The St. Louis Cardinals got homeruns from 1st baseman Albert Pujols and 3rd baseman Scott Rolen and an excellent 8 innings of pitching from rookie and former Tiger Anthony Reyes as the Cards roughed up Tigers rookie starter Justin Verlanger on the way to a 7-2 victory in Detroit’s Comerica Park.

Detroit was first to get on the board as 1st baseman Carlos Guillen stroked a 2 out, RBI single to deep right field.  The Cards evened the score in the 2nd inning as Scott Rolen belted a 1 out solo blast.

In the 3rd inning, designated hitter Chris Duncan drove in the 2nd Cards run with a 2 out RBI double.  Verlander decided to pitch Pujols with a runner on 2nd and 2 out rather than put him on and pitch to centerfielder Jim Edmunds.  Verlanger challenged Pujols from jumpstreet with with a 93 mph fastball which the slugger bludgeoned over the right-field fence.  St. Louis was up by 4-1 after 3 innings.

The Cards scored 3 more runs off of Verlanger in the 6th inning as the rookie was yanked no one out.  Pujols led off with a walk and advanced to 3rd base on his ailing right hamstring as Verlanger threw away a pickoff attempt.  Jim Edmonds singled to make it 5-1, and Rolen’s double deep into the right-field corner chased Verlander.  Edmonds scored as rightfielder Juan Encarnacion reached base on a fielder’s choice grounder to 3rd base.  Encarnacion took 2nd base and Rolen scored on Tiger’s 3rd baseman Brandon Inge’s throwing error.  The score swelled to 7-1 Cardinals after 6 innings.

Losing pitcher Verlander’s line for the game was 7 runs, 6 hits, 2 walks, 8 strikeouts and 2 homers. 

St. Louis scored their 2nd and final run of the game in the 9th inning as leftfielder Craig Monroe led off with a solo blast to leftfield.  Reyes was lifted at that point and relieved by Brandon Looper who got the side out to end the game.  Winning pitcher Reyes’ line on the game was 8 innings, 2 runs, 4 hits, 1 walk, 4 strikeouts and a homer.

For a full recap, box score and play-by-play on Saturday’s World Series game 1, click here.

In Sunday’s game 2, the Cardinals start Jeff Weaver vs  Kenny “the Gambler” Rogers who also won 17 games for the Tigers.  This is a game that the Tigers need to salvage a 1-1 split at home as the series changes venue to St. Louis for games 3 through 5 beginning on Tuesday.

For a full box score and play-by-plays on Sunday’s game,  click here.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, October 22nd, 2006 at 10:34 am and is filed under Real-Time Baseball News and Commentary, All Time Team Highlights, All Time Hitting Highlights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.