Not buying LaRussa’s communications story

St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa is blaming this for last night’s World Series loss to the Texas Rangers. Here’s what happened: Right-handed hitting Texas catcher Mike Napoli hit a two-run double in the eighth inning off left-handed reliever Marc Rzepczynski to break a 2-2 tie — the last runs scored in the game.

Mike Napoli

LaRussa claims Rzepczynski shouldn’t have been in the game at the moment, that the bullpen coach warmed up and sent in the wrong pitcher. He said the crowd noise at Rangers Stadium was so intense that the bullpen coach couldn’t hear LaRussa’s instructions over the phone connecting the bullpen with the dugout. (Rangers Stadium is constructed in such a way that you can’t see what’s happening in the visiting team’s bullpen from its dugout, but that’s just one of the reason it’s called "a home field advantage." Another reason is local crowd noise.)

But I digress. There are those who say LaRussa is throwing his bullpen coach under the bus. One St. Louis columnist quoted someone in the Cardinals’ bullpen as saying LaRussa’s account "is not what happened."

But even if I give LaRussa the benefit of the doubt, I’m not buying his story. This is the World Series. This is the time when you wear both a belt and suspenders. The crowd noise/bullpen issue probably wasn’t much of a concern in the blowout Game 3, but I’m betting it was there in Game 4, which the Rangers also won. I have to believe that LaRussa meets with all his coaches after each game to discuss issues/problems and what can be done to address them. If the crowd noise was that much of an issue, it should have been discussed after Game 4 and addressed then.

But back to my "belt and suspenders" comment. Even if the noise wasn’t discussed, LaRussa, if he’s the genius who thinks of all angles like we’ve been led to believe, should have come up with a simple plan, telling his bullpen coach: "When I call you, be sure to repeat what I’ve told you. If you don’t hear anything from me, it means I have hung up because you heard me correctly. If you still hear my voice, that means get out your cell phone because I’m about to text you."

But Napoli did more than hit the crucial double. I thought his signature play was in the ninth inning when Rangers closer Neftali Feliz hit Allen Craig on a 1-2 pitch bringing Albert Pujols, the best hitter in the game today, to the plate as the tying run. But Felix not only struck out Pujols on a 3-2 pitch, but Napoli gunned down Craig trying to advance to second for a double play to empty the bases. (Napoli also threw out Craig in the seventh with Pujols at the plate in what was later described as a botched hit-and-run called by Pujols, not the coaches.)

By the way, has anyone else noticed how the won-loss pattern in this World Series is mirroring the W-L pattern of the NBA championship series? When the Rangers win this Series in six, I can’t see anyone other than Napoli being named the Most Valuable Player.