Baseball: St Louis Cardinals peak at right time to win World Series

ST LOUIS - The St Louis Cardinals showed that strong pitching, sound fundamental play and good timing is a winning formula as they beat the odds to win the 102nd baseball World Series.

The Cardinals peaked at the right time to complete a post-season run that carried them over the San Diego Padres, the New York Mets and Detroit Tigers - all favoured against them - to become the World Series champions with the fewest regular season wins and claim their first title in 24 years.

Injuries weighed down the Cards for much of the season, and a seven-game losing skid at the end nearly doomed them but their 83 wins was enough to qualify for the playoffs.

The previous low win total for World Series champions was 85 games by the 1987 Minnesota Twins, who beat the Cardinals.

Yet St Louis manager Tony La Russa said he knew his team was capable of snatching the championship away from the American League, considered to have the strongest teams in the majors this season.

"The post-season is three out of five, four out of seven, four out of seven," La Russa said before the series, breaking down the three tiers of baseball's playoffs.

"I just know we felt, coming in, that in a short series we could be tough to play against. We have a core of position players that play the whole game. We've got some starting pitching. We've got a bullpen. So we felt like we could compete."

The 95-win Detroit Tigers represented the American League, which had won the last eight World Series games, with Boston Red Sox sweeping the Cardinals in 2004, and the Chicago White Sox sweeping the Houston Astros last season.

The AL has a streak of nine All-Star game victories.

In interleague play in 2006, the AL was 154-98 over the National League. The Tigers were 15-3 in interleague play. The Cardinals were 5-10. Detroit had swept three games against St Louis during the season.

By the end of the season, the Cardinals began to heal. Centre fielder Jim Edmonds was ready to play, as were third baseman Scott Rolen and shortstop David Eckstein.

"It was a very difficult year in a lot of ways," said La Russa. "The biggest thing, most consistent thing we had was heart."

The Cardinals played better defence than the Tigers and did the little things - bunting and moving runners over. The pitching also came together. Ace Chris Carpenter, Jeff Suppan (MVP of the league championship series against the Mets), Jeff Weaver and rookie Anthony Reyes were impressive.

Detroit had a nightmare catching and throwing the ball - they made eight errors in the series including five by their pitchers that led to seven unearned runs - but coach Jim Leyland felt the key was how St Louis shut down the Tigers' attack.

"I'm a little embarrassed we didn't represent [the American League] a little better," Leyland said.

"I think that you have to credit [St Louis pitching coach] Dave Duncan and the Cardinal pitching staff. They probably did the best job of anybody all year of pitching to us. They did a tremendous job."

The Cards' sweep of their three games at Busch Stadium to close out the series 4-1 kept them from having to go to Detroit to face Tigers ace Kenny Rogers, suspected of putting something on his pitching hand for unfair advantage in game two. The sweep in St Louis also served up a clinching party for the Cards' rabid, red-clad fans, who lingered in the stands for two hours after the game to cheer the players that came out to wave and take victory laps.

The series might have been a TV ratings dud, but it charged up this old Mississippi River city known as the Gateway to the West.

Car horns were blaring and revellers were roaring in the streets into the wee hours.

- REUTERS