Tony LaRussa will go with 13 position players and 12 pitchers in this opening round best of five playoff series with the Dodgers. He had his position players in place, but waited until late Tuesday to make the final decision on his last two bullpen spots.
LaRussa chose rookies Blake Hawksworth and Mitchell Boggs instead of Todd Wellemeyer and Brad Thompson. Hawksworth finished the season 4-0 with a 2.03 ERA. Boggs went 2-3 with a 4.19 ERA and over the last couple of years has been used as an emergency starter, but has done well for TLR out of the pen.
Wellemeyer won 13 games, but he wasn’t the same pitcher as he was last season and the same can be said for Thompson who was on the Cardinals 2006 World Series team.