In what is surely a mere bump on the way to the third World Series title for St. Louis in the past seven years, the Cardinals did not beat the team they were playing Wednesday.
To advance to the Fall Classic for a 19th time, the Cardinals must now beat the other team once more. They can do that Friday. There's a Game 7 scheduled for Saturday, but who are we kidding? This thing'll be over by then.
It was the Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles who finally got lucky and hit a couple of (well, four) home runs on Wednesday to outscore the Cards, barely. I mean, four home runs and they only won 6-4. When you really think about it, that's basically like a win for the Cardinals, because what are the odds. But, whatever. Baseball.
Carlos Beltran added to his National League-leading total of postseason RBI. Carpenter, Holliday ... all those guys were awesome. Joe Kelly took the loss with seven hits in five innings and was credited with four earned runs. Seriously, four. The Dodgers only had six runs in the first four games. And he goes out and serves up four runs. Might as well have carried their bags back to the bus while he was at it.
The series returns to St. Louis, where the Cardinals hardly ever lose, ever. Except the Dodgers are throwing Clayton Kershaw on Friday. Guys, shit, he's got a postseason ERA of 0.47.
At press time it's not known whether the stress of a Game 7 is even worth it at this point, nor why the hell the Cards didn't show up on Monday and sweep these Magic Johnson asshats when they had the chance.
In the American League, the Tigers and the Red Sox continued playing for the right to be disappointed in when it really counts. The Red Sox better win, because with everything they've been through, the Cards would really hate to pull another 2006 on Detroit and all. Then they'd just look like the bad guys.
Photo credit: AP