A social recap of Game 5 of the World Series

Posted by on Oct 29, 2013 03:30

The Boston Red Sox beat the St Louis Cardinals 3-1 in Game 5 of the World Series to take a 3-2 lead in the series.

Tonight's National Anthem was performed by Harry Connick Jr, and unlike nearly every other anthem this series, it went pretty well.

Also in St Louis on this Monday night, the Rams were hosting the Seahawks at the Whatever It's Called Today Dome.

The Cardinals lineup was in flux before the game, as one version surfaced with Allen Craig out of the lineup before the final lineup was released with Craig in the middle of the order and playing first base.

Fox's oft-lampooned Keys to the Game hit a new level of suck tonight.

Personally, I think these would help each team more.

Before the game begins, a quick prediction…

And sure enough, he didn't! But Wainwright did follow up his strikeout of Ellsbury by allowing a double to Dustin Pedroia, bringing up David Ortiz with a man in scoring position, one out, and first base open. Hmmm…

Ortiz doubled home Pedroia to make it 1-0. Because of course he did.

Speaking of fruit…

The Cardinals went quietly in the first, thanks in part to a nice play by Pedroia.

After a disappointing first inning, Wainwright got into gear in the second, striking out the side.

Carlos Beltran led off the second with a single, and St Louis wept at Mike Matheny's lineup construction.

The aforementioned Craig looked extremely gimpy out of the box while grounding into an inning-ending double play.

Jon Lester made contact against Wainwright in the third, grounding out to lead off a 1-2-3 inning.

After David Freese led off the bottom of the third with a single, Pete Kozma bunted him over to second, and nearly managed to reach base. But we don't want to break the script, now would we?

After striking out Wainwright, Lester struck out Matt Carpenter for the third out of the inning on a questionable call.

David Ortiz led off the fourth with a single. Related: water is wet.

Fox decided to get their money's worth out of Chris Carpenter, interviewed him in the dugout yet again.

In the bottom of the fourth, Matt Holliday tied the game at one with a solo homer to dead center field off of Lester.

Carlos Beltran nearly followed up with one of his own, but Jonny Gomes made the catch at the wall.

Meanwhile, Shelby Miller is still missing.

In the fifth, Stephen Drew nearly took Wainwright out of the park, but the baseball gods put an end to that fun quickly.

David Ortiz didn't reach base in his third plate appearance in the sixth inning for the first time since the second inning of Game 3.

Joe Buck and Tim McCarver apparently thought they were at the Edward Jones Dome, discussing turnovers.

Internet celebrity David Eckstein tuned into this one as well and had some thoughts.

We moved into the seventh inning tied at one. Xander Bogaerts led off with an infield single.

Then, Stephen Drew walked after falling behind 1-2. That also happened.

The Red Sox took the lead after a ground rule double by David Ross scored Bogaerts, making it a 2-1 game.

Jon Lester followed up by…well, he's a pitcher, and pitchers can't hit.

Ellsbury followed up by singling to center, scoring Drew and resulting in a play at the plate where Ross was ruled out on a close play.

In the bottom of the seventh, a paper airplane made its way to the mound, much to the joy of Twitter.

David Ortiz reached on an infield single into the teeth of the shift in the eighth, because he's on a stupid hot streak right now.

Craig was still in the game in the bottom of the eighth, and could barely run on a ground out. The Cardinals need to worry about his future at this point.

After a Freese double, Kozma batted for himself and predictably flew out to left.

Koji Uehara came in to face Matt Adams and notch the elusive four out save. Adams had no chance, striking out on three pitches.

Trevor Rosenthal pitched the top of the ninth for the Cardinals. It went about as well as you'd expect for the Red Sox.

Uehara was all set to close the game out in the bottom of the ninth against the top of the Cardinals order: Carpenter, Shane Robinson, and Matt Holliday. No Beltran, of course. The script seemed ready to write itself.

Sure enough, Uehara ran right through Carpenter and Jon Jay, pinch hitting for Robinson..

The game ended with a Holliday fly out to right field…with Beltran on deck. Of course.

There were two major takeaways from this game.

First, David Ortiz is unstoppable. He went 3/4 on Monday, and is now hitting .733/.750/1.267 in the series. Just molten hot.

Second, Jon Lester had himself one hell of a start. In 7 2/3 innings, Lester threw just 91 pitches, allowing one run on four hits in 7 2/3 innings, striking out seven without a walk. That's just blistering.

Wainwright didn't pitch badly, but the seventh inning was the difference. In his seven innings of work, the Cardinals ace allowed three runs on eight hits, striking out ten and walking only one. But the bottom of Boston's lineup did some damage in the seventh, and that was enough to push the Red Sox to the victory.

Game 6 will be at 8 PM on Wednesday on Fox. Michael Wacha will get the start for the Cardinals, while John Lackey looks to make his massive Red Sox contract worthwhile by winning the World Series for the Sox at Fenway Park. The Red Sox have won the World Series on the grass at Fenway just once in their history – 1918. Doesn't that year sound familiar?

About Amanda Rykoff

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