St. Louis Cardinals ponder over slumping offence after NLCS debacle– MLB News
As the San Francisco Giants inflicted a defeat on the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship Series, putting an end to their race for World Series championship, third baseman David Freese acknowledged the defensive superiority of the rivals.
The very fact that an otherwise aggressive and productive Cardinals' offence was unable to live up to the expectations and pounce upon the Giants’ defence left a lot to be desired. The inability to fare well at this point in time ultimately came with a price.
That is what David Freese admitted, crediting the Giants with better planning to outrival the Cardinals.
"I think they pitched well," said David Freese. "I think they had a great plan. [Catcher Buster] Posey's very smart back there. ... They were grooving. When you expand the zone a little bit, it's going to hurt you. You break it down, it affected our ability to score runs."
The Cardinals seemed all set to easily win the National League Championship Series as they had held 3-1 lead in the first four games. But the best-of-seven- had an entirely different result as it progressed, leading to the Giants 4-3 win.
It was the performance in the last three games that shattered all the hopes of the Cardinals to gain an upper hand in the NLCS. The offence, in particular, failed to do its bid. They managed to only score one run in the last three games as the Giants dominated both offensively and defensively.
For Allen Craig, among other things, it was the Giants’ starting pitchers who were really doing well, outmanoeuvring the Cardinals' batters and outrivaling St. Louis' pitchers.
"Things are never black and white," said Allen Craig. "Obviously, they played great, and we didn't play great. But it's somewhere in the middle, I think. There's definitely things we didn't do to put ourselves in position to win, and, obviously, their starting pitching was really good. They got timely hits, and we didn't."
With the kind of performance exhibited in the last three games, the Cardinals seemed overwhelmed with fatigue. It, after all, was the same team that had staged a comeback in the second half of the season to not only secure a Wild Card berth, but also win the National League Division Series against the Washington Nationals.
As the race for NLCS ends, the Cardinals will now have abundant time to ponder over what went wrong this year, mistakes that should not be committed in the coming season.
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