Chris Carpenter Shuts Out Phillies 1-0, Cardinals Advance To NLCS

Chris Carpenter and Roy Halladay took the mound in Game 5 of the NLDS matchup between the St. Louis Cardinals and Philadelphia Philles, and it was the pitching duel we all expected. By the time it was over, Carpenter walked away unscathed, pitching a complete game shutout as the Cardinals moved on to the NLCS with a 1-0 win.

As the Cardinals and Phillies battled in an elimination game, Baseball Nation live-blogged. Below are a few of the highlights.

Here's your scoring summary for the game. I hate to give away the game right near the beginning, but this was it:

A slim lead, but a lead. On the fourth pitch of the game, Rafael Furcal ripped a triple to center field - just the third leadoff triple Halladay has allowed in his career. That brought Skip Schumaker to the plate, and after falling behind 0-2, Schumaker worked a ten-pitch at bat before lining a double into right. Halladay hung a curve in the center of the zone, and Schumaker took advantage. That put St. Louis up 1-0.

In that update, Jeff Sullivan said Chris Carpenter might need to spin a gem. And boy did he spin a gem. But more on that later.

Schumaker, the hero of the game -- or at least the first inning -- made an early exit, leaving the dugout in the third with what we later found out was an oblique strain.

But now the Cardinals will have to play the rest of the way without Schumaker, because in the middle of the third inning, he left the dugout with a trainer, and Jay took over in the outfield. Schumaker was walking under his own power and it's unclear what's wrong, but it's worth noting he flew out in the top of the frame. Maybe that isn't worth noting. I literally have no idea what the matter is, except that he isn't suffering from armlessness or anything. Nothing was visibly wrong.

And while Carpenter was pitching well -- the Phillies had still yet to score by the fifth -- he did do something to tarnish his stellar night by failing to run out a terrible bunt.

Not well, anyway. He fouled off a couple of sacrifice attempts, falling behind 0 and 2. He did eventually get the bunt down, but it wasn't a real good one. Actually, it was a real terrible one, as Carlos Ruiz stood up, took one step forward, grabbed the baseball on a high bounce, and threw to second base to easily force Punto at second.

Carpenter didn't run, either. He literally didn't run, or take even a cursory step toward first base. He stood and watched the double play turned, as if he'd just arrived on these shores and was fascinated by this strange phenomenon.

I'm not going to give it away, but Peanuts makes an appearance in this update. That should be enough to compel you to click.

To the eighth we went and the Cardinals had a chance to increase their lead if not for that dreaded bunt.

It almost got worse for the Phillies. After Chris Carpenter led off the inning with a single, Carlos Ruiz tried and failed to get him at second on a Rafael Furcal bunt. Jon Jay sacrificed the runners over, and Halladay walked Albert Pujols intentionally. Probably could have had Pujols hit if you'd kept your bunt in your pants, La Russa.

Halladay got out of the inning and we were headed for a close finish. That close finish included a heart-stopping eighth and the luck of the bounce for the Cardinals!

And before things could settle down, Jimmy Rollins lined a pitch off Carpenter that went right to Nick Punto. If it had caromed a few degrees in either direction, the Phillies might still be batting. As is, it's still a 1-0 game entering the ninth, and Roy Halladay has been replaced by Ryan Madson.

Paper bag time for Phillies fans. Use it to keep from hyperventilating, and keep it to do what you will if the Phillies can't pick up a run in the ninth.

And because it was spoiled earlier, Carpenter did, in fact, spin a gem. He came in to finish the ninth and closed out the complete game shutout as the Cardinals advanced to the NLCS with a 1-0 win. And to add salt to the wound, Ryan Howard may have torn his Achilles while making the final out. Not a good night for the Phillies.

For more on this game, check out Jeff Sullivan's recap and the rest of the live-blog.

Zoinks.

With one out in the bottom of the eighth, Carlos Ruiz hit a hard grounder up the middle. A runner on first in a 1-0 game would have been just delightful as far as the Phillies were concerned, but Rafael Furcal made a superlative, sprawling dive to get the ball, and quickly sprang up to throw out Ruiz, who runs like Carlos Ruiz.

