It's Reyes v. Perez---in the majors...really.

So it’s Rookie time at Busch, Reyes against Oliver Perez.

The Mets are down. They looked tired after the flight from NY that landed early Saturday. (McCaver obvious comment alert) A win today would be huge. (Warned you) The Mets haven’t scored since the 6th inning of Game 2. The Cards have scored ten during that time.

We have momentum. I’ve written about that in the past. Momentum is only as good as today’s starting pitcher. And to preserve or change momentum, we’ll have Anthony Reyes and Oliver Perez. It’s the NLCS on Fox.

If both teams had healthy pitching staffs, this would be Weaver v. Maine. As it stands, you have to wonder how much of an underdog the NL team will be against Detroit.

The problem with losing momentum in this series is there are very few pitchers who can steal the momentum back the way Oswalt did from us in Game 6 last year. He was unhittable. Only Glavine or Carpenter have that ability. Glavine pitches on three days rest, while Carpenter doesn’t pitch until Game 6. The Cards at least know there will be a game 6.

However, both of tonight’s starters could give the momentum away.

Reyes is completely unlike Suppan. Suppan lives on his location. Reyes, on changing speeds and blowing hitters away. Reyes has a compact delivery, when he’s on, and his fastball darts around the strike zone. He doesn’t paint corners. But when he’s on, no one can get comfortable against him because of his devestating changeup.

I’m looking forward to seeing what the Fox Gun says the velocity on Reyes is. If Weaver can throw 95, what can Reyes do?

Reyes can be hittable. He’s especially seceptible to the longball. That can be scary. We need Reyes to get off to a good start, and make it once through the lineup unscathed. If the Mets get a bloop and a blast early, momentum will have waned.

Oliver Perez is a lefty. That’s never good for us. You need look no further than Darren Oliver to see how we do of soft-tossing lefties.

The stats aren’t rediculous against lefties. We have an ops of .731 against lefties and .784 vs. righties. That’s a significant difference, but I’m not sure it leads to a 23-34 record against them, with a 60-44 record against righties.

Perez, the former Pirate, is a guy we’ve actually hit; maybe he throws too hard. Pujols is hitting .375 with 3 HR in 24 at-bats. Rolen, hopefully rejuvinated, has hit .450 off Perez.

Tony said last night that he would be benching Spezio because he's not that good against lefties, or something. This year Spezio hit .318 against lefties. That's only 118 points above the Mendoza line. He wants Rolen, for obvious reasons, Encarnacion and Wilson.

Wilson has crushed lefty pitching for us. But he's hitting .091 against Perez. Neither Perez nor Wilson is what he was. However, Spezio hasn't been Spezio for a month or so. He's been Roy Frickin' Hobbs during October.

Put it this way, if the series ended 2-1, the MVP would be Spezio. Tony's benching him for shaky matchup reasons. Spunky. That's what that is.

I hate spunk.

Oh well, nearly everything else Tony has done during the past two weeks has worked, so what the heck.

Today will be the Great Sports Exposure Day, as I’m going to the Rams game and the Cards game. I’ll post about it all later. Meantime, burn some sage for Reyes.