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All the Way Back, the Cardinals Win the World Series
By DAVID WALDSTEIN
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The St. Louis Cardinals celebrated after defeating the Texas Rangers to win the World Series. Credit Matt Slocum/Associated Press
ST. LOUIS — When the St. Louis Cardinals were down to their apparent final strike of the season, in both the ninth and 10th innings of Game 6 on Thursday night, Manager Tony La Russa told his players in the dugout not to forget to thank the fans for their support amid what was looking like a crushing season-ending loss.
After defying elimination for nearly two months, it appeared that the Cardinals’ unlikely playoff run was finally coming to a conclusion, and even La Russa was prepared to concede defeat.
But less than 24 hours later, it was the fans thanking the Cardinals with a shower of applause and cheers.
In one of the wildest, most improbable championship runs in memory, the Cardinals beat the Texas Rangers , 6-2, in Game 7 of the World Series on Friday night to win the storied club’s 11th championship.
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”Has there ever been a more entertaining, better team in St. Louis and has won a championship?” said the veteran outfielder Lance Berkman, who won his first World Series after 13 seasons in baseball. “I wasn’t there in the ’60s or ’80s when they won championships. But my goodness, what a team this is.”
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It is a team that was 10 1/2 games out of a playoff spot on Aug. 25 and played a month of virtual playoff games before earning a place in the postseason on a crazy last day of the regular season.
They sneaked into the playoffs with the fewest wins, 90, of any playoff team, and weaved their way through the postseason, trailing their opponents in all three series, and even faced match point twice in a Game 6 for the ages Thursday night.
“When you play with that kind of urgency, it’s a little scary at times and it takes a lot out of you,” said La Russa, who won his third title, and second with the Cardinals. “But it’s really fun to compete this way.”
They won Game 6 behind the late-inning heroics of the World Series most valuable player David Freese, setting up a decisive Game 7 on Friday, and sent their ace to the mound to win it for them, just as he did in Game 5 of the division series against the favored Philadelphia Phillies.
Behind six dogged innings from that ace, Chris Carpenter, who was pitching on short rest, the Cardinals managed to beat the Rangers for the second straight game (Texas hadn’t lost consecutive games since Aug. 23-25).
The loss was a bitter ending for a Rangers team looking to make amends for losing to the San Francisco Giants in last year’s World Series. They had won two games in a row, and in Game 6 on Thursday night, they were twice within a strike of winning the franchise’s first World Series title.
“If there’s one thing that happened in this World Series that I’ll look back on, it’s being so close,” Texas Manager Ron Washington said. “Just having one pitch to be made, one out to be gotten and it could have been a different story. But when you are a champion, you keep fighting and St. Louis fought and came back. They got us yesterday, and they beat us tonight.”
The final out came when David Murphy hit a fly ball to left field off closer Jason Motte that was caught by Allen Craig, igniting a celebration by these most improbable champions. As the players jumped on the field, the coaches, led by La Russa, waited in front of the dugout and hugged one another.
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The first player to join them was the slugger Albert Pujols, who lifted La Russa off the ground with a championship bear hug. Both men, who along with Carpenter were with the Cardinals when they won their last World Series in 2006, are at the end of their contracts and could end up leaving St. Louis behind on this note of euphoria.
Neither would address the subject directly, but when La Russa was asked if now would be a good time to announce he was coming back, he said, “Well, I don’t want to spoil the moment.”
The M.V.P. trophy given to Freese, who had two runs batted in to bring the Cardinals back from a two-run deficit in the first inning, was a fitting reward for a kid from suburban St. Louis who grew up dreaming of playing for the Cardinals. He was also the M.V.P. of the National League Championship Series and set a record with 21 runs batted in during the postseason.
“I sit here right now and I still can’t believe we actually did this,” he said. “I keep thinking about mid-August, the mood of the team and the disappointment, and Carp said, ‘Let’s get together and talk about some things.’ ”
That was a team meeting Carpenter called in August when the Cardinals were only a handful of games over .500. At that point, there were no thoughts of the World Series, or even the playoffs. It was a much more sobering goal.
“It was about not embarrassing ourselves,” Carpenter said.
There was obviously no embarrassment Friday when Carpenter took the mound on three days’ rest and allowed only two runs in six innings. His performance wasn’t as dominant as his Game 5 shutout of the Phillies in the division series, but it was good enough to put his team in position to win a World Series.
The Rangers scored two runs in the first inning. Ian Kinsler, their leadoff batter, hit the second pitch of the game into left field for a single. He was picked off first base, but Elvis Andrus walked and then scored when Josh Hamilton, who had hit a two-run homer in the 10th inning of Game 6, doubled to right. Hamilton then scored on a double by Michael Young.
The Cardinals got both runs back off Matt Harrison, the Rangers’ starter, as Freese took another star turn. In his first at-bat after his game-ending home run Thursday night, Freese ripped a double into left-center field, scoring Pujols and Berkman, who had walked ahead of him.
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In three successive at-bats from Game 6 to Game 7, Freese had a triple that tied Game 6 in the ninth inning when the Rangers were one strike away from winning, a home run to win the game in the 11th, and then the double in his first at-bat of Game 7 for five R.B.I.
The score remained tied until the third inning, when Craig hit his third home run of the series, a solo shot into the Cardinals’ bullpen on a full-count offering from Harrison.
The Cardinals added to their lead in the fifth by scoring twice without getting a hit. Things began falling apart for the Rangers’ bullpen, which seemed to run out of steam in the final few games. When the inning was over, St. Louis led, 5-2, and the final three and a half innings had the feel of a coronation.
The Cardinals had wrenched the momentum away from the Rangers in Game 6, and they would not surrender it. After Game 6, La Russa told his players that they needed to put it in a box, forget about it, and focus on Game 7.
“Now it’s time to think about Game 6,” he said, “and that’s part of this historic run. I mean, it’s hard to explain how we made it happen except the club has great guts. Really, we have more talent than people think, but we have great guts.”
When it was over, the Cardinals finally got the chance to thank their loyal fans. But late Friday night, the fans could thank them back.
 
A version of this article appears in print on October 29, 2011, on Page D1 of the New York edition with the headline: ALL THE WAY BACK. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe