Dave Roberts stood in the San Diego clubhouse shaking his head, unable to explain why the Padres failed to come up with any clutch hits in their first round loss to the St. Louis Cardinals.
``I wish I knew,'' said the Padres left fielder, who hit .438 in the series. ``That's the difference, obviously, in the series. When they had to make pitches, they made pitches.''
For the second straight year the Cardinals eliminated the Padres in the opening round of the NL playoffs, this time with a 6-2 win in Game 4 to take the best-of-five series 3-1. St. Louis will face the Mets in Game 1 of the NLCS Wednesday night in New York.
``We had numerous occasions to break games open, but they made pitches when they had to,'' Padres manager Bruce Bochy said.
The Padres were undone by their hit-and-miss offence in the playoffs, so adding hitters will be a priority in the winter. They were 2-for-32 (.063) with runners in scoring position for the series.
``We didn't hit very well with runners in scoring position and it came back to haunt us,'' Bochy said.
San Diego will be unburdened by the US$30 million combined that it paid to slugger Ryan Klesko, Game 4 starter Woody Williams and Chan Ho Park this year. Their second-half additions of Russell Branyan and Todd Walker seemed patchwork at best.
San Diego might make a run at Barry Zito in free agency, but the left-hander, who went to high school in San Diego, probably would balk if the Padres offered the so-called San Diego discount.
Several Padres, including general manager Kevin Towers, agreed the nucleus is strong for a return to the post-season, though Towers cited a need to pursue a second left-hander for the bullpen and ``a couple of big bats.''
``I really thought we had a chance of going a long way and it didn't happen,'' Towers said. ``I think we have a good core going forward and hopefully bring back a large part of the club we put together this year.''
The Padres failed to homer in the series.
At least the Padres were able to win a game from the Cardinals this time. In 2005, St. Louis swept three straight from San Diego. And in their only other post-season matchup, in a divisional series in 1996, the Padres were swept in three games. Overall, Tony La Russa's Cardinals are 9-1 against Bochy's Padres in the post-season.
The difference this time was the Padres came in as the favourites, their NL West-winning 88-74 record better than the Cardinals 83-78 showing.
St. Louis backed into the playoffs, nearly blowing a seven-game lead over the final 13 games before clinching the NL Central title on the final day and only because Houston lost to Atlanta.
The Padres were hoping to send the series back to San Diego for a fifth game in which they would have had a huge pitching advantage _ Jake Peavy against journeyman Jeff Weaver, who was released by the Angels earlier this season.
But after two gift runs in the first _ Cardinals starter Chris Carpenter walked in one, the other scored on a groundout _ the Padres were hurt again by a lack of clutch hitting.
San Diego could have scored more runs, but Josh Barfield grounded out with the bases loaded.
``We had a tough time getting the big hit,'' Bochy said.
The Padres weren't able to come up with a key hit in each of the last two innings. They had first and third and none out in the eighth, but Josh Bard struck out and pinch-hitter Mike Piazza hit into a double play. Piazza was 1-for-10 for the series.
Then the Cardinals sealed the win when Adam Wainwright got Dave Roberts on a groundout with two on, with Albert Pujols stepping on the first-base bag for the final out in the ninth.
© The Canadian Press, 2007
