yeah, i hear ya. i thought about that, too. i think he was just thinking that one of those grounders would eventually be the 3rd out. most of those runs came in with 2 outs.
Im not to down on the loss... Its a best of 7 series. All we gota do is pull out a win tonight and we have our 2 big guns so that would leave us 3-1 up in the series.
Bullpen...nuff said... Although, I thought we did pretty good offensively, but you can't dig yourself out of a hole like that...
Garner should have left Backe in for another inning or two. He should have pulled Qualls sooner. Biggio and Bagwell have redeemed themselves. The team didn't fold. The hitters are still hot. The bullpen looks like *****. If they win tonight, all is well.
I've read Backe said he was done in the fifth inning and was pitching on pure adrenaline at the time. You can definitely second guess Garner here, but I don't think this loss was really his fault. It was primarily bad luck for Qualls (the cardinals only had one or two well hit balls in that inning), complete lack of execution on defense, and to more minor extent, a few bad calls by the home plate ump at bad times. As for losing the game with Munro and having Backe on full rest, I'd have to disagree. Let's say we lose tomorrow and then win with Roger and Roy (which is what you'd expect). Would you rather have Backe at home on full rest in game 5, or Munro at home on full rest? Game 5 will likely be the more important game, so pitching Backe on short rest in game 1 is for the express purpose of having him on full rest in game 5 at home.
If Backe said he was through, then that is another story; he looked like he could have continued. Guess not.