Then Chris Carpenter struck out Ross Gload to end the inning, except Yadier Molina couldn't find the dropped third strike, and when he picked the all up, he threw wide to first base. Carpenter got the strike out; Molina got the error.

And before things could settle down, Jimmy Rollins lined a pitch off Carpenter that went right to Nick Punto. If it had caromed a few degrees in either direction, the Phillies might still be batting. As is, it's still a 1-0 game entering the ninth, and Roy Halladay has been replaced by Ryan Madson.

Paper bag time for Phillies fans. Use it to keep from hyperventilating, and keep it to do what you will if the Phillies can't pick up a run in the ninth.

Reminder: This isn't supposed to be happening. If Craig Kimbrel could throw strikes when he needed to, or if Carlos Marmol could save a game, or if the Braves could win one game against a Phillies team that didn't care about the end of the season that much, the Cardinals wouldn't be in the playoffs. Instead, they're just two innings away from going to the National League Championship Series.

It almost got worse for the Phillies. After Chris Carpenter led off the inning with a single, Carlos Ruiz tried and failed to get him at second on a Rafael Furcal bunt. Jon Jay sacrificed the runners over, and Halladay walked Albert Pujols intentionally. Probably could have had Pujols hit if you'd kept your bunt in your pants, La Russa.

But Halladay struck out Lance Berkman on four pitches, and he got Matt Holliday to fly out to deep left field. The 1-0 game continues into the eighth inning, and I'm sure everyone in Philadelphia and St. Louis is calm as can be right now.

With Roy Halladay and Chris Carpenter facing off in a must-win game for both teams, we knew we might see something special tonight.

This special, though?

With seven-and-a-half innings in the books, there's now an excellent chance this game will finish 1-0.

In the whole history of postseason baseball, beginning with the first World Series in 1903, before this game there had been 78 sudden-death postseason games.

Only two of those games resulted in a pitcher throwing a 1-0 shutout, and both of them are incredibly famous.

The first was Game 7 of the 1962 World Series. With the Yankees ahead of the Giants 1-0, Matty Alou led off the bottom of the ninth inning with a bunt single. Yankees starter Ralph Terry struck out Felipe Alou and Chuck Hiller, but Willie Mays doubled, with Matty stopping at third.

Next up, Willie "Stretch" McCovey, one of the scariest lefty hitters anyone's ever seen, and what happened next inspired two of the great cartoon strips about baseball ...

The second was Game 7 of the 1991 World Series, and is roughly 50 percent of the reason why people think Jack Morris belongs in the Hall of Fame (the other 50 percent is that Morris won more games in the 1980s than anyone else).

This game can't match those games, because it's just a Division Series. Still, baseball doesn't get a whole lot better than this, right now.

In the first inning, Rafael Furcal tripled, and he came home on a Skip Schumaker double. About 39 or 40 outs later, here we are. The Cardinals have a 1-0 lead heading into the bottom of the seventh.

Since that early pair of extra-base hits, Halladay has been unhittable. The problem with that is that Carpenter's been as good, but he didn't give up two extra-base hits in the first inning. That's the difference. And Halladay's no stranger to tough-luck losses.

In the bottom of the sixth, Chase Utley singled with one out and tried to steal with Hunter Pence up. After 589 replays of Yadier Molina pumping his fist in triumph, TBS finally showed a conclusive replay -- Utley was out. The mini-rally was squandered.

In the bottom of the seventh, Ryan Howard led off and worked a 3-0 count. He got the green light, and he got the fastball down the middle, but he popped the ball up to shallow right. The crowd in Citizen's Bank Park felt that was a good time to express their displeasure with Howard's performance in the playoffs over the past two years. They were trying to say ...

Boooooh-oy! Your production certainly does not meet with our expectations, but we still love you for who you are!

...but they couldn't time it right, so all the cameras picked up was ...

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

What an awkward misunderstanding.

The little things can sometimes come back to haunt you.

Okay, so you already knew that. But when Ron Darling says it on TV, it really seems to matter, you know?

Or not. Anyway, apparently Chris Carpenter's pitching so well tonight that he doesn't feel compelled to do anything else.

Coming up in the top of the fifth with Nick Punto on first base -- Punto having singled, and in the game purely because Tony La Russa loves Nick Punto and other Nick Punto-like players -- Carpenter didn't bunt.

