Resistant Cardinals refuse to disappear

ST. LOUIS - At the top of the inning 10, St. Louis Cardinals second baseman Ryan Theriot turned, put his hands on his head and looked to right field in disbelief.

Josh Hamilton had just homered to give the Rangers a 9-7 lead. It seemed that the season could be over for the Cardinals. But Theriot had no idea how crazy it would.

David Freese led off the bottom of the 11th inning with a homer to center field immediately, lifting St. Louis to a 10-9 victory and force a Game 7 at Busch Stadium today.

COLUMN: Cards do not otherwise have
Freese was who also stroked a two-run triple with two outs in the ninth inning to keep alive San Luis.
Until his final out in the ninth inning, the Cardinals fell to their last strike at 10, when Lance Berkman tied a 02.02 launch Scott Feldman for an RBI single to tie the score 9-9.

The Rangers, determined not to let Albert Pujols beat them, Pujols intentionally walked ahead of Berkman, who had four hits, three RBIs and four runs.

To win the game Freese homer came on a 3-2 pitch from Mark Lowe, and a record crowd of 47,325 at Busch Stadium enjoyed every inch of it. But the 10th inning rally, made it possible.

Descals Daniel opened the bottom of the 10th with a single to right and Jon Jay, who was 0-for-14 in the World Series before a blow in the eighth inning, hit an opposite field, just below the line left field.

Pitcher Kyle Lohse, who acts as a pinch hitter, successfully sacrificed both runners, and Feldman Texas brought in more than Neftali Feliz to meet Theriot, who got a home run with a third guard. 

That forced the Rangers to walk Pujols. 

San Luis did more than his share of mistakes in Game 6. But the Cardinals, who rallied from a 10-game deficit and a half late August to reach the playoffs, do not die easily. 

Despite three errors in the first five innings on four hits in the first seven years, San Luis, met in the ninth.
Pujols, who had gone 0-for-4 in what might have been his last game for the Cardinals uniform, began the run in the ninth inning with a double with one out against Feliz, and Berkman received a ticket. 

Craig Allen, who had hit a solo homer in the eighth inning, had a third strike, leaving Freese, who stroked his triple over the head of right fielder Nelson Cruz to the right-field corner. 

He had lost the Cardinals, who have had no one to blame but themselves. 

The Cardinals made a series of blunders. His three errors in the first five innings on Thursday were the most any team had done in a Cardinals World Series game since 1943. 

Left fielder Matt Holliday and shortstop Rafael Furcal could not reach one. Freese third baseman dropped pop-up player some of his neighbors could have handled.

Starter Jaime Garcia, winless in five postseason starts, lasted three innings. Lance Lynn left behind a total of 829 feet homers Adrian Beltre and Cruz in a span of four pitches in the seventh inning. After that, Octavio Dotel threw a wild runner in scoring position before delivering an RBI single by Ian Kinsler that made it 7-4.

 
Worse still, they saw Holliday was taken out of Texas third base catcher Mike Napoli with the bases loaded and one out in the sixth. It was a close play in which Holliday seriously injured a finger and was forced to leave the game.