A painful final act

Cardinals end tragic season on another sad note

The Cardinals were stunned to see their season end Monday. AP

By John Donovan, CNNSI.com

SAN FRANCISCO -- Matt Morris stared blankly at the dugout floor, pandemonium raging all around him. The look said it all: Another year, another failure in another critical postseason game.

The difference was, for Morris and the St. Louis Cardinals, this wasn't just another year. This was the farthest thing from just another year. This one was special, for all the pain and suffering the Cardinals have been through and for all that they accomplished. And for all that they could have accomplished.

To have it end so ingloriously, with a wrenching one-run loss -- another one-run loss -- in someone else's park -- it's almost too much to handle.

"We're all just heartbroken," Morris said in a subdued clubhouse after the San Francisco Giants won the National League Championship Series on Monday night at Pacific Bell Park, beating Morris and the Cards, 2-1. "It's black and white."

There was no sugarcoating Monday night's loss for the Cardinals, who have laid out their emotions for everyone to pick over all season long. They dropped another postseason game with Morris on the mound. Morris, as he did last season in the divisional series against Arizona, pitched brilliantly.

But not brilliantly enough.

"We didn't give Matt Mo a chance," said reliever Steve Kline, who gave up the winning hit, a two-out single in the bottom of the ninth to San Francisco's Kenny Lofton. "He pitched his heart out."

Last year, Morris started Games 1 and 5 in the divisional series, both times matched up against the Diamondbacks' Curt Schilling. Morris gave up just two runs in 15 innings, a 1.20 ERA. The Cards lost both games, 1-0 and 2-1.

Monday against the Giants he went 8 2/3 innings, scattered seven hits and struck out four. He left with men on first and third and an out away from extra innings. And then Kline gave up a first-pitch single to Lofton and the Giants' celebration broke out.

The Cardinals have overcome so much this season. They fought through the deaths of pitcher Darryl Kile and of beloved broadcaster Jack Buck. They played through the seemingly non-stop injuries. And, somehow, they kept winning.

Morris, despite losing one of his best friends on the team in Kile, was the ace the team needed so badly, going 17-9, following his 22-8 year in 2001. Third baseman Scott Rolen, who came over in a mid-season trade with Philadelphia, helped spark one of the best hitting attacks in the league. The Cards won the NL Central.

Then Rolen went down with a shoulder injury in the divisional series, not to play at all in the NLCS. The Giants won the first two games in St. Louis. The season began to unravel.

Monday night, with the Cards down three games to one in the best-of-seven NLCS, Morris was there to try to put the Cards together again. He baffled the Giants for seven innings, finally giving up a run in the eighth on a pair of singles, a hit batter and a sacrifice fly.

Then in the ninth he allowed two more singles, both with two outs, before giving way to Kline. Then the hit and the run and the celebration.

And the painful end to a painful season.

Afterward, St. Louis second baseman Fernando Vina tried to put the loss and the season into perspective as teammates hugged each other on the other side of the clubhouse.

"No other team came close to experiencing what we did," Vina said. "But we kept playing and playing and kept going."

That was probably the Cardinals' biggest victory of 2002.

 

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