Cards Come Up Aces in Game 1

Reyes Chills Detroit, Pujols Turns Tide With Big Home Run : Cardinals 7, Tigers 2

DETROIT, Oct. 21 -- Apparently, some other physical phenomenon, besides the replenishing of energy and the healing of injured body parts, was taking place as the American League champion Detroit Tigers were kicking back this week waiting to learn the identity of their opponent in the World Series. Muscles and synapses, finely tuned by the inherent dailyness of baseball, saw their connections go staticky. The competitive fire, it seems, died down to a slow smolder for a lack of games to fuel it. The Tigers, the evidence suggested in Saturday night's Game 1, had gone flat.

The young fireballer's fastball lacked its typical zip. Their bats went uncharacteristically cold. Solid defenders threw the ball all over creation. Even their grizzled genius of a manager, in the game's most critical moment, made an ill-fated choice on what should have been the easiest decision he faced all night.

And as a result, it is the amazin' St. Louis Cardinals -- whose own bodies may be rundown and raggedy, but whose competitive blazes have never stopped roaring -- who lead the World Series, after stealing Game 1 at Detroit's Comerica Park, 7-2, behind a stunning pitching performance by rookie Anthony Reyes and a game-changing home run by first baseman Albert Pujols.

It was a tossup as to which was more shocking -- Reyes, an undistinguished 25-year-old right-hander, pitching the game of his life by limiting the Tigers to two runs and four hits over eight-plus masterful innings -- retiring 17 straight batters at one point -- or Pujols, the sport's premier slugger, being allowed to alter the course of the game in a third-inning situation in which he is almost uniformly walked.

And perhaps most shocking of all, the upper hand in the World Series is now owned by a team -- Tony La Russa's Cardinals -- that won only 83 games in the regular season, that staggered to within a couple of losses of a monumental collapse in September, and that earned its berth here in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the National League Championship Series just 44 hours prior to Saturday night's first pitch. The Cardinals' victory Saturday night ended an eight-game World Series losing streak for the NL.

"You play the game, and that's the beauty of it," La Russa said. "There's no script, and someday this might happen. But we thought we'd take a shot tonight."

The Tigers, overwhelming favorites here after having won 95 games this season plus another seven straight in the postseason, will face many questions in the wake of their loss: Were they flat following a weeklong layoff? What happened to rookie phenom Justin Verlander's fastball? But the most burning, most pertinent question was why Tigers Manager Jim Leyland chose to have Verlander pitch to Pujols with a base open and two outs in the third inning of a game St. Louis led 2-1.

On the last question, we may never know the answer, because Leyland never fully explained his decision -- which resulted in Pujols smashing a two-run, opposite-field homer. But he did accept the blame for how it turned out.

"The manager's decision is either to pitch to him or walk him," Leyland said. "I pitched to him and obviously he burned us. I'm not going to get into a lot of explanation about what the thinking was. But I take the bullet there."

Is it possible the Tigers saw something in Pujols's performance during the first two rounds of the playoffs -- in which he chased more bad pitches than he sometimes does in an entire season -- that led them to believe he should be treated as a mere mortal?

It does not take much of a leap to imagine the Tigers, after weighing the scouting reports, deciding Pujols could be pitched to, albeit carefully, in a situation that normally would call for an intentional walk. But here, Verlander was anything but careful. His first offering to Pujols was a fastball that Pujols reached out and smashed into the seats in right field.

"Even if it's not Albert Pujols up there, with two outs and a guy on second base, you don't want to give him anything to hit, even if it's the ninth hitter," Verlander said. "I kind of made a mistake, and he hit it. Maybe the ninth hitter doesn't hit it, but he did."

Of course, when Pujols led off for the Cardinals in the top of the sixth, the Tigers walked him -- and that did not turn out so well for them, either.

The walk became a net triple when Verlander misfired on a pickoff throw, allowing Pujols to motor all the way to third. Two batters later -- after Jim Edmonds singled over a drawn-in infield and Scott Rolen doubled into the right field corner -- the Cardinals led 5-1, and Verlander's night was over.

"I thought he was very tentative," Leyland said of Verlander. "He did not attack them, and that was kind of disappointing."

One more bit of ugliness remained for the Tigers. Third baseman Brandon Inge bobbled Juan Encarnacion's grounder, fired wildly to home plate, then interfered with Rolen as he rounded third -- a triple crown of blunders that resulted in two more Cardinals runs and two errors charged to Inge.

It was the first time in history that a World Series Game 1 was started by a pair of rookies. Unlike Verlander -- a phenom, the former No. 2 overall draft pick and probable AL rookie of the year, with the 100-mph fastball -- Reyes is a grinder, a former 455th overall draft pick, with the modest assortment of pitches and the fewest career wins (six) ever for a World Series Game 1 starter.

Only in the context of this particular night would it have made any sense for Reyes to be the dominator, and Verlander the battered loser. Because this was a night when conventional World Series wisdom was turned upside down, a night when Albert Pujols saw a strike in a four-ball situation, when Jim Leyland made the wrong call, and the St. Louis Cardinals -- the beat-down, pitching-challenged, 83-win St. Louis Cardinals -- took the lead in the World Series.