fatigued Woody Williams out of the bullpen between starts -- how can a team be short of pitching with expanded rosters? -- and making moves that raised eyebrows in the clubhouse, such as taking Tino Martinez out of a tie game in the seventh inning with two outs so a pitcher could pinch run for him. The Cubs sent the Cards into a 4-10 spiral. From first place to out of contention in two weeks.

Likewise, there is no mystery as to why the Cardinals have not been a better club this season: they started the year short on pitching and never made significant additions to their staff. Matt Morris and Woody Williams are two fine starters, though Morris missed six starts because of injuries and Williams faded badly down the stretch. The Cardinals were a good team whenever Morris or Williams started: 33-23. But when they had to use anybody else, they were 43-51.

St. Louis needed a durable, deep bullpen to compensate for its mediocre starting pitching, but it didn't come close to fielding that kind of unit. Cardinals relievers were 23-24 with a 4.95 ERA and 29 blown saves, one of the worst bullpens in the league. St. Louis lost nine times when it took a lead into the eighth inning. And don't blame it on the early season injury to closer Jason Isringhausen. The Cards played five games better than .500 while he was out.

La Russa and pitching coach Dave Duncan have had tremendous success getting the most out of journeyman veterans, but their love affair with old pitchers doomed them. A succession of washouts took the ball too many times: Jeff Fassero, Pedro Borbon, Esteban Yan, Garrett Stephenson, Cal Eldred, Lance Painter, Russ Springer, Sterling Hitchcock. The Cardinals cleaned out baseball's recycling bin looking for somebody to get some outs.

Oakland GM Billy Beane likes to say that baseball is "a young man's game." Give him young legs and young arms any time. (It helps his philosophy that the younger players tend to be cheaper, too.) St. Louis, like the Yankees, hasn't been able to inject young, hard throwers into its staff. Rookie starter Danny Haren may turn out to be a good one, but he had nothing left by the time September arrived.

The Cardinals had the look of a beaten team even before Houston swept them, and they never recovered from the series in Chicago. They left Wrigley only one game back of the NL Central lead, but showed no intensity thereafter, an indictment of La Russa and his players.

Last Saturday night Fernando Vina swung at the first pitch of the game, hit a grounder to second base and jogged out of the batter's box. Houston second baseman Jeff Kent bobbled the ball. Vina suddenly decided it might be a good idea to run hard. Too late. He was out in a play that should not have been that close. The next inning, an Astro hit a pop fly to short center field. Jim Edmonds jogged after it and inexplicably pulled up, allowing the ball to drop between him and shortstop Edgar Renteria for a gift hit. This was a team fighting to stay alive in the pennant race? It didn't look like it.

The Cardinals showed more frustration than fight in the end. La Russa, for instance, did have a legitimate beef with umpire Jerry Crawford Saturday. Crawford, working behind the plate, was pushing on the back of catcher Mike Matheny and telling him not to shift just before the ball was pitched.

When Matheny argued, according to Morris, Crawford said, "C'mon, push me!''

"He was egging him on,'' Morris said. "We're not going to fight the guy. He's an old man.''

At one point during a stoppage in play, Crawford, his mask off, walked halfway to the mound, yelled "Matt!'' and motioned for Morris to give him the baseball. When Morris flipped it to him, Crawford made no move to catch it or look at it, letting it sail by him as if pulling some lame fifth-grade, immature stunt. Tough guy, that Crawford. Guess he showed them.

(Remaining in John Wayne character, Crawford refused to talk to the media after the game.)

Crawford, though, did not cost St. Louis the contest, nor is he responsible for the team's late-season collapse. The Cardinals need to re-examine their commitment to winning to figure out why this has happened. La Russa is a brilliant manager with 2,000 wins, but in bad times his intense, controlling personality and his tendency to overmanage -- for instance, he's used 10 players in the No. 2 spot in his lineup, none more than 44 times -- turns off some guys. Blame La Russa's style or blame the players for giving in to it, but in either case it is a problem.

La Russa managed the White Sox for eight seasons and the Athletics for 10 before both of those marriages deteriorated. He is finishing his eighth year with St. Louis. Do manager/team relationships get stale over time? It happens sometimes, even to the best. It happened to Davey Johnson with the Mets. It happened with Dusty Baker and the Giants.

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In any case, the Cardinals need a new look on the field next season. Vina has a $4.5 million option. St. Louis would rather hand him his $1 million buyout and see if he wants to come back at a seriously reduced rate. There are rumblings about dealing Edmonds for pitching, especially to the Dodgers, but Edmonds is 33, still has three years and $34 million left on his contract and can annually designate up to 23 teams to which he would not accept a trade. Could you send Tino Martinez and his 66 RBIs home to Tampa Bay? And would you give a fat raise to J.D. Drew, who made $3.7 million this year? Drew will be 28 next season, yet he's still never had 75 RBIs or 500 at-bats in a single campaign. And don't forget, Albert Pujols (a $900,000 bargain this year) is in line to become the highest-paid three-year player in the game's history.

Mostly, though, St. Louis needs to find pitching, especially young pitching. It cannot enter another season counting on a staff with so many question marks, whether they're about health, age or effectiveness. It will be a busy offseason for the Cardinals as well as a long one, as they can ponder how they could collapse so swiftly in September.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci covers baseball for the magazine and is a regular contributor to SI.com.