1. I agree with Rizzo that protecting Strasburg's future is a priority and I feel that it took guts for Rizzo to maintain that position. Further, Strasburg, himself, was erratic down the stretch. There's no guarantee he, himself, would have pitched well. When you think about it, it's lucky Gio wasn't blown out of his game after walking seven batters and Jordan Zimmermann didn't look good either.
2. The Cardinals, with all their playoff experience, looked much better than we did. We looked defeated today as early as the 4 to 0 lead. It seemed to suck the energy out of the players. I know the spirit of this fan was totally demoralized.
3. We haven't looked too sharp for a few weeks now.
4. You had to know if we lost this Series or any of the other playoffs, every one would start blaming the Strasburg issue and would bring it up all over again. And, yes, Strasburg's face will be all over the broadcast again tomorrow as it was today.
5. The fact that we're not hitting is just as much to blame as the lack of good pitching. We left runners galore on the bases almost every inning. It didn't help to have a bad umpire call which could so easily have been rectified with instant replay - particularly in playoff games.
All in all, we don't seem up to the task although there's a game tomorrow and who knows?
