The National League’s St. Louis Cardinals are MLB World Champions for the first time in 24 years and for the 10th time since the World Series was instituted with the 8 game series in 1903.   They defeated the American League’s Detroit Tigers by a 4-2 score to take the series by 4-1 in games and put to sleep fears of blowing another 3-1 lead in games.

                      

Cardinal starter and game winner Jeff Weaver was dominant in going 8 innings striking out 9 while giving up just 2 Tiger runs on 4 hits.  Shortstop  David Eckstein, winner the World Series MVP honors and the Corvette which goes along with the honor, drove in 2 more runs and finished the series with a .364 batting average and 4 RBIs.

Cards 3rd baseman Scott Rolen finished the series with a .421 batting average with a homer and 2 RBIs.  Catcher Yadier Molina, who went 3 for 4 for game 5, hit .412 for the series.  

The Cardinals got on the board first with a run in the 2nd inning as Eckstein singled to 3rd base off of Detroit starter Justin Verlanger driving in a run and making it to 2nd base on 3rd baseman Brandon Inge’s errant throw.

Detroit threatened in the 3rd inning as Inge clubbed a 1 out double to leftfield.  However, he was nailed at 3rd on a Verlander ground fielder’s choice.  Centerfielder Curtis Granderson followed with a single to center moving Verlander to 2nd base.  However, leftfielder Craig Monroe grounded out to 3rd base to end the inning.

                      

In the 4th inning, Detroit took a momentary lead of 2-1 as 1st baseman  Sean Casey drove a 1 out Weaver pitch for a homer with 1 on.  It was Casey’s 2nd homer of the series.  The Cards tied the game in their 4th inning as pitcher Weaver reached on a fielder’s choice with 2 on. A run scored on Verlander’s throwing error on the play; the 5th error by a Detroit pitcher in the series.  Eckstein followed with a ground out scoring a 2nd run as St. Louis took a 3-2 lead and nevr looked back. 

Losing pitcher Verlander left the game after 6 innings giving up 3 runs on 6 hits but committing the costly error.

Rolen’s 2 out single in the 7th drove in Eckstein with the 4th St. Louis run, putting icing on the cake.

                    

Detroit again mounted a mild threat in the 9th as Casey hit a 1 out double to center off of St. Louis reliever Adam Wainwright and was replaced by pinch-runner Ramon Santiago.  With 2 outs, Santiago advanced to 3rd base on Wainwright’s wild pitch.  But Wainwright, who was credited with the save, got Inge on a swinging 3rd strike to seal the World’s Championship for the Cardinals.

Yahoo Sports Reporter Jeff Passan writes of the Cardinals victory that “It was in the Cards;”

What should have been wasn’t, and were any beauty salvaged from a series that could have used a face lift, tummy tuck and case of Botox, this was it. The St. Louis Cardinals dug and ground and burrowed their way to a 10th championship Friday, stunting the Detroit Tigers one final time, 4-2, to close out the series in the fifth game at Busch Stadium. And though the series hinged on errors committed by the Tigers, its roughest edges found sandpaper in the form of the Cardinals, who needed Jeff Weaver, one of the Californians, to bamboozle the team that drafted him, and called upon David Eckstein, all 5-foot-7 of him, to drive in two more runs and win the series MVP.

There were others in the crew, too, retreads and has-beens, a motley bunch to surround Albert Pujols, who, it turned out, had little to do with St. Louis’ first championship in 24 years. It was a team in the strictest sense, cobbled together by St. Louis general manager Walt Jocketty and helmed by manager Tony La Russa, who convinced the Cardinals what no one else believed: They could.

So they did, and there they were, in the third incarnation of Busch Stadium, celebrating, the men in uniforms or suits, the women in jerseys or couture, the kids wearing Budweiser.

“It just shows you this is the best game in the world because you can’t predict it,” Eckstein said. “You get a bunch of guys on a mission, going out there, playing as hard as they can, as smart as they can, until the game ends, and anything is possible.”

