2011 World Series: Game 6 Postponement Gives St. Louis Cardinals Breathing Room

The last two games of the World Series, the St. Louis Cardinals have been suffocated by good pitching and bad mistakes.

Fortunately for the Cardinals, they now have some breathing room after Game 6 was postponed for Thursday.

Game 5 on Monday may have been the most disheartening loss yet for the Cardinals, complete with bad communication in the bullpen and a curious hit-and-run play featuring Albert Pujols.

Manager Tony La Russa is once again being accused of being too stringent, too wooden and too limiting to his team's success.

The Cardinals offense—after scoring the most runs in the postseason through the championship series—has scored a grand total of two runs in the last two games after taking Game 3 in Texas. Leadoff hitter Rafael Furcal is hitting .188 for the postseason and .150 for the series.

And, above all, the momentum the Cardinals had coming into the World Series, perhaps their most important advantage, appears to have disappeared.

There's a general sentiment that thinking too much about the previous loss can doom a team moving forward, which I agree with for the most part. But, at this point, it's more important for the Cardinals to regroup and take a deep breath and that is why I think the rain out on Wednesday was probably the best thing that could have happened to La Russa's squad.

This team has enough talent and chemistry to win the World Series, there's no doubt about that.

But the sailing feeling the Cardinals had early on has been replaced with conservative, cautious play, and there's no way the Cardinals are going to win the next two games and take the World Series with that approach.

The Cardinals need to explode out of the gates.

Given an extra day, that hangover from two straight losses may have dissipated.