World Series Game 7 Live Blog: Cardinals Cap Amazing Season With 11th World Series Title in Franchise History

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Oct 28, 2011

World Series Game 7 Live Blog: Cardinals Cap Amazing Season With 11th World Series Title in Franchise HistoryFinal, Cardinals 6-2: The St. Louis Cardinals are your 2011 World Series champions.

Honestly, who could have seen this coming? The Cardinals were 10 games out in late August, and they somehow made a late charge and did some damage in the playoffs. It’s an absolutely remarkable run and another reminder that you gotta get hot at the right time.

Jason Motte worked a perfect ninth inning, and the Cardinals have improbably captured their 11th title in franchise history.

End 8th, Cardinals 6-2: Relievers often “vulture” wins. In this case, Ogando just vultured a strikeout.

He came in with a 3-2 count on Allen Craig, threw one pitch and got the strikeout. Good day of work right there.

Oh yeah, the Cardinals are three outs from winning the World Series.

Bottom 8th, Cardinals 6-2: One of those nights for the Rangers. Their best reliever thus far, Michael Gonzalez, has to come out of the game with two outs after suffering an apparent injury.

Alexi Ogando is coming in, so this one may be about to get out of hand real quick. 

Mid 8th, Cardinals 6-2: La Russa called upon Lance Lynn to work the eighth, and he certainly did his job. 

Lynn retired the Rangers’ heart with relative ease, including blowing away Adrian Beltre with a fastball to end the inning.

We’re starting to see one of the biggest differences between these two teams right now in this series, with the extreme differences in bullpen performance when it mattered most over the last couple of nights.

End 7th, Cardinals 6-2: Gonzalez just dominated Schumaker, and the Rangers are otu of the inning.

They’ve got six outs to score four runs against this Cardinals bullpen. 

Frankly, I don’t like their chances, but the way this series has gone, can you count anything out? No, no you can’t.

Bottom 7th, Cardinals 6-2: Why, barring a major comeback, are the Rangers going to lose this series? They’re relief pitching, that’s why.

Mike Adams, who was a huge midseason pickup for the Rangers, became the latest Texas reliever with a poor outing. 

He actually got Albert Pujols to strike out, but it was downhill from there. 

A single, a walk and another single lead to another Cardinals run. Adams was able to get Rafael Furcal, but Ron Washington will opt for Michael Gonzalez to get the Rangers out of this inning.

Mid 7th, Cardinals 5-2: The Cardinals bullpen does it job in its first inning of work. 

Dotel strikes out Ian Kinsler and then gets an Elvis Andrus flyout to end the inning.

So Carpenter’s book gets closed with six innings of work and just two runs. Impressive stuff from the veteran. 

The Rangers are running out of outs.

Top 7th, Cardinals 5-2: We’ve entered the Tony La Russa portion of our program. 

Rhodes comes on and gets Yorvit Torrealba (pinch-hitting for Chavez) to fly out to center.

As soon as the ball hits Skip Schumaker’s glove, La Russa pops out of the dugout to get the ball and turn things over to Octavio Dotel. 

Top 7th, Cardinals 5-2: And just like that, Carpenter comes out.

David Murphy smoked a curveball to right to open the inning with a double, and Tony La Russa makes the move. 

Carpenter turns in a valiant six-inning effort on short rest and leaves with the Cardinals in a position to win.

Endy Chavez will hit in the pitcher’s spot for the Rangers where he’ll face Arthur Rhodes. 

End 6th, Cardinals 5-2:  Credit C.J. Wilson for settling down after giving the Cardinals a run upon his entrance.

He bounced back in the sixth and shut down the Cardinals. Interesting to note that Carpenter led off the inning and La Russa let him hit. If there was ever a time to get your starter out, it’s in the bottom of the sixth as the inning’s leadoff batter. The three-run lead makes it a little easier to leave him in, but we’ll have to see if that comes back to bite the Cards somehow.

The way Carpenter has pitched since second inning, though, there’s a real good chance it won’t.

Mid 6th, Cardinals 5-2:  Chris Carpenter somehow gets through six innings, but not without a little help from his friends.

Allen Craig continued his impressive night with an incredible catch at the warning track to rob Nelson Cruz of a home run. 

It’s incredible to think about the types of performances the Cards have gotten from guys like Craig and Freese throughout the playoffs outside of two monster games from Albert Pujols.

End 5th, Cardinals 5-2:  What a mess for the Rangers.

C.J. Wilson comes in and promptly hits Rafael Furcal with his first pitch to force in a run.

