'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
Zack Hample leads the majors in hogging home run balls.
The St. Louis Cardinals announced a three-year contract extension with general manager John Mozeliak on Thursday and exercised the 2014 option for manager Mike Matheny, hoping the pair will keep the team contending for the World Series.
Mark McGwire is coming home as hitting coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers, lured by the chance to spend more time with his wife and five young children.
Matt Holliday was back in the lineup for Game 7 of the NL championship series for the St. Louis Cardinals on Monday night, a day after being a late scratch with tightness in his lower back.
San Francisco's players, soaked to the core in a driving rain, began running around the field slapping high-fives with fans. Sergio Romo danced through the raindrops and Angel Pagan waved a black Giants flag as he ran, then stayed outside with his daughter well after everyone else had taken the celebration indoors to the clubhouse.
Ryan Vogelsong struck out six during a hitless start, and the San Francisco Giants took a 5-0 lead over the St. Louis Cardinals through three innings in Game 6 of the NL championship series Sunday night.
Carlos Beltran returned to the St. Louis Cardinals' starting lineup Friday night for Game 5 of the NL championship series.
Adam Wainwright looked like an ace again and some of the St. Louis Cardinals' top hitters rediscovered their strokes.
Jason Motte had a lot more time than usual to get ready, learning the plan before the grounds crew took the tarp off the field. It was nice to get some advance notice before going for the first two-inning save of his career under October pressure.
Cardinals star Carlos Beltran left Game 3 of the NL championship series with a strained left knee, and there was an immediate impact: Replacement right fielder Matt Carpenter hit a two-run homer in his first at-bat.
Ahead by a lot or behind by a bunch, these St. Louis Cardinals are winning every which way.
In the end, there was nothing but silence to greet them.
Facing the possibility of heading to Washington down 2-0 in a best-of-five series, the St. Louis Cardinals treated Monday like an elimination game.
Game 1 of the National League Division Series represented meatloaf for Washington. There would be no gravy Monday in Game 2.
If there was one image the Washington Nationals may remember from a game they would surely love to forget, it was of Carlos Beltran. Standing on the top step of the St. Louis Cardinals' dugout after his second two-run homer of the game, Beltran reveled in a curtain call while Chien-Ming Wang stood emotionless on the mound.
He claimed he would have grabbed Martin Prado's sixth-inning homer to left had he not been speaking with a Diamondbacks television reporter at the time.
"If you look at the games we made a lot of mistakes and they didn't make any," Beltran said. "They took advantage of those. They were able to put things together, offense, pitching, defense, and we couldn't do that."