Not well, anyway. He fouled off a couple of sacrifice attempts, falling behind 0 and 2. He did eventually get the bunt down, but it wasn't a real good one. Actually, it was a real terrible one, as Carlos Ruiz stood up, took one step forward, grabbed the baseball on a high bounce, and threw to second base to easily force Punto at second.

Carpenter didn't run, either. He literally didn't run, or take even a cursory step toward first base. He stood and watched the double play turned, as if he'd just arrived on these shores and was fascinated by this strange phenomenon.

Hey, maybe Carpenter just wanted to keep the game close. More fun that way.

In the bottom of the fifth, he returned to the mound and set the Phillies down in order.

Maybe pitching is plenty, and after five innings it's still Cardinals 1, Phillies 0.

First things first: Skip Schumaker was removed with an oblique strain. We already told you he was removed. We didn't tell you why. Oblique strain. That's why. Of course that's why. That's always why.

Second things second: it's still 1-0 Cardinals. The game is headed to the top of the fifth as I write this, and the score is still 1-0 Cardinals, just as it was after the second batter of the game. Roy Halladay, rather predictably, has settled down since those consecutive extra-base hits to start off - he threw a 1-2-3 second, a 1-2-3 third, and allowed only a ground ball single in the fourth.

But Chris Carpenter has also been strong. Stronger, one might argue. He didn't allow a runner in the third. Then in the fourth, he got himself into a little trouble, but escaped unscathed. He hit Chase Utley to lead off and allowed a two-out single to Shane Victorino to put runners on the corners for Raul Ibanez. On the seventh pitch of the at bat, Ibanez pulled a towering fly ball to right field. The camera instantly shot up and acted as if it was expecting a home run, and many of the fans behaved as if they thought the same thing, but Lance Berkman settled on the track to make a catch and end the inning.

So that's why we're going to the top bottom of the fifth still 1-0. As I was writing this, Halladay spun another easy half inning. How does he do that!

Well, it's not weird now that you know the context. They're both fantastic pitchers and former Cy Young winners. But back in 2000, the two were teammates on the same Blue Jays team. Wow! Must have been quite a rotation!

It was quite a rotation. Just not quite how the Blue Jays were hoping. And the Jays finished above .500, believe it or not, despite almost 250 innings of the worst starting pitching imaginable. And who would have thought that 12 seasons later, these two would have faced off in a playoff elimination game?

This is all a long-winded way of writing that I'm going to really enjoy the Kyle Drabek/Jo-Jo Reyes match-up in the 2022 playoffs.

One of the surprises - I guess the only surprise - in the Cardinals' starting lineup for this game was that Skip Schumaker was starting over Jon Jay in center field, with Nick Punto coming in to play second base. And the move paid immediate dividends when, in the top of the first, Schumaker worked a long at bat and ripped an RBI double off Roy Halladay to give St. Louis a quick edge.

But now the Cardinals will have to play the rest of the way without Schumaker, because in the middle of the third inning, he left the dugout with a trainer, and Jay took over in the outfield. Schumaker was walking under his own power and it's unclear what's wrong, but it's worth noting he flew out in the top of the frame. Maybe that isn't worth noting. I literally have no idea what the matter is, except that he isn't suffering from armlessness or anything. Nothing was visibly wrong.

Jay is a fine player and this shouldn't be much of a setback, but La Russa wanted Schumaker, and now he doesn't have Schumaker. Raspberries.

It took two batters before the Cardinals had established a lead over Roy Halladay and the Phillies. The lead was just 1-0, which probably isn't going to be enough, but it might be enough. After two innings, it's closer to being enough than it was.

Chris Carpenter protected that lead in the bottom of the first, working through the Phillies 1-2-3. In the second, Halladay settled down and spun a 1-2-3 frame of his own, but then Carpenter came out and kept the Phillies scoreless once more. He wasn't perfect, as Shane Victorino nicked him for a one-out double, but Victorino died on the bases, as neither Raul Ibanez nor Placido Polanco could bring him home. Neither came real close.

We're going to the third, and it's still 1-0 St. Louis. One remembers that Halladay cruised in Game 1 after allowing an early homer, and the Cardinals are surely aware that he could start cruising again. He might already be cruising, given his second inning. So there's still a lot of pressure on Carpenter. But he's done what he needed to do for the first two innings.

