Zumaya is his own worst critic

We forget. We see their loopy smiles and awkward fist pumps and awestruck embraces and we forget.

Not every rookie can step onto a World Series stage for the first time and own it.

Sometimes the throat dries and the lines disappear and the fear consumes.

Sometimes, the stage owns him.

Sometimes the lights swivel from a crowded on-field celebration to a solitary figure standing in front of a spartan locker, his eyes clouded, his giant tattooed left arm trembling with remorse.

“I had my head up my behind,” barked the Detroit Tigers’ Joel Zumaya.

He was loud. He was angry. He was lost.

His Tigers had just dropped Game 3 to the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-0, and it should have been closer but for the kid who couldn’t throw straight.

“I gave it away, I just gave it away,” Zumaya said.

When he entered in the sixth inning Tuesday at Busch Stadium, the Tigers trailed by two.

He allowed no hits. He allowed no earned runs.

But his ineptness was such, when he left in the seventh inning, the Tigers trailed by four.

“I had a chance to maybe save this game, and I messed it up, I was just stupid and I messed it up,” Zumaya said.

The statistics will remember this as a game that belonged to the Cardinals’ Chris Carpenter, who allowed just three hits in eight innings without a trace of pine tar in sight.

But we should remember it for Zumaya, who reminded us that, more than any other sport, baseball is less about superheroes and more about flawed and unforgiving humans.

Zumaya was a rattled 22-year-old kid. And he choked. And he admitted it.

To celebrate the greatness that happens on these fields every October, it is perhaps important to remember how long it takes to understand that greatness and how hard it is to achieve it.

In three brutal batters Tuesday, Zumaya reminded us.

When he took the mound with one out and Yadier Molina on second base in the sixth inning for his first World Series work, he was the Tigers’ boy wonder.

In his three previous postseason appearances, Zumaya had struck out three batters in three innings with pitches that blew in at more than 100 mph.

Against the New York Yankees, somebody counted five consecutive pitches at more than 100 mph.

He was their secret weapon, the scene stealer, a freak of nature who would freak the Cardinals’ calm nature.

He had suffered a sore wrist a couple of weeks ago, but he had 13 days’ rest, and he was feeling fine, and he needed just eight pitches to retire two Tigers in that sixth inning to strand Molina.

Then came the seventh, the start of an inning, the top of the Cardinals batting order.

And the freak freaked.

First batter, David Eckstein, walks on a full count.

“How do I do that?” Zumaya said. “How do you walk the leadoff hitter?”

Next batter, Preston Wilson, gets ahead 3-and-1, and out to the mound runs Manager Jim Leyland.

“He told me to slow down,” Zumaya said. “But I could not slow down.”

No sooner had Leyland returned to the dugout than Zumaya had thrown ball four to Wilson, runners on first and second.

“Did I walk him too?” Zumaya said, shaking his head. “Yeah, I guess I did.”

Then up stepped Albert Pujols in the matchup that fans had awaited.

“A great matchup, power on power,” Zumaya said.

But first, a word of warning. Carlos Guillen, the Tigers shortstop who is like another manager on the field, came to the mound to remind Zumaya that if he fielded a ground ball, he should throw to second base to start the double play against the slow-legged Pujols.

“That’s what he told me, throw to second base.” Zumaya said.

Three pitches later, Pujols hit a grounder directly back to Zumaya.

Who spun and threw it to ... third base.

“Fundamental, routine ground ball, you go to second base for the double play, I had been reminded, I knew,” he said. “But I just didn’t do it.”

Not only did he throw to the wrong base, he threw to the wrong person. Instead of leading Brandon Inge as the Tigers third baseman scrambled to the bag, he threw it about five feet behind him.

Threw it right toward a box seat security guard.

“A very, very stupid thing to do,” he said. “I could have kept us in the game. Instead, I threw to the stands.”

Inge dived vainly back to his left as the ball flew past him and into foul territory.

Two runs scored. Pujols ended up on second base. On the mound, Zumaya shook his head in shock. Later, in front of his locker, he shook it in rage.

“I’ve got to calm down,” he said. “I’ve got to go home and lay down”’

Leyland didn’t try to soften it.

“He made a bad fundamental play,” he said.

Zumaya agreed and kept pounding on himself.

“I’m better than that, major leaguers have to be better than that,” he said.

Zumaya was asked, can you get over this in time for Game 4 on Wednesday?

He honestly didn’t know.

“I have to stop thinking about it, because if I keep thinking about it, I won’t sleep,” he said. “And then I’ll come in tomorrow and I’ll mess everything up again.”

After about 10 minutes of ripping himself, Zumaya finally took a breath.

“OK, that’s it, I’m done,” he said, turning away, facing his locker with his back to the media.

He started his rant alone, and he ended it alone, no teammate there to comfort him, no teammate stopping by to offer support.

That’s what make the World Series so magical, doesn’t it?

It’s because, at the same time, a few steps away, the World Series can also be so cruel.

We forget.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.