Well, well, well…

(The Associated Press)

I don’t want to sound all melodramatic nor put the (band)wagon before the (work)horse here, but we might have just seen the coming of age for our Anthony Reyes.

I thought starting Game 1 was a great situation for Reyes because the rook would be under little pressure. I don’t want to say he proved me right, but…

Actually, he did start out a little shaky, allowing a run on a couple of hits and a walk. But after that, the kid was straight-up money, setting down 17 straight at one point, by which it was much too late.

His control also was impeccable, throwing 67 of his 91 pitches for strikes and allowing only the first-inning walk, which sunk his start in the NLCS and several during the regular season.

But Reyes also had help from the ultra-agressive Tigers hitters. By my count, 10 of the Tigers’ 17 flyball outs were made on the first or second pitch of at-bats. Those quick at-bats are what kept Reyes’ pitch count down. During a bit of daydreaming Friday afternoon, I wondered whether the Tigers’ free-swinging ways might play into the strengths of the Cardinals’ pitch-to-contact staff. Saturday morning, LBoros confirmed my suspicions:

the tigers’ low obp (24th among the 30 mlb teams) and apparent lack of discipline plays into the hands of the cardinal hurlers.

Not that Reyes is your classic pitch-to-contact, um, pitcher, but this bodes well for the staff members who are. I also was sort of freaked out that I’d made the same observation that an expert had made.

A few other observations:

• The Pujols-Edmonds-Rolen troika was a combined 5-for-11 with five runs and four RBI. It seems like Scott Rolen is starting to get his swing back somewhat.
• Speaking of Rolen, the incident in the sixth inning when he ran into Brandon Inge rounding third was totally on purpose, the same as Ronnie Belliard landing on Jose Reyes during Game 6 of the NLCS. I think every fan clenched when they saw Rolen in another collision. Those tend not to agree with him. Thankfully, he seems to have survived this one.
• The performance of the 3-4-5 hitters was mostly in spite of David Eckstein and Chris Duncan going 1-for-9 ahead of them. The leadoff and No. 2 spots have been a virtual dead zone this entire postseason. This is going to have to change.
• The second-guessing of Tigers manager Jim Leyland has begun. I’m obviously biased, but I don’t think pitching to Albert Pujols was a mistake on Leyland’s part. There were two outs already, and Justin Verlander had handled Pujols well in Pujols’ first at-bat, striking him out on a nasty curveball. The mistake was Verlander leaving a fastball up and over the outside part of the plate. Leyland obviously thought Verlander could get Pujols out again; Verlander just made a bad pitch. Blame the kid, not the manager.

Today, it’s Jeff Weaver vs. Kenny Rogers. Make them pay for trading you, J-Dub.