Game 2 of the NLDS between the Washington Nationals and the St. Louis Cardinals continued the "Busch Stadium shadows" narrative early, but things seems to be bothering the umpires and the game's starting pitchers more than they do the hitters, so far. In an attempt to separate truth from cruft—it is undeniably true that there are some weird shadows around Busch Stadium this time of day. Here's Drew Silva of Rotowire with an example from Twitter:
Shadowz. twitter.com/drewsilv/statu…
— Drew Silva (@drewsilv) October 8, 2012
So that's definitely there. But the Cardinals have some hits, and the Nationals are doing just fine, so it seems that Monday, at least, you'd have to assume the starting pitchers and even the umpires were being bothered by the ersatz shadow-arch more than the hitters themselves.
Jaime Garcia—already out of the game—walked three and struck out three. He wasn't great, but he wasn't quite as bad as the numbers and the balls and strikes (51 pitches, 29 strikes) might suggest; an inconsistent strikezone is bad news for a pitcher who works at its edges with a bunch of weird breaking pitches. I don't know what percentage of blame can go to the umpires for Garcia's performance so far—his own just-barely-too-fine-ness and Matheny's nerves are probably more to blame—but you can rest assured that he'll be the latest victim of the Shadow Madness if the hitters are too good to complain about it on Monday.