PART 8: St. Louis Cardinals rise to clinch glory
The St. Louis Cardinals were now finding themselves ever more confident to take on the Texas Rangers. The Rangers, who had won Game 4 and Game 5 respectively, needed to put concerted efforts to clinch the World Series title.
What retained importance for the otherwise ambitious Texas Rangers was the fact that they had lost the previous year’s World Series finals to the San Francisco Giants. Back to back defeats would be a fatal blow to their morale. Nonetheless, as the game began,
the Rangers barely seemed in a position to prove their efficacy.
Chris Carpenter, who had extraordinarily shown his magnificent brilliance throughout the postseason was asked to start the last game. So he did. However, Josh Hamilton doubled to right in the very first inning to help the Rangers score the first run.
Michael Young followed in the same inning with his double, giving the team a 2-0 lead. However, Matt Harrison, the starter for the Texas Rangers was all braced for a big surprise that was to come his way the moment he came to pitch the first inning.
David Freese went for a hit that brought two runs for the St. Louis Cardinals, levelling the score in the very first innings. As the Cardinals levelled the score, rest of the responsibilities were to be carried by Chris Carpenter.
The starter went on aggressively against the Texas Rangers offence, allowing no space for them to manoeuvre. Allen Craig, on the other hand, took on the Texas Rangers pitcher, Matt Harrison, and hit a homer to make it 3-2 for the Cardinals.
Yadier Molina came up with his hit, adding another run to the Cardinals score, making it 4-2 for the team in the 5th inning. Before Scott Feldman could wrap up the 5th inning, Rafael Furcal was hit by a pitch, which brought a run for
the Cardinals, making it 5-2 for them as the inning came to its end.
While Harrison did not prove instrumental to incapacitate the St. Louis Cardinals offence, his rival of the day, Chris Carpenter, was showing the force that he was known for throughout the season this year.
He pitched a total of 6 innings to wrap up his spell, allowing only two runs in it with 2.84 ERA compared to that of Harrison’s 7.04 ERA. Yadier Molina, on the other hand, singled to centre in the 7th inning against Mike Adams to score the supposedly
winning run for the Cardinals.
The Cardinals seemed all set to what they were destined to: Jason Motte, who had earlier failed to deliver for the Cardinals in Game 2, giving up 2 invaluable runs in the 9th, pitched an excellent inning here to bring the glorious World Series
victory for them.
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