St. Louis Cardinals' starter Kyle Lohse reflects on team’s elimination – MLB News
A day after the St. Louis Cardinals were eliminated from the National League Championship Series, starter Kyle Lohse laid the blame on the lacklustre performance in the last two games that resulted in the Redbirds’ elimination.
The Cardinals had a supposedly safe and potentially winning 3-1 lead in the first four games of the National League Championship Series against San Francisco Giants. A game away from making their way into the World Series, they failed almost in all facets of the game in the last three matches.
Be that as it may, it was the defence that first collapsed, culminating with the vulnerability and eventual failure of other departments of the game. With rotation unable to effectively discharge its responsibility, others were in line.
But for Lohse, it was the performance in the last three games that eventuated with the team’s elimination even though they had been playing tremendously well throughout the year.
"I think as a whole, over the year, we've done a good job," Lohse said. "It's a shame the last couple games we didn't get the job done. We just didn't do it. There's nothing else you can point at, other than we needed to give our team a better start, give us a chance to put some runs up. And instead, I gave up the runs early and put us in a big hole."
Kyle Lohse, one of the consistent pitchers that the Cardinals had in the lineup and could boast about, could not quite do what he had famously been doing. In last three games, he was among the three starters who allowed 14 runs in just over nine innings.
Lohse’s inability to retain command and dominance was most unsettling for the Cardinals. For example, in the regular season, he was one starter who had an impressive 16-3 record in 33 starts that he had, maintaining a wonderful 2.86 ERA with 143 strike-outs to his credit.
But a quick look in his last seven day’s performance brings to fore a different picture. In his 7.2 innings, he allowed 13 hits and surrendered six runs. In total, of the 20.1 innings that he pitched, he allowed nine runs, all of which were earned runs with 3.98 ERA.
Thus, things did not quite go in the Cardinals’ favour at the end as other starters like Chris Carpenter also struggled. Ultimately, the Cardinals are out of the 2012 Major League Baseball playoffs just when they were defending their championship.
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