Clarification coming in NLCS

SAINT LOUIS -- Todays episode of The Tales Of Marco is brought to you by . . . well, nobody, really. It seems that despite the best efforts of the nations media, fans and rogue gossip artists, both the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals prefer that this be a baseball series.Too bad, too. It had a chance to be a real sideshow. Matt Holliday as Scott Cousins, Marco Scutaro as Buster Posey. It was just a restaging of last years elongated march of outrage.BAGGARLY: Scutaro able to laugh after freight train collision
And because of a Wednesday forecast of rain and even perhaps a thundershower (every time there is thunder and lightning anywhere in the United States, the St. Louis branch of the U.S. Weather Service gets a royalty check), Scutaros strained hip makes him an iffy go for Game 3 here.Manager Bruce Bochy seemed less concerned about the forecast as it pertains to his second-base situation, and even said, Marco seems more optimistic about the situation than he did yesterdaya clear indication that the Holliday story is going to last another day, tops. There are no indications that the Giants will make Hollidays well-being at the plate an issue, which means Game 3 will force everyone to move on in that nothing-more-to-see-here-so-move-along way.And thats what happens on an off day after an eventful one. Re-chewed food.Too much of this series has yet to find its form. It was a relievers series in Game 1, it was Ryan Vogelsongs series in Game 2, and Laffaire Scutaro was the main dish Tuesday.But it died for lack of oxygen Tuesday. Scutaro worked out, he is more likely than not to play in Game 3, although the weather (which will be its own bitchy little subplot) may impact whether he does. Hips and knees do not do well in the damp, so the Giants may decide that Ryan Theriot and his intact joints may be a more prudent way to go. That, too, though, is one of those ifs that Bochy likes to let wave in the breeze, knowing that solutions to all those problems will come when they come, and feeding the media horde hypotheticals is sort of like feeding sugar to middle schoolers. You end up with a very unruly classroom.For instance, before Scutaro went south for however long he went that way, the matter of Bochys starting-rotation-by-floating crap game was paramount. And it still is, sort of. Winning Game 3 makes it less important, and losing it makes it more so.And since Bochy cant know who wins Game 3, he doesnt have to feed the beast if he doesnt want to. His answer to that question Tuesday was his best yet:I havent named a starter because, really, I dont have to right now. Thats my biggest reason.And its hard to argue with that logic.
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This, then, is the real template of this series. Two good but incomplete teams throw their strengths and try to hide their weaknesses at each other, ands each will manifest itself at the oddest times. Scutaro, for example, has been as important to the Giants late-season run as anyone, but Theriot makes his loss much less catastrophic than it might be otherwise. Indeed, if you had to rank the Giants irreplaceable players, youd go Buster Posey, Matt Cain, Sergio Romo and Angel Pagan before youd get to Scutaro, because those four cannot reasonably be replaced, while Scutaro ostensibly could be.And in this series, ostensibly is a nice word, because it is amorphous, almost silicon-based, and easy to define in that personal I-dont-care-what-the-dictionary-says-I-want-it-to-mean-this-instead way.In short, the Giants and Cardinals need Game 3 not to see what happens to Marco Scutaro or Matt Holliday or the Giant rotation or the Cardinal bullpen. They, and we, need Game 3 to make some sense out of a series that has resisted comprehension while throwing out sparks of ancillary discussion points that frankly get you nowhere.In other words, we have normalcy soon. Unless it rains a lot. In which case, chaos with a whiskey back is your guide.