So, that’s two runs in the inning on 0 hits, three walks and two hit batsmen. That’s not how you win a World Series.

Wilson regrouped to strike out Skip Schumaker to end the inning.

Bottom 5th, Cardinals 4-2:  If your’e keeping score at home like I am (or work), you just wrote down a whole bunch of “B’s” for Scott Feldman’s ugly appearance.

Feldman got the leader, then issued a walk, a hit batsmen, got a ground out and then issued an intentional walk to load the bases.

He then walked Yadier Molina on a borderline 3-2 pitch to force in a run.

It’s 4-2 Cardinals now, and C.J. Wilson is coming in from the bullpen after seemingly throwing a seven-inning outing in the bullpen.

Mid 5th, Cardinals 3-2: This is starting to get good. Carpenter just struck out Michael Young with a filthy slider to end the inning with a runner on second.

Somewhat of a perplexing move by Rangers manager Ron Washington there. After Ian Kinsler singled to lead off the inning, Washington had Elvis Andrus sacrifice bunt on a 2-1 count.

It’s tough to understand why you would want to move the tying run into scoring position in the fifth inning when you’re down by a run. It makes even less sense, in my opinion, to give Carpenter a free out when he’s working on short rest. 

Anyhoo, Carpenter got some help from others, too. Josh Hamilton fouled out on a 3-1 pitch when David Freese made an acrobatic catch over the dugout railing for the inning’s second out.

End 4th, Cardinals 3-2: Good job by Matt Harrison to get out of the inning without allowing anything. 

He really has been shaky in this one, though, as he continues to flirt with danger. You have to think that his innings are numbered.

Carpenter, on the other hand, is sticking around after Tony La Russa elected to let him hit with two outs and men on second and third. He flew out to end the inning.

He’ll deal with the top of the Rangers order coming up.

Mid 4th, Cardinals 3-2: That was by far Chris Carpenter’s best inning of the game thus far. 

Carpenter worked a 1-2-3 fourth, and he looked real good doing so, particularly against Mike Napoli. Getting Napoli out right now is no small feat, but Carpenter sent him away on a three-pitch strikeout. Carpenter didn’t show Napoli anything but a curveball, and each one was better than the last.

C.J. Wilson was throwing in the Texas bullpen, and with Matt Harrison coming up third in that innning, you thought that maybe Ron Washington may make a move. He didn’t, and Harrison struck out to end the inning.

End 3rd, Cardinals 3-2: The Cardinals have their first lead of Game 7 thanks to Allen Craig.

Craig hit a lead-off home run into the St. Louis bullpen to give the Cards the 3-2 lead.

Interesting to note that Craig likely would not have been in the lineup had Matt Holliday been healthy. Holliday was taken off the roster prior to the game, Craig starts, and now the Cardinals lead after three.

Mid, 3rd, 2-2: Don’t look now, but it appears as if Chris Carpenter is starting to settle in some.

The veteran right-hander couldn’t quite get a 1-2-3 inning in the third, but he did look very sharp. He got around hitting Adrian Beltre with a pitch with two outs. 

Carpenter is starting to feature the breaking stuff a little bit more the second time through, as he looks like he’s getting a better feel for it. He struck out Michael Young with a very tight slider that dove out of the zone.

End 2nd, 2-2: Harrison bounces back with a nice little second inning. He gave up a lead-off single to Rafael Furcal, but came right back to force a Skip Schumaker double play.

He then blew away Chris Carpenter to end the inning.

If this was the regular season, that would have been a huge inning to keep the pitch count down, but that kind of goes out the window when you have someone like C.J. Wilson in the bullpen.

Mid 2nd, 2-2: Better second inning from Carpenter, but still far from flawless. 

Carpenter stranded a pair of runners at first and third, but he showed a continued struggle with command. He’s still really having problems with his breaking ball.

The Cardinals bullpen will be on alert in the top of the third with the heart of the Texas order due

End 1st, 2-2: This is David Freese’s World Series right now.

The Game 6 hero just laced a two-run double to the left-center gap to tie the game. Matt Harrison issued two, two-out walks to Albert Pujols and Lance Berkman to extend the inning.

Then, with the count full, Freese smoke the double to tie the game. Yadier Molina followed with a deep fly ball to center that Josh Hamilton caught on the warning track.

Carpenter looked bad for St. Louis, and Harrison certainly looked no better in the bottom half.

Oh, and for those wondering, it was former Cardinals pitcher Bob Forsch who threw out tonight’s ceremonial first pitch.

