For Tudor and Worrell, a Feast Is 3 Runs : Seventh-Inning Rally Gives the Cardinal Pitchers Just Enough Elbow Room

To understand the thinking of a St. Louis Cardinals pitcher in this, the year of the great Missouri offensive famine, think along with John Tudor as he worked the sixth inning of a 0-0 tie Tuesday night in Game 3 of the World Series.

With one out, Tudor walks Minnesota shortstop Greg Gagne.

Uh oh. Trouble. Better pick him off.

Tudor keeps Gagne close to the base with a couple of throws to first baseman Dan Driessen but fails to catch Gagne leaning. At the same time, Tudor walks the next hitter, Kirby Puckett.

Big trouble.

Next batter, cleanup man Gary Gaetti. Tudor gets him to pop a foul just in front of the Cardinal dugout and catcher Tony Pena makes a great defensive play, braving the top step of the dugout to lean in and snare the ball. But Pena has his back to Gagne and, thus, has no chance to make a throw as the runner tags up and moves to third.

Really big trouble.

Tudor then pitches to Tom Brunansky and jams him, prompting a soft flare to right-center field. Curt Ford runs over, runs in . . . and the ball bounces at his feet. Gagne scores.

The Twins lead, 1-0.

We’re done for.

“I thought I’d given it up,” Tudor said, meaning the game and, with it, the World Series. “I thought that was it.”

Tudor was still thinking the same way until the bottom of the seventh inning, when the St. Louis hitters went wild against Minnesota reliever Juan Berenguer and scored three runs. These were two more than the Cardinals managed for Tudor in his last start, which he parlayed into a 1-0 victory over San Francisco in Game 6 of the National League playoffs.

An embarrassment of riches. Tudor and the man who will replace him in the top of the eighth, relief pitcher Todd Worrell, are stunned.

“Usually, it’s ‘Here’s one run--don’t screw it up,’ ” Worrell said. “As pitchers, we know we’re not going to win by any big margin. You just kind of accept the way it is right now.

“But with three runs, at least that allows me to be able to make one mistake. It allows me to go at their lineup and not be too fine.

“I was really relieved when we got that third run.”

In gratitude, Worrell spread the relief around, limiting Minnesota to one single over the final two innings and preserving a 3-1 victory for Tudor.

It was a blowout, St. Louis style. The Cardinals scored three runs in a game and drove each of them in with basehits. No sacrifice flies or infield grounders or balks or bases-loaded walks needed.

And with those three runs, Tudor and Worrell did a lot. By allowing just five hits to a Twin offense that scored 18 runs in Games 1 and 2, Tudor and Worrell managed to salvage a World Series game for St. Louis and stave off the increasing likelihood of a Minnesota sweep.

“I still don’t know if we have enough offense to win this thing,” Cardinal Manager Whitey Herzog said. “But this is one. Every pitcher we have knows he has to go out and pitch a low-run game. Just like tonight.”

Tudor has responded to this situation before. Against San Francisco, he got one run when Giant right fielder Candy Maldonado slipped-and-slid under a St. Louis fly ball--and he turned it into a victory, extending the National League championship series long enough for Danny Cox to clinch it with, of course, a shutout.

But don’t kid yourself. Tudor can see himself pitching in preferable situations.

“I think anyone who enjoys pitching a game that can (virtually) eliminate us from the World Series is a fool,” Tudor said. “I’d rather be up, 2-0, than down, 2-0.”

And, in his dream of dreams, he’d rather have a few runs to play with.

“I’d just as soon have a cushion,” Tudor said, “but sometimes, you have to make do with what you get.”

Cardinal pitchers have gotten very little recently with injuries to 35-home run man Jack Clark and 96-RBI man Terry Pendleton.

“Down the stretch, through the playoffs and now in the Series, we’ve hardly won any games by more than two runs,” Worrell said. “I think all our pitchers have that in the back of their minds . . .

“We know we’re not going to get much margin for error. We know our only chance is for us to outpitch them.”

In the first three games of this World Series, St. Louis has totaled eight runs. Minnesota scored nearly that many--seven--in the fourth inning of Game 1.

The Twins also scored six runs in the fourth inning of Game 2, which prompted Tudor to quip: “I asked Whitey to get the commissioner to eliminate the fourth inning, but he wouldn’t go for that.”

Instead, Tudor eliminated the threat on his own. In this fourth inning, Minnesota went down quietly and in order--a line out to second base by Gagne, a strikeout by Puckett and a fly to left field by Gaetti.

Tudor kept Minnesota shut out through five innings, yielded that one run in the sixth and came back with a 1-2-3 seventh. He left after that, having allowed four hits while striking out four. Tudor did it, he claimed, with footwork.

“I mixed it up and tried to keep them off balance with changeups,” he said. “I have to rely on the changeup. An 80-mile-an-hour fastball just doesn’t get it done.”

Tuesday, Tudor and Worrell got it done the only way they could, and now the Cardinals need to do it only three more times.

“I just keep hoping we’re going to break out and score some runs,” Tudor said. “Tonight, we got three runs and we did it just in time.”