The St. Louis Cardinals tied things up in the World Series on Thursday night, pulling out a victory in Game 2 in Fenway Park to steal the home field advantage and now the series will shift to Busch Stadium and National League rules and the Game 3 matchup on Saturday night will be Joe Kelly going up against Jake Peavy after Clay Buchholz had his start pushed back.
After everything went wrong for the Cards on Wednesday night, Mike Matheny seemingly could not make a wrong move and the ball bounced the right way for the team and now they are all knotted up. The Cardinals and Michael Wacha looked like they were going to get another scoreless start from the rookie, as he was over 100 pitches and there were players warming up in the bullpen, but then David Ortiz came up. If Matheny made one mistake it was leaving Wacha in for one batter too long, or maybe it was just the hanging changeup from Wacha, but either way, Ortiz slammed the ball into the upper deck of the green monster for a homer to take a 2-1 lead.
The Cardinals looked totally in control up to that point and then in one swing the lead was gone and Matheny had to make a number of big decisions the rest of the way and they all seemed to work out. He brought in Pete Kozma to the game and after making his errors in Game 1, he was nearly perfect in game 2. Matheny brought in Kozma at one point to pinch run and while he almost was caught stealing third, he was able to pull off a double steal while Daniel Descalso was at bat and John Jay was on base and after a hit to left field to Jonny Gomes, the Cardinals got a run in and then on a throwing error by Craig Breslow they were able to get the lead and then it stayed there.
The bullpen for the Cardinals showed some true strength and now the team has the advantage tied 1-1, as the rules change up to the National League. Carlos Martinez and Trevor Rosenthal showed off how good they are, especially Martinez, as he faced off against David Ortiz late in the game and Matheny kept him in to help finish things off. Rosenthal showed off his triple digit speed and closed things out and now the series shifts West.