Mid 1st, Rangers 2-0: That’s a good way for the Texas Rangers to start a Game 7 in the World Series.

Ian Kinsler’s lead-off single was erased when he was picked off by Yadier Molina, but the Rangers grabbed a pair of early runs behind back-to-back RBI doubles from Josh Hamilton and Michael Young.

Chris Carpenter did not look good in the first. He fell behind just about every batter, and a lot of his stuff was up in the zone. He is going on three-days’ rest, and fatigue is something that will cause you to leave balls up in the zone. You don’t need me to tell you he’s on a very short leash.

8:06 p.m.: Chris Carpenter’s first pitch to Ian Kinsler is a ball. Here we go.

8:01 p.m.: Figure we’ll slip this bit of info in before Game 7 begins. 

This is the first Game 7 in a World Series since 2002. That was a seven-game series that saw the Angels deny Barry Bonds and the Giants a title.

But, do you remember who picked up the win in that game for the Halos? That’s right, it was John Lackey. Good times.

7:56 p.m.: Game 7 is minutes away. First, a couple of observations.

Cool: The Cardinals brought a Little League team from Joplin, Mo., a town that was ravished by a tornado, out to stand on the first-base line for the anthem.

Not cool: Chris Daughtry sang the national anthem.

Oh well. Baseball is just a few minutes away, and that’s really cool.

7 p.m.: A lot of the talk entering Game 7 in regards to the pitchers has surrounded Chris Carpenter going for the Cardinals. So let’s take a look at the guy who will be opposing him — Matt Harrison.

The tall lefty is making his second start of the Fall Classic, and the first one was pretty forgettable. Harrison got the nod in Game 3, which was a forgettable night for anyone standing on the mound in Arlington in a Rangers uniform. Albert Pujols went nutty and hit three home runs en route to a 16-7 rout of the Cardinals. So if you think that means anything, you surely like the Cardinals’ chances.

Game 4 hero Derek Holland threw in Game 6, so it’s unlikely that he’ll work in Game 7. C.J. Wilson, on the other hand, will likely be available. It’s Game 7. Of the World Series. So everyone is available.

We’re one long hour away from first pitch.

6:15 p.m.: The Cardinals will not have the services of Matt Holliday for Game 7. The outfielder, who was battling a wrist injury before injuring his finger in a pick-off in Game 6, has been taken off of the Cardinals’ roster.

His place will be taken by Adron Chambers, a rookie outfielder with just five postseason at-bats. He’s appeared mostly as a pinch-runner in his 10 postseason appearances,a nd he’s likely to fill the same role if called upon in Game 7.

5:30 p.m.: It certainly will be interesting to see what comes of Chris Carpenter tonight. The St. Louis starter is going on three days’ rest, thanks in large part to the Game 6 rainout that pushed everything back a day.

In the process, Carpenter will become the first pitcher since Bruce Hurst to pitch Games 5 and 7 of a World Series. Of course, Hurst pitched Game 5 of the ’86 Series for the Red Sox, and because of a rainout, he was able to come back and pitch Game 7.

We all know how that turned out for the Sox.

4:35 p.m.: And here is the lineup for the St. Louis Cardinals for Game 7:

Ryan Theriot, 2B
Allen Craig, LF
Albert Pujols, 1B
Lance Berkman, RF
David Freese, 3B
Yadier Molina, C
Rafael Furcal, SS
Skip Schumaker, CF
Chris Carpenter, P

4:12 p.m.: There was some question as to whether or not Mike Napoli or Nelson Cruz would be in the Texas Rangers’ lineup on Friday night, but those questions have been answered. Both are in Ron Washington’s starting nine.

Here’s the lineup via CBS’ Danny Knobler:

Ian Kinsler, 2B
Elvis Andrus, SS
Josh Hamilton, CF
Michael Young, 1B
Adrian Beltre, 3B
Nelson Cruz, RF
Mike Napoli, C
David Murphy, LF
Matt Harrison, P

3:30 p.m.: Game 6 was one of the most tremendous displays of baseball any of us have seen in a long, long time. But Game 6 is over, and if the Cardinals don’t win Game 7 on Friday night, all of those events on Thursday night will be for naught.

It’s up to Chris Carpenter to make sure that doesn’t happen, as the New Hampshire native will get the start on three days’ rest. For the Rangers, Matt Harrison will get the start. Harrison lasted just 3 2/3 innings last time out.

First pitch for Game 7, the first in the Series since ’02, will come shortly after 8:05 p.m., and we’ll have all the updates all night here in the live blog.

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