Probable, on the other hand, it wasn’t. Everyone knows the story. The Cardinals finished 83-78, nearly blew an 8½-game National League Central lead over Houston in the season’s final 12 days and dragged their ready-to-be-buried corpse into the playoffs for a quick funeral against San Diego.

Only the Cardinals won the series opener.

“And it’s more fun to believe in yourself,” La Russa said. “When I saw our club respond the first game in San Diego, I thought we had a shot.”

 Detroit, who made short work of the Oakland As and the Yankees and had a week off while watching the Cards and Mets struggle, watched as their hitting and defense went south in this world series.

Jim Keller, Editor of of SportsTicker Baseball recaps the losing Tigers’ plight;

The Detroit Tigers don’t need to ask why.

While many losing teams in the World Series are left to wonder why things went south, the Tigers have no such questions after they lost Game Five of the World Series.

Their defense committed eight errors, a record-setting five by their pitching staff, and they hit just .191. Detroit was held to three hits and Games One and Three and four in the finale.

“We made some mistakes and they capitalized on them and that’s a sign of a good team,” Tigers first baseman Sean Casey said. “There’s a great bunch of guys in here and we fought to get in and we came up a little short.”

Perhaps the biggest error came in the Game Five clincher, when Detroit starter Justin Verlander threw away a sacrifice attempt by Jeff Weaver in the fourth inning that led to two runs.

Verlander also committed an error in the sixth inning - an errant pickoff attempt - that opened the flood gates to a three-run inning in the Cards’ 7-2 victory in Game One.

“In the American League, you don’t handle a lot of bunts and stuff,” Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. “We knew we were going to do that this series, so we worked on it during the time frame we were off and quite frankly, we didn’t execute.

Brandon Inge made three errors in the series - two on the same play - and three relievers joined Verlander in the error column.

“When you give four outs to the other team, somehow they’re going to get it done,” Detroit catcher Ivan Rodriguez said. “It happened the last three games here. We made some errors that we don’t do that much.

“We’re a good defensive team and overall, part of the big reason we’re in the World Series is because we have good defense and good pitching.”

Closer Todd Jones booted a ninth-inning grounder in Game Two that led to a run, Joel Zumaya threw away a potential double-play grounder in the seventh inning of Game Three that resulted in two runs and Fernando Rodney made a wild throw on Thursday in the seventh frame that led to two runs.

Detroit lost the American League Central championship on the last day of the season to the Minnesota Twins and were given no chance against the New York Yankees in the AL Division Series.

But the Tigers took out the “Bronx Bombers” in four games and swept the Oakland Athletics in the ALCS before the bats went silent.

ALCS Most Valuable Player Placido Polanco, who went 9-for-17 against the Athletics, was 0-for-17 against his former team. Curtis Granderson (2-for-21), Craig Monroe (3-for-20), Magglio Ordonez (2-for-18) and Ivan Rodriguez (3-for-18) also struggled against the Cardinals.

“We just couldn’t get anything going with the bats,” Detroit first baseman Sean Casey said. “We’re a pretty good hitting team but they totally shut us down. You have to give them credit. They deserved to win.”

For comparative playoff stats for the 2 teams and various other articles and stats pertinent to the world series and to the post-season, click here.

And so, the 2006 Baseball season ends.  Blogging Baseball’s inaugural season has been great fun for this veteran fan who has followed the season closely, from overseas, from thousands of miles away. 

This blog will continue in the off-season covering the League Meetings, the trades, the Free Agents, the making of the 2007 season, of course with special emphasis on the Phillies, and with many more All-Time Baseball Highlights, of which there are no end.

So, for teams from Boston, to Tampa Bay, to Kansas City and Seattle too; to Pittsburgh, Chicago, Colorado, Arizona and yes the Phillies, “Hope Springs Eternal” as they anxiously to once again hear that magic sound: “Play Ball” once again on Opening Day, 2007.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 28th, 2006 at 4:29 pm and is filed under Real-Time Baseball News and Commentary, All Time Team Highlights, Post-Season Highlights, Post-Season Awards. 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.