Cardinals in a tough spot

ST. LOUIS -- How did these birds ever win 105 games? Did they have some kind of win-one, get-one deal from the commissioner's office? These Cardinals are playing March baseball in October, and they're one game away from sacking up the bats.

"This loss is too fresh; I don't have any pearls," manager Tony La Russa conceded last night after the Red Sox stifled his ball club, 4-1, at Busch Stadium to take a startling 3-0 lead in the 100th World Series. "But we're in as difficult a spot as you can have. All we can do is win tomorrow."

And then win three more times. No ball club has done that after losing the first three games in a World Series, but that's what St. Louis is up against.

The fact that their opponents just came back from the dead against their own archrivals gives the Redbirds some hope. "It shows it's possible," said La Russa. "We've come too far to give an effort that will embarrass anybody [tonight]."

Not that any of the three losses has been embarrassing, and this one wasn't much different from the previous two. Only the score was.

"I don't think we're stinking up the joint," said La Russa. "But we're better than some of the pitches and plays and swings we've had."

The Cardinals were better than this during the regular season, when they won more games than any other team in the majors. They had better pitching. They had better hitting throughout the lineup. And La Russa said that they might be the best base running team he'd ever seen.

Which is what made last night's two run-robbing blunders so painful. St. Louis had the bases loaded with one out in the first and got nothing after Jim Edmonds flied to left and Manny Ramirez, who has never been confused with the Rifleman, gunned down Larry Walker at the plate to end the inning.

"Had the bases loaded and didn't get a mark," La Russa said ruefully.

In the third, the Cardinals had men on second and third with nobody out and got nothing after pitcher Jeff Suppan got hung up in a do-I-or-don't-I? dilemma between third and home on Walker's grounder to second and was doubled up.

"Basically, I screwed up," said Suppan. "I don't know any other way to explain it. I just screwed up."

The explanation is eerily familiar to Sox fans, who remember the Denny Doyle/Don Zimmer goofup (No! No! Go! Go!) in the 1975 Series against the Reds.

This time, third base coach Jose Oquendo was trying to send Suppan, who heard otherwise and retreated. "Jeff heard `No! No!' and [Oquendo] was yelling `Go! Go!' " said La Russa. It was a killing blunder for the Cardinals, who didn't get another baserunner off Pedro Martinez or another hit until Walker's solo homer off closer Keith Foulke in the ninth.

After the gaffe, there was an animated discussion in the dugout between Oquendo and pitching coach Dave Duncan, a longtime La Russa associate. The two exhanged words, and the next half-inning, Oquendo appeared to grab La Russa, and the discussion continued.

"When you're in a championship competition and the other team is playing well, you can't make mistakes, you can't waste opportunities," said La Russa.

The Red Sox have been far from flawless, but they've been masters of keeping innings going while shutting down St. Louis. The Cardinals have failed across the board. Their base running has been hilarious. They haven't stolen a base. They've bunted once. And their big guns have shot blanks. Scott Rolen still hasn't gotten a hit (0 for 11) in the Series. Neither has Reggie Sanders (0 for 9). Edmonds is hitting .091 (1 for 11), Tony Womack .125 (1 for 8).

What it adds up to is this: The Cardinals could be swept in a Series for the first time since Babe Ruth belted three homers off them in the 1928 finale.

"I was listening to Terry [Francona] after they were down, 0-3, to the Yankees and he said, `We have to win one game,' " said La Russa. "I said, `Man, you can't say it any better than that.' They did it. We can win a game tomorrow."