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The St Louis Cardinals have turned around a disastrous 8-1 loss in the opening game of baseball’s World Series with 4-2 win over the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park.
The crucial play came in the seventh inning when two Boston errors allowed Pete Kozma and Jon Jay to score. but the win was set up by the Cards’ young pitchers.
Up 4-2 in the eighth, the Cardinals entrusted Carlos Martinez on the mound against Shane Victorino, David Ortiz and Mike Napoli – three of the most devastating hitters the Red Sox possess.
The 22-year-old pitcher didn’t disappoint. Working around a lead-off error with two strikeouts and a single, Martinez closed out the inning with a pop-up to leave two stranded on base and send the game to the ninth.
Martinez had followed 22-year-old rookie Michael Wacha – whose six strike-outs in six innings were tempered only by one one mistake in allowing two runs from an Ortiz homer – while 23-year-old Trevor Rosenthal retired the Sox in the ninth to level the series at 1-1.
“I’ve said before many times, that they’re not afraid,” Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina said of the side’s young pitchers.
Molina – a veteran of two World Series victories – described Martinez’s performance, quite simply, as “unbelievable”.
“Last night, they gave the runs against them, but tonight he (Martinez) was like ‘nobody’s going to get a hit against me’ so he was pumped up and that was good for us.”
After the 8-1 drubbing in Game One, Rosenthal said the side was up against it, but had a point to prove.
“We felt like we didn’t play our type of baseball last night,” he said.
“That’s all we wanted to do, was come out here and play the right way and that’s what it’s going to take in this series – it’s going to be a close one against this team – but we know we’re going to come out here and battle every night.”
The game remained scoreless until the top of the fourth inning when Molina chopped over the mound for Matt Holliday to score after a lead-off triple.
Having been swept in the 2004 World Series without ever having the lead, it was the first time St Louis had been ahead of the Sox on the scoreboard in the post-season in years.
On a full count in the sixth, Ortiz cleared the Green Monster in left field and – with Dustin Pedroia on first after being walked – the Sox took a 2-1 lead, to the disgust of Wacha whose scoreless streak until then had spanned over 18 innings.
“Obviously he’s a big competitor and he wants to put the team on his back,” Rosenthal said of Wacha who had thrown his glove away in frustration at the end of the inning.
“We appreciate the emotion for sure and we’re just going to tell him we’ve got his back and we’re going to keep battling for him and he did everything he could tonight.”
The Cardinals endured a defensive horror-show in Game 1, but the jinx was reversed in Game 2 as Red Sox catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia fumbled a Jonny Gomes throw after a Matt Carpenter sacrifice-fly to shallow left-field with bases loaded.
The error allowed pinch-runner Pete Kozma – the perpetrator of many of the Cards’ infield lapses in Game 1 – to score while Jon Jay advanced to third.
Lefty relief pitcher Craig Breslow attempted to get Jay out at third base, but the throw was high and wide and the Cardinals outfielder made it home for the go-ahead run while Daniel Descalso moved from first to third.
Carlos Beltran – whose third-inning collision with the low right-field wall gave him a rib contusion and ended his participation in the opening game of the series – singled home Descalso and the Cardinals turned a 2-1 deficit into a 4-2, game winning advantage.
“Honestly when I left the ballpark yesterday, I was having little hope to be in the line-up and got a lot of treatment and met with the doctors and they gave me a bunch of painkillers,” said Beltran, who is playing his first World Series in 16 years.
“Someone would have to kill me for me to be out of the line-up!”
Game 3 heads to St Louis on Sunday.
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