stlcardinals.com
September 15, 2002

Morris Not Sharp In Loss To Astros

By Matthew Leach

HOUSTON -- The curse of being a staff ace, of being a legitimate No. 1 starter, is that you're never allowed to have an off day. A bad game for Matt Morris has to be analyzed. Surely something is wrong when Morris is chased in the fourth inning.

Right?

Not always.

Sometimes even the best get hit. And that happens more often against good hitting teams -- such as, say, the Astros, who have thumpers Lance Berkman and Jeff Bagwell in the middle of their order. It also happens more often in hitter-friendly ballparks -- such as, say, Minute Maid Park, with its inviting left-field scoreboard wall.

And so, it happened to Morris on Sunday. He was tagged for five runs on nine hits in 3 2/3 innings as the Cardinals lost 8-0 to Houston. Berkman had four hits and four RBIs, including a mammoth homer in the fourth. Morris suffered his shortest outing of 2002.

"Today, he wasn't that sharp," said manager Tony La Russa, "and they got him."

Morris was making just his second start since being activated from the disabled list. He was shelved for the requisite 15 days, and no longer, with a strained left hamstring. His first time out, he pitched a solid, workmanlike five innings against the last-place Brewers. This was clearly a different test.

But Morris insisted that the injury was not a factor.

"Just everything," he said when pressed for an explanation for the sub par performance. "I just didn't come out and pitch well.

"I just came in flat and didn't make pitches."

It wasn't the first time the Astros have gotten to Morris, though overall he has fared quite well against them. In late September of last season, he gave up eight runs in 4 2/3 innings here at the bandbox in downtown Houston. In late May of this year, Houston hung four runs and seven hits on the St. Louis ace in 4 1/3 innings.

But even so, this just isn't supposed to happen.

But, of course, it did.

"He got hit," pitching coach Dave Duncan said matter-of-factly. "Happens to everybody. Good pitchers don't get hit very often, but they all get hit at one time or another. This happens.

"This club has been a club that's played him well. So they go in with the thought that they can hit him. Today when maybe he wasn't as sharp location-wise as he normally is, they took advantage of it."

And in doing so, Houston salvaged a split of a four-game series. Truthfully, the Astros almost certainly needed at least three wins out of four. But to have lost three out of four would have been devastating.

In that light, this game was not as big for the Cardinals as it was for the Astros. Nonetheless, it was a key contest. It always is when first place meets second place in mid-September. So Morris took little consolation in the Cardinals' 6 1/2-game cushion.

"It helps," he said. "But today, we could have pulled away, you know? I'm still upset about that."

Of course, the best medicine -- especially for a fierce competitor like Morris -- is the proverbial hair of the dog that bit you. Morris gets a nice dose of that, and soon.

On Saturday at Busch Stadium, he's scheduled to face this same team again. The crowd will be much friendlier. The dimensions of the ballpark will be as well.

And to succeed, Morris won't need to fix anything. He doesn't need to rest up, or find some way to heal his hammy.

It's much simpler than that.

"He has to pitch better," Duncan said.