[Charles Henrickson]

The Three R’s: Replacements, Rookies, and RISP. That’s the story of this pennant-winning season.

Replacements: Guys go down, other guys step up to take their place, and do it quite well. Guys who needed to be replaced this season at some point: C. Carpenter, Motte, Boggs, Garcia, Westbrook, Mujica, Craig. Guys who stepped in and replaced them: Miller, Mujica, Rosenthal, Kelly, Wacha, Rosenthal, Adams. All in-house guys, too.

Rookies: Ten rookies on this postseason roster. Ten! Adams, Kozma, Chambers, Wong; Miller, Wacha, Maness, Siegrist, Martinez, Rosenthal. And other than Chambers and Wong, these rookies have played major roles in the team getting this far. I have never seen such a collection of great young pitching arrive at the same time on the same team (to go along with the staff ace, the veteran Wainwright).

RISP: Timely hitting with Runners In Scoring Position. Craig, Holliday, M. Carpenter, Beltran, Molina—five of the top six RISP guys in the league are on the Cardinals.

[ken5050]

Millions of Mets fans like myself can't reconcile the image of Beltran standing still, with the bat on his shoulder and talking the 3rd strike in the 9th inning of game SEVEN of the 2006 NLCS against the Cards, (of all teams) with the Beltran who has been simply amazing this season.

YOU CAN'T TAKE A THIRD STRIKE IN THAT SITUATION