Bullpens Key to Cards-Rangers

If both League Championship Series are any guide, the bullpens of the St. Louis Cardinals and Texas Rangers will play important roles in determining the World Series champion.

The Cardinals’ bullpen weakened the powerful Milwaukee Brewers lineup in the NLCS, posting a 1.88 ERA for the series. Even more noteworthy is that in the NLCS, the Cardinals’ bullpen worked more innings (28 2/3) than and threw almost as many pitches (431) as the St. Louis starters (24 1/3 innings and 450 pitches). St. Louis’ rotation yielded zero quality starts, only one outing of at least five innings and only one win. It’s a minor miracle that despite such lousy starting pitching, the Cardinals won the series in six games and outscored the Brewers 43-26. Their story, rare though it may be, is not unlike Texas’. In their six-game ALCS triumph, the Rangers also benefited from uncommon bullpen excellence (1.32 ERA) and an uncommon bullpen workload (27 1/3 innings and 391 pitches). Viva la pitching changes!

There’s also a flip side to all of this: The Rangers are moving on despite an ALCS rotation ERA of 6.59 and the Cardinals despite an NLCS rotation ERA of 7.03. If the Philadelphia Phillies’ early exit didn’t kill off the “starting pitching uber alles” strain of postseason thought, these LCS outcomes surely will. At least for 2011.

All of these improbabilities raise a question looking forward: Who has the bullpen edge in the World Series?

In the regular season, the Cardinals ranked 11th in the 16-team NL with a bullpen ERA of 3.73. However, the worst Cardinals relievers during the regular season will play no role in the World Series. If you remove from the calculus the numbers of Ryan Franklin, Miguel Batista, Bryan Augenstein, Maikel Cleto, P.J. Walters, Brian Tallet, Trever Miller and, um, Skip Schumaker (Aug. 23!), the bullpen ERA drops to 2.83. In other words, the bullpen that the Cardinals will trot out for the 107th World Series will be very, very good.

What’s particularly encouraging from St. Louis’ standpoint is that its current relievers are stingy when it comes to giving up homers. Against the Texas offense, which ranked second in the majors in home runs, that will serve them well, especially when the scene shifts to Arlington. The Cardinals have plenty of impact right-handed arms to counter righty power bats like ALCS MVP Nelson Cruz, Adrian Beltre and Mike Napoli, who, on a rate basis, was one of the best hitters in baseball this season.

From the left side there’s Marc Rzepczynski, who has been incredibly effective since adjusting his arm slot. There’s also Arthur Rhodes, but he’s been ineffective even in his limited role. On the upside, Josh Hamilton is Texas’ only power left-handed bat, and he’s hardly himself these days. Also, the Rangers likely won’t have any switch-hitters on their World Series roster.

The real key in the middle and later innings is that the Cards could blunt the Rangers’ right-handed attack with right-handers like Jason Motte, Lance Lynn, Fernando Salas, Octavio Dotel and Mitchell Boggs. The series could hinge on that strength-versus-strength subplot.

For Texas, things are similarly promising. The Rangers ranked a meager 12th in the American League in bullpen ERA this season, but if you look at runs per game to eliminate the mostly pointless distinction between earned and unearned runs, the Texas ‘pen improves to fifth in the AL. Alexi Ogando, assuming he’s deployed as a reliever in the World Series, provides a nifty upgrade over what was in place for most of the regular season, and Neftali Feliz has emerged as one of the elite relief arms in baseball.

With Ogando spending the summer in the rotation, Rangers GM Jon Daniels buttressed his relief corps by acquiring right-handers Mike Adams and Koji Uehara at the non-waiver trade deadline. Adams has pitched in line with his excellent career norms, but Uehara has struggled to keep the ball in the park. That’s not surprising given his fly-ball tendencies, but he could be useful when the situation demands a strikeout. Depth from the left side is a concern for Texas, but the same goes for St. Louis.

Given recent events, workloads could be worrisome. These, of course, are cumulative matters, so it’s worth noting that in the full light of the regular season, the Rangers are much better off in terms of games pitched, multiple-inning appearances, appearances on consecutive days and total number of relief innings and pitches.

All things considered, rating the teams’ relief corps appears to be a perilously close call. Both bullpens as presently assembled are better than the overall numbers would suggest, and both are coming off heavy, stressful usage. Still, give the slight edge to the Cardinals because of how their young and outstanding relief arms match up with the driving forces of the Texas offense.