Padres break as curveballs bend

By: SHAUN O'NEILL - Staff Writer | Thursday, October 5, 2006 10:28 PM PDT ∞

SAN DIEGO ---- The St. Louis Cardinals play home games in view of the Gateway Arch. On the road this week, they have given the Padres a close view of a Gateway Arc.

A baseball standard, the old-fashioned curveball, has the Cardinals on the verge of crossing from being a playoff afterthought to a National League Championship Series participant.

In building a 2-0 series lead, Cardinals pitchers have thrown curveball after curveball.

Padres batters have yet to hit the perplexing parabolas.

When Chris Carpenter beat the Padres with a heavy dose of curves Tuesday in Game 1, that raised nary an eyebrow. He's a Cy Young Award winner, and the curve is a big reason for his success.

When Jeff Weaver duplicated the strategy Thursday afternoon in Game 2, that was reason to take notice. Weaver's curve has been little more than a throwaway, something to keep hitters honest but not a featured weapon. But he, too, relied on the bender and came away the winning pitcher in the Cardinals' 2-0 victory at Petco Park.

"We didn't know Weaver's curve was that good," Padres batting coach Merv Rettenmund said.

Well, it wasn't. It is now.

Maybe that's in part because of the tutelage of pitching coach Dave Duncan, who has had a half-season to work with the 30-year-old right-hander. Maybe it's part of Weaver's evolution as a pitcher. Maybe it was a one-day fluke. Or, maybe it's the Padres.

Whatever, it worked. The Cardinals have dropped the hammer with the hammer.

"It just keeps you off balance," Padres right fielder Brian Giles said. "Weaver did a good job of throwing it for strikes. If he doesn't throw it for strikes, you can start to eliminate pitches a little bit and zero in."

The Padres stacked their lineup with eight left-handed hitters (counting the two switch-hitters) against the right-handed Weaver. They might feast on his slider, a hard breaking pitch, the thinking had to be.

But Weaver, at Duncan's behest, countered with a bunch of soft curves. And he was dropping them for strikes at will. Didn't matter that they weren't buckling knees, as they might in a righty-righty matchup. The Padres simply couldn't hit the curve for the second game in a row.

"That was kind of the game plan from when we went in and talked about it," Weaver said. "We knew this team is a good fastball-hitting team and a lot of the guys had struggled with breaking balls.

"Just getting ahead of the guys with a fastball and getting them in a situation where they had to chase some breaking balls. We pretty much wanted them to hit a breaking ball, if we could."

Weaver went only five innings, but that was quite enough with the shadows stretching across the field in the late innings and the Cardinals' young bullpen on a hot streak. Weaver departed with a 2-0 lead, having yielded two hits and three walks.

"In the major leagues, you have to hit a breaking ball," Padres manager Bruce Bochy said. "And we've seen our share of them. It comes down to us taking good swings at those, too. But you give them credit. They've executed their pitches."

Padres pitcher Woody Williams hopes there is a Game 4 for him to start Sunday. He knows a thing or two about curves, having been the rare pitcher to arrive in the big leagues featuring the sweeping curve as part of his repertoire.

"It's the art of pitching," Williams said. "It's changing speeds and planes and location. There aren't a whole lot of guys who throw the curveball anymore, and there aren't many who are consistent with it."

If Weaver can duplicate what he did to the Padres, Williams can add one name to that list.

Contact staff writer Shaun O'Neill at (760) 740-3546 or soneill@nctimes.com.