Texas Rangers catcher Mike Napoli emerged unscathed from a violent home-plate collision in Tuesday's ALDS game.
Tampa Bay shortstop Sean Rodriguez, running from first base on a double in the second inning, went in high and bowled over Napoli, jarring the ball loose. Napoli played the entire game and said he had no post-collision difficulty.
Manager Ron Washington and Napoli both said they had no objections to Rodriguez's play.
"I'm going to go in hard, too, if I have a chance and the game is on line like this one," said Napoli.
La Russa's Moneyball
Tony La Russa doesn't need sabermetrics to figure out where to play his outfielders.
Just in case no one knew he preferred personal analysis to cold calculations, the St. Louis Cardinals' manager made that clear Tuesday by jumping on a question about flip-flopping Lance Berkman and Allen Craig.
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Craig started in right field in Games 1 and 2 at Philadelphia, with Berkman in left. The 35-year-old Berkman was the right fielder during the regular season and was back in his usual spot Tuesday.
"It's my tribute to Moneyball. I'm not a big Moneyball fan," La Russa said.
"What we do is we take the square footage between the right-field line and center field and the square footage and from left field to center field, divide that by pi ... and then we pick the dugout.
"The field that's closest to the dugout, and that's where Lance plays. That's almost always true. Some places there may be, if it's spacious - probably not good. Here it's close to the dugout, that's where he plays."
The flying Granderson
New York centerfielder Curtis Granderson stayed on the grass for a while after making a diving catch on a fly ball off the bat of Detroit's Jhonny Peralta.
"That was an interesting one because I was a little bit out of position partly because I'm playing the odds of where I think he's going to possibly hit it," Granderson said.
"The ball hung up a little bit longer than we thought it was going to and I was able to go ahead and extend long enough to be able to catch it. I knocked the wind out of me. That's the reason why I ended up staying down so long."
More on the D-backs
All 19 of the teams that have taken a 2-0 lead in the NLDS - like the Milwaukee Brewers this year - have gone on to win the series. In the ALDS, 17 of 21 have advanced.
Game 4 tonight between Arizona nd Milwaukee will have a pair of left-handers on the mound, Randy Wolf (13-10, 3.69) for Milwaukee and Joe Saunders (12-13, 3.69 ERA) for Arizona.
The ceremonial first pitch on Tuesday at Chase Field was thrown by Anne Wogan, whose disabled son Michael, an avid Diamondbacks fan, was among those killed in the Sept. 16 Reno air show crash.
If there is a Game 5 in Milwaukee on Friday, it would be a rematch of Game 1 pitchers Ian Kennedy of Arizona and the Brewers' Yovani Gallardo.
