Stlcardinals.com
July 19, 2001

Morris Gives Cards Just What They Needed

By Jim Molony (MLB.com)

HOUSTON -- St. Louis needed a victory in the worst way. After getting shellacked by Houston on Wednesday night, the Cardinals couldn't afford another loss to the Astros Thursday afternoon at Enron Field.

Sitting eight games back in the NL Central standings, the bullpen having been all but spent spent from the 17-11 score-a-thon defeat the night before, the Cards were facing a must-win situation against one of the most dangerous lineups in baseball.

So Cards manager Tony La Russa gave the ball to Matt Morris and hoped for the best.

Morris delivered, and how. You want a stopper? The guy was Dizzy Dean one inning, Bob Gibson the next. Against an offense that had assaulted the Cardinals' staff the night before, Morris put out the Astros' lights in convincing fashion in a 4-1 victory.

"That was the best breaking ball I've seen him have," Astros first baseman Jeff Bagwell said. "I don't care if we played in New Mexico today, we weren't going to beat Matt Morris."

Morris (12-5, 3.05 ERA) pitched eight superb innings, allowing five hits and a run. He walked two and struck out nine. After giving up an RBI single to Lance Berkman in the first the right-hander retired 12 of the next 15. He then gave up a base hit to Jose Vizcaino before retiring the last 10 Astros he faced.

Morris, 2-0 with a 1.47 ERA in three career appearances at Enron Field, says he has a simple secret to his success at Enron: "Don't look at the left field wall."

The crowd of 38,523 didn't have to very often, at least not when the Astros were up. The Crawford boxes 315 feet away in left didn't come into play at all when Morris was on the mound as the Astros managed to hit only one ball in that direction off Morris, and that was Richard Hidalgo's routine fly ball in the first. Seventeen of the 24 outs Morris recorded came via strikeout or ground out.

Not only has the 26-year-old has clearly recovered from last year's elbow surgery, there's ample evidence to suggest that he's one of the league's most effective starters and one of the best young pitchers in the game. The fact that he bested Houston's Wade Miller, one of the other top young pitchers in the league, only strengthened the notion that Morris has become a complete pitcher.

"He's got three pitches," La Russa said. "He's got a fastball with a couple of different speeds and a breaking ball that he can throw for strikes."

Morris also has the stuff and the poise to take care of one of the most prolific offenses in the game. No staff had held Houston to one run or less at Enron since Philadelphia's Robert Person two-hit the Astros here on May 7.

"I try to keep my sinker down, it's hard to a home run when the ball is on the ground," Morris said. "To string together a bunch of hits on the ground is tough."

Besides joining Arizona's Curt Schilling (13), Chicago's Jon Lieber (12) and Atlanta's Greg Maddux (12) as the only 12-game winners in the league, Morris also put an end to league-leading hitter Moises Alou's 23-game hitting streak, fanning him twice and getting a ground out to third. Astros first baseman Jeff Bagwell, who hit for the cycle the night before, didn't hit a ball out of the infield and whiffed twice.

"I thought Wade pitched a good game, but Morris pitched a great game," Houston Manager Larry Dierker said. "It's obvious from one night to the next day what a difference pitching makes. I can't really fault our hitters any. The guy was throwing hard on both sides of the plate."

About the only thing Morris, who has held hitters to a .175 average in his past two starts, didn't do was get the final three outs.

"I tried to lobby for going out there for the ninth but they weren't going to let me do it," Morris said.

La Russa didn't want to push his prize youngster, not after he'd thrown 117 pitches, including 73 for strikes. There are a lot of important games to play, including two against this same Houston team next week. It was, of course, the correct decision, and Mike Timlin pitched a scoreless inning for his third save to send the Cardinals back home to St. Louis happy to get out of Enron with a split.

"I think to lose this one, after last night, would have been very tough on our morale," Morris said.

Morris made that prospect moot. But who do the Cards pull for when the second-place Astros host the division-leading Cubs for four games beginning Friday night?

"I think we've got to pull for a split," Morris said, smiling. "That, and win our games."