MLB Playoffs: Day 17

Last night, Detroit lost the pennant when its pitching ran out. Tonight, the Cardinals and the Brewers must have both felt like they were running out of pitchers. The score was 5-4 St. Louis at the end of two innings, and at times it looked like one of those college games from a few years ago when teams could still juice up their aluminum bats. But St. Louis found just enough pitching to hold off Milwaukee, and their batters just kept hammering balls all over Milwaukee. The final score was 12-6 for St. Louis, and Tony LaRussa's men have won their third pennant since 2004.

LaRussa has certainly experienced the highs and lows of post-season baseball. He has managed four teams that won 100 games or more in the regular season: the 1988 and 1990 A's, and the 2004 and 2005 Cardinals. None of those teams won the World Series. But he won the Series in 2006 with a Cardinal team that won only 83 regular-season games, and he has St. Louis back in the Series this year despite scraping into the playoffs only because Atlanta totally collapsed. This is LaRussa's sixth trip to the World Series, and he has long since won a place as one of the all-time great managers.

Tribute should also be paid to Albert Pujols, who must now receive serious consideration in any debate over who is the greatest of all Cardinals. Baseball Reference says that the five players whose statistics are most similar to Pujols's through the age of 31 -- Pujols's current age -- are Jimmie Foxx, Ken Griffey Jr., Frank Robinson, Hank Aaron, and Lou Gehrig. So he's in pretty good company. He has already hit 445 home runs, and he has three MVP awards. Remarkably, in 66 post-season games, he has a batting average of .336, an on-base percentage of .438, and a slugging percentage of .592.

One of the main subplots of the NLCS was that the best players on each team -- Pujols for the Cardinals and Prince Fielder for the Brewers -- will be free agents after the season, and will likely leave their Midwestern homes for richer climes closer to the ocean. It was sad to watch the Brewer fans say farewell to Fielder tonight, and it will be sad to see what will probably be Pujols's final at-bat as a Cardinal. But whatever happens during the off-season, LaRussa and Pujols have given Cardinal fans one of the greatest runs in the long and rich history of that legendary old franchise.

National League Championship Series (best of 7):

St. Louis beats Milwaukee 4-2

American League Championship Series (best of 7):

Texas beats Detroit 4-2