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'It's just one game' Cards like the way they played Game 1, even in defeat
By John Donovan, CNNSI.com ST. LOUIS -- It's only one game. That's how the St. Louis Cardinals were looking at things Wednesday night. It's pretty much how the St. Louis Cardinals had to look at things after Game 1 of the National League Championship Series. Despite outhitting the visiting New York Mets and hanging in the ballgame until an ugly ninth inning, the Cardinals finally gave away their home-field advantage in the best-of-seven series by dropping a 6-2 decision to the Mets at Busch Stadium. Game 2 is scheduled for Thursday with the Cardinals already vowing to even things up. "We've been playing series all year long, and we've lost a lot of first games," St. Louis slugger Jim Edmonds said. "I don't think this changes anything." You can point to a lot of reasons the Cardinals dropped their first game of this postseason. But you don't have to go much past one statistic to find the real reason. The Cardinals were 0-for-13 with runners in scoring position. End of story, as far as the Cardinals are concerned. "They had timely hitting," Edmonds said, "and we didn't." In fact, the Cardinals stranded 11 runners, four of them at third base, tying a franchise record in the NLCS. The utter failure in such an important opening game might have eaten at many teams. But the Cards see it more as a fluke than anything else. "We've lost a game before and turned it right around the next day," first baseman Will Clark said. "We'll try to do it again [Thursday]." The Cardinals have been clutch all season long, but every time they had a chance to drive in runs Wednesday, they simply came up short. Edmonds' drive to deep left field in the seventh inning was just feet short of a score-tying home run. One batter before that, Edgar Renteria went deep -- but not deep enough -- to right field. There were several other hard-hit balls that happened to be hard-hit right at the Mets. "We just couldn't get that one two-out base hit that would put us over the top," Clark said. "The thing about baseball, when you can get that one two-out base hit, it can lead to a big inning." With the loss, the Cardinals dropped their fourth straight NLCS game (including the last three in 1996, the last time they played for the NL pennant). More serious, perhaps, is this little tidbit: The last seven NL champs all won the first game of the NLCS. It's only one game. But it may turn out to be a huge one.
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