The World Series is not tied up at 1-1 after the St. Louis Cardinals had a great comeback against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park on Thursday night and when the two teams play Game 3, starters Joe Kelly and Jake Peavy will be in the lineup for National League rules at Busch Stadium.
According to ESPN.com, Peavy will get the start of Clay Buchholz, who has been banged up for most of the year and after being scheduled to start in Game 3, he is being pushed to game 4 of the series instead. The team and manager John Farrell said that the move isn't serious and that Buchholz had some "fatigue" and the extra day will allow him to get up to speed.
Buchholz was one of the top starters through two months of the season before getting hurt and in the latter part of the season he has not been as strong as he was in April and May, with his velocity going down and his stamina. According to ESPN.com, he has been under 90 pitches in the past two starts and now he will get some extra time to heal up for the Game 4 matchup against Lance Lynn. Peavy now is in the spot where he could be set to start Game 7 and that matchup would be in Fenway Park if it ended up necessary and naturally it would be on Halloween.
Buchholz pitched earlier in October in the last series and was laboring a bit, so now Peavy will match up against the young star in Kelly. Both Michael Wacha and Kelly have been stellar for the Cardinals and while Wacha gave up only his second and third runs of the postseason on Thursday, he should be ready for his next start in the series after having another strong outing for the Cards.
The National League rules will add some intrigue to the matchup, as both managers will have plenty of decisions to make, including whether David Ortiz or Mike Napoli will start. Peavy has experience hitting from his days with the Padres, so that should not be an issue, but heading to Busch Stadium makes the Series very interesting, especially now that the home field advantage is temporarily gone with the Cards winning in Boston.
