Mulder Says He’s Ready to Pitch

Mark Mulder said he felt no discomfort Wednesday for the first time since being hit on his pitching arm last week by a line drive in the National League division series, and the St. Louis Cardinal left-hander expected to make his start as scheduled tonight in Game 2 of the championship series.

“Today is probably the first day where I have absolutely no discomfort, no tightness, no nothing,” Mulder said.

Mulder said the line drive off the bat of San Diego’s Joe Randa would not be on his mind tonight when he takes the mound against the Houston Astros.

“That would be like pitching scared,” Mulder said. “I’m not going to do that. If another one comes back at me, another one comes back at me.”

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Mulder, a member of four Oakland Athletic teams that lost in the first round of the playoffs, said advancing in the postseason is a matter of “just playing good at the right time.”

“I mean, I know when I was in Oakland, things always kind of happened for us to not win a series,” he said. “With this team we just got up 2-0 and just finished it. No messing around, we came out and scored a bunch of runs early.”

Mulder called the Cardinal pitching staff “more complete” than an Athletic staff that included him, Barry Zito and Tim Hudson because of their more reliable bullpen.

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St. Louis Manager Tony La Russa said Jeff Suppan, who was 3-0 with a 1.93 earned-run average in September and tossed eight shutout innings in his last start, Sept. 25 against the Milwaukee Brewers, would start Game 4, relegating Jason Marquis to the bullpen.

La Russa said Marquis, who was 4-0 with a 3.22 ERA against the Astros this season, would be more valuable pitching in relief because he could make multiple appearances and help fill the void created by the loss of Al Reyes, the reliever who tore elbow ligaments in the Cardinals’ regular-season finale.

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Houston added right-handed reliever Ezequiel Astacio to its roster for the series and removed outfielder Luke Scott, who was hitless in two at-bats in the division series against the Atlanta Braves. Astro Manager Phil Garner said he preferred to go with 11 pitchers in a seven-game series.