The Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals are matching up on Wednesday night in Game 1 of the World Series after winning their respective League Championship Series in the AL and NL and in the first game of the series, Adam Wainwright and Jon Lester will be on the mound against each other.
This is the first time in over a decade that the World Series has each of the top teams in the American League and National League in the championship, as the last time that happened was back in 1999 when the New York Yankees and the Atlanta Braves playing. The Cardinals obviously won the World Series more recently than the Red Sox, but each has won it twice in recent years and of course back in 2004 the Boston Red Sox defeated the Cardinals in a sweep to break their "Babe Ruth" curse streak.
The two teams have played three other times in the World Series, with the Cardinals winning the first two matchups back in 1946 and 1967 and then the Red Sox of course won back in 2004. The only players left in the series from that championship matchup are David Ortiz and Yadier Molina, two of the best and most important players on either team. Ortiz helped get the Sox into the Series, as his grand slam against the Detroit Tigers saved Boston from a 2-0 hole that likely got them the victory in the series, while Molina has been steady with the pitching staff.
Molina has been getting banged up a bit, but he has been perfect behind the plate, especially for Joe Kelly and Michael Wacha, who pitched two scoreless starts as a rookie against the Dodgers. According to ESPN.com, the two teams have 31 World Series appearances and 18 championships between the two teams and Game 1 will be on FOX on Wednesday night before Thursday's Game 2 and then the series shifts to St. Louis for three straight games on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. October 27 marks the date that the Boston Red Sox won the World Series to break the streak in 2004 over the Cardinals and it came after Edgar Renteria made the final out to closer Keith Foulke, who threw the ball to first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz for the final out to make a number of Boston fans very happy.
2004 was of course the year of the comeback for the Red Sox and then they ended up winning eight games in a row, as they swept the Cardinals after coming back against the Yankees in that ALCS epic series. The Cardinals didn't get any hitting from Scott Rolen in that series and David Ortiz played his part, adding a double early in the game and he scored a run and the pitching for the Red Sox came through like back then like it is now with Lester, Clay Buchholz, Jake Peavy and John Lackey pitching well.