PART 6: St. Louis Cardinals come back
The 4-0 victory in the Game 4 for the Texas Rangers was inspiriting. The team this time came in the ballpark with ever more confidence, as they seemed all braced to outdo the St. Louis Cardinals once again. Very few people might have entertained the doubt
that the Rangers would lose the opportunity it had gained through winning Game 4.
That, much to the amusement and pride of the Rangers fans, proved right. The Rangers put up stronger offence this time to win Game 5 with a 4-2 victory; something that unsettled the St. Louis Cardinals to a great extent, forcing it to take urgent measures
to remain afloat in the series without letting the ship sinking completely.
While C. J. Wilson pitched some of the best innings of the series, allowing 2 runs in 5.1 innings, Chris Carpenter – who had helped win the first game, could not quite keep the Rangers’ hitters at bay. Nonetheless, his spell of 7 innings was never a disappointment,
allowing only 2 runs in the 7 innings that he pitched. It was actually Octavio Dotel whose arrival on the mound proved costly for the St. Louis Cardinals.
As the reliever came to pitch after Carpenter was done with a 7 inning spell, Dotel gave up two invaluable runs to Mike Napoli just when score was level by 2-2. It was initially Yadier Molina and Skip Schumaker who had secured a 2-0 lead for the Cardinals,
only to see the score levelled by Mike Moreland and Adrian Beltre in the 3rd and 6th inning consecutively.
Octavio Dotel proved utterly costly for the Cardinals. “I was more frustrated the double-play ball went off the glove and the fact we had numerous chances to add runs. That's probably more frustrating,” La Russa said.
“The other part just happens. I mean, it's loud down there, and sometimes you call down there and you have to wait until the crowd and a guy gets up late. I mean, this is not unusual,” he added.
Missing this entire showdown, once again, was Albert Pujols. While he would come up with a hit there and a hit there, he could not quite get alone with the homers that he was always known for. This time it was Napoli who did what Pujols would do for the
Cardinals.
“Pujols is going to put it in play, he's a good contact hitter,” Napoli said, “and they were just starting the runner, 3-2. As soon as I got it, I just got rid of it and put it on the bag.”
As the Cardinals once again failed to gain the palm, time had come to do something before it was late. It seemed they had realised this once Game 6 began, just when the Rangers were leading the series by 3-2.
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