The whole discussion about this Phillies/Cardinals Game 5 is that the Phillies have Roy Halladay while the Cardinals don't, so the Cardinals need to hope that Chris Carpenter spins a gem.

Which, well, Chris Carpenter might need to spin a gem. The Cardinals would certainly like it if he were to spin a gem. But after half of an inning, Halladay has looked mortal, and the Cardinals have a lead.

A slim lead, but a lead. On the fourth pitch of the game, Rafael Furcal ripped a triple to center field - just the third leadoff triple Halladay has allowed in his career. That brought Skip Schumaker to the plate, and after falling behind 0-2, Schumaker worked a ten-pitch at bat before lining a double into right. Halladay hung a curve in the center of the zone, and Schumaker took advantage. That put St. Louis up 1-0.

Unfortunately for them, they couldn't do any more damage. Albert Pujols followed Schumaker with a grounder to second, where Chase Utley made the very heads-up decision to throw to third, where he nailed Schumaker trying to advance. Then, after a wild pitch and a catcher's interference call, both Matt Holliday and Yadier Molina made easy outs, stranding a pair of runners. More could have been done.

But some was done, and a lead against Halladay is a lead against Halladay. We'll see if he settles down after the first inning, the way he did in Game 1.

The Philadelphia Phillies have been considered World Series contenders from the beginning of the season because they have Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, and Cole Hamels in their starting rotation. Friday night, the St. Louis Cardinals will have to deal with Halladay for a while, but why face one of them when you can face all three!

Lee threw 110 pitches last Sunday, while Hamels threw 117 pitches on Tuesday. There's no guarantee that either of them pitch tonight, but the option is there, which boosts the depth behind Halladay. Who, of course, is the last pitcher in baseball behind whom you would need to have depth.

During Wednesday's Game 4, Skip Schumaker took a swing and grabbed at his hamstring, feeling a cramp. Schumaker came out of the game and received IV treatment. and there was some question about his availability for Game 5. So with that in mind, how about we take a look at the Cardinals' starting lineup Friday night?

Rafael Furcal, SS
Skip Schumaker, CF
Albert Pujols, 1B
Lance Berkman, RF
Matt Holliday, LF
Yadier Molina, C
David Freese, 3B
Nick Punto, 2B
Chris Carpenter, SP

Not only is Schumaker playing - he's starting in center field, in place of Jon Jay, who started each of the first four games. Schumaker started only one game in center during the regular season, but he's done it 72 times in his career, so it's not like he's completely inexperienced.

Why the move? I guess to get Nick Punto's bat in the lineup. Nick Punto is a worse hitter than Jon Jay, but Tony La Russa didn't see Nick Punto as a Twin. Tony La Russa has only seen Nick Punto as a Cardinal, and as a Cardinal, Punto batted .278 with a 127 OPS+. He's also 4-for-14 against Roy Halladay in his career with two walks, so there's that as well. Please don't ask me to climb inside of Tony La Russa's head.

You'll notice that Holliday is starting, and he recently claimed that his injured finger feels a lot better. He could be lying, but he could be telling the truth, and he has an intimidating presence either way.

Friday night, the Phillies will play the most important game of their season. What does their starting lineup look like, you ask? You won't believe how many surprises you will not find below.

Jimmy Rollins, SS
Chase Utley, 2B
Hunter Pence, RF
Ryan Howard, 1B
Shane Victorino, CF
Raul Ibanez, LF
Placido Polanco, 3B
Carlos Ruiz, C
Roy Halladay, SP

Yuuuup. Pitcher aside, it's been the same starting lineup all series long, save for one fleeting blip that sounded like "John Mayberry", or "Ron A. Terry", or "Tom Gayderry." Whatever it was, it hasn't come back, and Charlie Manuel's sticking with the familiar. As he should, because this is the best lineup he could possibly produce. Right down to Halladay. They might score enough runs or they might not score enough runs, but if they don't score enough runs, it won't be Manuel's fault. Unless he removes Halladay after a batter or two and replaces him with Brian Schneider. No, no don't do that, then the lineup will never be able to score enough runs! Brian Schneider is not a pitcher! This is an important game!