Resilient Cardinals chase Lee, stun Phillies to tie series

Albert Pujols may not be anywhere near full strength, but he showed he can still hit. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Rafael Furcal tripled to start Game 2, but wasn’t driven in. In the second inning, another St. Louis Cardinal was in scoring position with nobody out, as David Freese doubled, but they couldn’t break through against Cliff Lee’s Philadelphia Phillies. In addition, St. Louis’ star Albert Pujols was hobbled so badly that Sports Illustrated‘s Jon Heyman said it looked like he was “walking on shards of glass.” And ace Chris Carpenter, pitching on three-days rest for the first time in his career, went on to struggle. Nothing was going right, and the outlook wasn’t bright.

While the Cardinals failed to make the most of their early chances, the Phillies made them pay in the bottom of the first two innings. Carpenter’s repertoire was far from sharp, as he surrendered three runs in the first and another in the second. It was 4-0.

There wasn’t much hope for the Cardinals, but people said that in early September, and all they did was erase a nine-game Wild Card deficit to make the playoffs. They weren’t going to go quietly. And they weren’t intimidated by Lee, who entered with a postseason record of 7-2.

Philadelphia had that 4-0 lead in front of their home crowd, with one of their many aces on the mound. Meanwhile, St. Louis was forced to go to their bullpen in the fourth inning. Bad news for the road team, right? No. The Phillies wouldn’t score a fifth run. The Cardinals bullpen was superb, leaving the door open for the offense that scored the most runs in the National League this season.

They quickly got back into contention, scoring three runs on a walk and four hits in the fourth. The 46,ooo-plus filling Citizen Bank Park, decked in Philly red, were silent. Lee was human, and the Cardinals were alive.

They kept their foot on the gas, as John Jay came up clutch in the sixth, plating the tying run with a two-out single. Fans were restless, stunned. First their Philadelphia Eagles blow a 21-point-lead, and now this.

All that could be heard was the announcers and congratulatory cheers from the Cardinals dugout as Ryan Theriot entered. The team that had showed so much fight wasn’t done, either.

Lee went out for the seventh, and Allen Craig greeted him with a crushed triple to deep center. St. Louis had a great chance to score, but they did in the first and second and couldn’t come through. This was a different Cardinals team, however. They looked far more confident and certainly had Lee figured out.

It was fitting that Pujols, who looked to be in so much pain, proceeded to shrug off his discomfort and plated the game-deciding run. He laced a single over the shortstop’s head and into right field, limping down to first as Craig trotted home.

The Cardinals ability to erase the deficit epitomized what pushed them past the Braves and into the postseason: a never-give-up attitude. Early in the summer they lost ace Adam Wainwright for the year. Later, they lost slugger Matt Holliday. Did those setbacks slow them down? No. They sped up, instead.

As Craig scored, Phillies fans were shown on the TBS broadcast. They were even more lifeless than before, with the blankest of stares. This wasn’t supposed to happen, they thought. Lee was supposed to be lights out and Philadelphia’s offense was supposed to increase their lead. What did ensue is what makes baseball so great: the unexpected often takes place.

Due to the unexpected, the Wild Card winner that was nine games back of the Atlanta Braves at the beginning of September heads home with the upper hand.

“We’ve been doing this all year. We don’t give up,” closer Jason Motte said. “People counted us out, (but) we kind of went out there and just kept playing hard.” And as it has so often over the past month, their effort paid off.