Double steal leads to win over Red Sox, St. Louis regroups, levels series

BOSTON (AP) – The St. Louis Cardinals returned to playing the brand of baseball they cherish: clean and crisp, coolheaded and clutch. And it still was not working.

Still they trailed by a run in the seventh inning, thanks to a go-ahead home run by irksome Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, sinking toward a two-games-to-none deficit in the World Series. So they took a chance – a double steal, with one out, putting two runners in scoring position and pressuring the Red Sox’s defense.

And in a redemptive twist, Boston proceeded to throw away its lead Thursday, one night after the Cardinals’ defensive miscues were the focus in Game 1.

The result was a 4-2 victory for St. Louis at Fenway Park, evening this World Series at one game apiece and affirming that, yes, the Cardinals can loosen up in the spotlight and, yes, the Red Sox can be beaten on this stage.

It had not happened since October 1986, Game 7 against the New York Mets – a streak of nine consecutive Boston victories in the World Series – but St. Louis had seen and heard just about enough of all that.

“The guys stayed aggressive,” Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said. “That’s the difference between yesterday and today. You saw the aggressiveness offensively.”

It was to be expected that the Cardinals, considered among the soundest teams in baseball with 97 regular-season wins, would regroup after Wednesday’s defensive collapse: three errors that ushered in three unearned runs during the Cardinals’ unsightly 8-1 loss.

Matheny called it a wake-up call and said his players were embarrassed by their lackluster Series debut. For good measure, he replaced struggling shortstop Pete Kozma, who committed two errors, and center fielder Shane Robinson, who bobbled a ball, in the Cardinals’ lineup.

The result was a near-flawless defensive effort and a plucky offensive performance that did not wilt after the homer by Ortiz in the sixth tarnished another sensational Michael Wacha performance.

In the seventh, the Cardinals put two runners aboard with one out against Boston reliever Craig Breslow, with Kozma pinch-running for David Freese at second base. On a 2-2 pitch to Daniel Descalso, Kozma broke for third (with Jon Jay trailing him to second), and both players reached without a throw after Boston catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia bobbled the pitch.

Jay said the steal call was not something issued from the dugout; Kozma read the situation on his own, and Jay alertly followed.

“It’s one of those situations where I know he might take a chance and go for it,” Jay said.

After Descalso walked, Matt Carpenter hit a fly ball deep enough to left field to score Kozma on a sacrifice fly, as the throw from Jonny Gomes skittered a bit up the first-base line.

But after backing up the throw, Breslow tried to nab Jay, who was advancing to third. His throw sailed into the photographers’ pen along the left-field line, allowing Jay to jog in with the go-ahead run while Descalso moved to third. Carlos Beltran, back in the lineup after a bruised rib knocked him out of Game 1, drove in the third run in the inning with a single to right.

It was the second time in the game that St. Louis held a lead – noteworthy, considering that in 2004, the Cardinals trailed Boston in every inning of the four-game sweep that ended the Red Sox’s 86-year title drought.

The Cardinals did not have Wacha then – he was 13 years old – but the rookie right-hander continued his dominating postseason run Thursday, limiting the Red Sox to two hits in his first five innings.

Only one player on the Red Sox had faced Wacha before, and that was Will Middlebrooks, in high school in Texarkana, Texas. At one point they were teammates on an American Legion squad.

Whatever scouting report Middlebrooks could have provided from those memories served little use Thursday. Wacha, now 22, with his own deep and dark playoff beard, seemed as comfortable as he might have looked on those playing fields of East Texas.