Cardinals 12, Brewers 3: Ron Roenicke's Postgame Comments

As seen on FS Wisconsin:

Did he consider starting Marcum in Game 4 instead?

Well, the only way to do that is flip flopping Wolf with him. So you need to decide who pitches better where, whoever pitches the second game is probably going to get two games in, so that's the decision: Whether to flip flop our rotation, because this keeps us on line if we stay with what we've been doing, and if you flip flop it then you're taking guys out of the rotation and you're giving Wolf two games and Marcum one.

Would he consider using Chris Narveson in place of Marcum?

We'll see how it goes. Marcum, when you look at what happened today, he left the ball up to Pujols in the first inning, tried to come in on him, beside that he really wasn't hit that hard. We could've made a couple of plays for him, things would've changed in that ball game a lot. So we go to the bullpen, and the bullpen didn't do so well either. So we didn't pitch well today.

More on Marcum:

Right. In most cases he was down in the zone. That one that Albert hit, he was trying to come up and in I'm sure, but left it on the plate and Albert doesn't miss too many pitches on the plate. But other than that, balls really weren't hit that hard. It's the same thing. You know, they hit a lot of hard balls today and they hit a lot of other balls that went right through us, in between us, blooping in, but they did a good job of really squaring up the mistakes that we made. 

On Albert Pujols:

Well, we saw...the last time we saw them at their place he was swinging the bat just like this. He had four or five hits in a row off of us, you can't make mistakes to him. You have to hit spots, you have to keep it down in the zone. He doesn't miss too many mistakes. 

Is there a question whether Marcum will pitch again?

No, as far as I'm concerned right now he's pitching again.

On changing the approach to Pujols with men on base:

Well, the approach can't really change. If they have guys on base ahead of him you pitch to him. The problem is if you pitch around him, the next two guys are not easy. The next two guys are two of the top guys in the league, so they've got three guys in a row that are as good as anybody in the league. So to pitch around Albert, that's fine, when it makes sense. But you've gotta get through the other two guys. Then after that Freese has hurt us, Molina has hurt us, so it's not just those guys. You're putting extra guys on base and with their lineup that's not a good thing to do.

How did Rickie Weeks' double play impact the game?

Big part in the game. Whether he's safe or out, you guys saw the replay, that's a big play. If he's safe we've got a run in, we have the at bat coming up with Hairston. Big play in the game.

How do you feel heading to St. Louis?

I feel fine. It's nice to get everything out of the way today. We didn't play well today. We didn't play well defensively, we didn't pitch well. I thought we swung the bats ok. But going into St. Louis we're going to have to keep swinging the bats well. I like the two games offensively, and we need to pitch better. It's nice we have Yo going, we feel real confident with that, and we'll see what happens.

How do you avoid losing on road?

Well, it's game-to-game. I don't want to say it's the same thing that happened in the first series where we win at home and then go on the road and we don't play well. It's a different series, different ballpark, different team. Our rotation is different, we've got Yo going in two days, we didn't have Yo going on the road in the first series, so everything's different.

Did he see a replay of Weeks' double play?

I didn't see the replay. It was big. It was a big play.

Does it feel like series will be decided by star players?

That's usually what it comes down to when you have these type series. Their offense is pretty deep all through their lineup. There's still the three big boys, but they're pretty deep. Our guys, it doesn't get any better than our 3-4 hitter. They've got to keep them off base, we need to get our two guys in front of them on base. If we get our two guys in front of them on base we're going to score a lot of runs with our number 3 and 4 hitters.

Is the season series to this point indicative of the relative abilities of these teams?

Well, I don't want to say they're dead even with us. They're a really good team. We're a really good team. I don't know if we're dead even or not but whoever executes...we didn't execute today in two big areas of the game, defensively and pitching. We didn't execute. We're not going to beat them if we don't execute in those two areas.

Is there a difference between Pujols now and normal?

No, I've seen Albert like this before, I've seen him in years past like this. He's a great offensive player. He's a heads-up defensive player, he's a heads-up baserunner. This is a great baseball player.

Concerned with starting pitching?

Well, I'm concerned that against a good offense, I know we need to pitch well. I still have a lot of confidence in all of our starters in the four guys that are going, because I've seen so many games where they've been on. But I know we need to be on when we pitch to these guys. So it's always a concern when you're facing a good offense that you need your guys to be on. I thought Shaun's game could have turned around, and he could've gone on a roll and had some nice innings. But when they don't pitch well you're always concerned about them.