Detroit – There is so much left in this 2005 baseball season, yet Tony La Russa already knows plenty.
The St. Louis Cardinals’ manager may be heartened knowing his team has a great chance to get back to the World Series. But if he gets there, La Russa knows for certain St. Louis’ Busch Stadium will not bow out in its final season by hosting Games 1 and 2 come late October.
Every time the All-Star Game has counted, the National League gets counted out. The American League all-stars made it 3-for-3 on Tuesday, jumping out to a 7-0 lead before holding on to defeat the outmanned NL all-stars 7-5 on a warm night at festive Comerica Park.
Outmanned? How can an all-star team be outmanned? The National League has been lately as the balance of the game’s elite players clearly has tilted toward the AL, especially with the Great NL Hope, Barry Bonds, nursing bad knees.
“I always said there was more thunder in this league,” said New York Yankees outfielder Gary Sheffield, who was a seven-time NL all-star before jumping to the AL two years ago. “The American League has more shortstops and second basemen who can hit 30 home runs. The National League runs more, so they use more leadoff-type hitters at short and second. I think that’s why you see so much more power up and down the American League lineup in All-Star Games.”
The starting lineups were revealing. While the NL batted the .260-hitting Mike Piazza in the No. 7 hole, the AL countered in that spot with Mark Teixeira, the league leader with 25 homers.
Although the NL had the AL pitchers in trouble, accumulating nine baserunners through six innings, it didn’t have enough firepower to finish a threat until the Texas Rangers’ embattled Kenny Rogers came in to pitch the seventh.
“I don’t think elite players are lacking in the National League,” La Russa said. “We had the same number of hits as they did. The difference was, we hit into three double plays and two of them were hit hard, just right at them. It was good for our league that we came and forced them to use their closer. But they did enough to win the game.”
Rogers was booed in the pregame introduction because of his boorish attack on two TV cameramen two weeks ago, then surrendered a two-run homer to Andruw Jones, who leads the majors with 27, in the seventh.
Booed again after finishing the inning, Rogers could take consolation knowing he was pitching for the better team. The AL was up by a comfortable 7-0 when Jones connected.
“I take responsibility for what I did,” Rogers said. “It was tough going through something like this the last two days, but maybe in a small way, I’ll be better for it.”
Houston Astros reliever Brad Lidge, a former Cherry Creek High School star, maintained late NL momentum by striking out the side in the seventh. The NL then scored a run in the eighth and two more in the ninth, forcing AL manager Terry Francona to use superb Yankees closer Mariano Rivera to get the final out with a runner on.
The turning point came early. After AL starting pitcher Mark Buehrle, who was credited with the win, struck out Piazza and Jeff Kent to end the top half of the second, AL shortstop Miguel Tejada led off the bottom half by pummeling a John Smoltz fastball 436 feet into the left-field bleachers.
Tejada’s homer gave the AL a 1-0 lead, a big reason he was named the game’s MVP. Tejada drove in another run in the AL’s two-run third off Roy Oswalt, and Ichiro Suzuki came through with a two-run single off Livan Hernandez in the fourth.
The Rangers’ switch-hitting Teixeira, who hit all 25 first-half homers from the left side, rubbed it in by belting a right-handed, opposite-field, two-run homer off Dontrelle Willis in the sixth.
Since the NL most recently won in 1996, the AL all-stars have gone 8-0-1. It was that tie in 2002 that caused commissioner Bud Selig to spike the All-Star Game with the incentive of giving the winning league home-field advantage in the World Series.
The AL has won three in a row since.
“I don’t think you’ll see us trash-talking,” Teixeira said. “The minute we do is when the National League will start beating us.”
Staff writer Mike Klis can be reached at 303-820-5440 or mklis@denverpost.com.
