By having starter Jaime Garcia issue two intentional walks Tuesday night, manager Tony La Russa and the Cardinals first skirted danger and then invited it. The latter proved costly. In the Philadelphia Phillies' 3-2 victory in Game 3 of the National League division series, Garcia had his breezy seven innings interrupted with two moments of sheer strategy. To defuse one inning, he took the unconventional approach of walking Hunter Pence to purposefully face Ryan Howard, who has 88 more RBIs than any other player in the majors since 2006. To stymie the Phillies in the seventh, he walked catcher and No. 8 hitter Carlos Ruiz to face a pinch hitter, Ben Francisco. With two on, Francisco drove a homer that provided all of the Phillies' runs. La Russa put his faith in Garcia's execution. Garcia misplaced his fastball. "My job is just to make pitches whenever I've got to face a hitter," Garcia said. "I made a mistake when I had to face (Francisco), and I paid the consequences." The two intentional walks appear, at first, to be incongruous. The Cardinals pitched around an eighth-place hitter with a career .265 average and yet pitch into a slugger who finished third in the NL in RBIs and feasts on pitchers at Busch Stadium in his career. The strategy behind both was to gain an advantage with the matchup, La Russa and several players said. Getting the lefty Garcia against the left-handed hitting Howard was just as desirous as getting Garcia against a cold bat off the bench with Ruiz on base. One just worked. "It's the matchup," Cardinals pitcher Chris Carpenter said. "You've got to execute pitches. The risk is the extra run if you give up the big shot. But it doesn't really matter because you're playing to give up no runs and believing in your pitcher that he is going to execute." It was that extra run and that big shot, however, that decided the outcome of the game and puts the Cardinals in a 2-1 hole in this best-of-five series. The Cardinals' trailed 3-0 after Francisco's pinch-hit homer. They rallied for two runs, leaving the Ruiz run, essentially, as the difference. Before he even stepped to the plate a passed ball by catcher Yadier Molina helped the Phillies avoid what could have been a double a play and an intentional walk wouldn't have been thought about, let alone employed. It was not in play when Molina trotted out to the mound to talk with Garcia as Ruiz walked to the plate. Shane Victorino opened the inning with single and he got to second on the passed ball. A flyout and grounder left the Phillies with a runner at third and two outs. Garcia said Molina walked out to the mound to re-focus him. It wasn't until Molina got behind the plate that Molina got the sign from the dugout — intentional walk. "He tried to fire me up, 'Let's make pitches. You can do this,'" Garcia said. "He went back and they put the four fingers down. He was trying to get me fired up and to make pitches. My job is to follow order. I'm out there to make pitches when I have to. That's (La Russa's) job. He knows what he's doing. My job is to make pitches whenever I get a hitter in there." There were two motivations behind walking Ruiz and facing Francisco, who was on deck and overtly ready to hit. First, it assured that Phillies starter Cole Hamels was out of the game, a fait accompli. Second, it navigated Garcia around Ruiz, who hit 8-for-24 (.333) and slugged .500 this season against the Cardinals and has hit .310 in 33 games vs. them with what players called "memorable" hits. "If you follow our club with Ruiz over the years, he's gotten as many big hits as the guys in the middle of the lineup," La Russa said. "He terrorizes us, and he's already hit two balls hard. (That's) the matchup we liked. I liked. I made the decision." Garcia said as soon as he got the sign from Molina, his focus shifted from Ruiz to the plan for Francisco. Before the game, pitching coach Dave Duncan, Molina and Garcia outlined the scenarios when Francisco would be in play. Francisco was 1-for-9 against Garcia in his career. He had not homered in his previous 107 plate appearances as a pinch hitter. He went up looking for a fastball. He got a sinker that didn't sink. Francisco's result after the intentional walk contrasted with Howard's — the intentional walk that worked. Three times previously this season a team walked the No. 3 hitter to face Howard in the cleanup spot. He doubled in two runs once, walked the second time and struck out the third time. In two previous at-bats against Garcia in Game 3, Howard had struck out and had difficulty seeing the ball. After the intentional walk to righthanded-hitting Pence, Howard grounded out to first base to strand two runners and keep the game scoreless. "You pick your poison sometimes," infielder Skip Schumaker said. "(La Russa) trusts his gut. A lot of guys are afraid to make moves. The guy has 117 RBIs. But you have to have guts to play this game and to manage. Tony does not lack guts." You also have to execute. That was the miss Tuesday. "I went out there and I was ready to go; I was locked in," Garcia said. "But, unfortunately, in this game one pitch can ruin the whole thing." --

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