World Series 2011: On to Game Seven

Game Seven of the 2011 World Series will get underway at 1.05 a.m. on Saturday.

At several times during Game Six, it seemed very unlikely that we would have one more game to look forward to in the 2011 season.

However, the Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals turned a very good series into a great one with an absolute classic of a game that will go down as one of the greatest in World Series history.

The Cardinals’ incredible victory tied the series at 3-3 to set up a single game decider.

ESPN America and BBC 5 Live Sports Extra will be providing live coverage in the UK. The one-day postponement of Game Six has meant that we can follow the action early on Saturday rather than Friday, which was the original scheduled date for Game Seven.

It almost seems pointless to try to explain Game Six because any writer would struggle to do it justice. The Cardinals twice were a strike away from losing, only to come back and win. On the other side, the Rangers twice were one strike away from winning their first ever World Series, only to see their dreams put on hold. Add on a host of errors and a walk-off home run and you couldn’t have asked for a more dramatic game.

Looking back over the highlights, the one thing that stands out to me is the moment you see Nelson Cruz start to go back on the fly ball in the ninth inning. Despite knowing the outcome, my reaction is still to think that he will make the catch and complete the Rangers’ victory. It wasn’t an easy play – and I suspect no play could really be called easy in that spot – but it was one Cruz would often make. That might just come back to haunt Texas.

The extreme contrast of emotions coming out of yesterday, coupled with Game Seven being played in St. Louis, would appear to give the Cardinals all the momentum. However, this series has showed that momentum doesn’t always have much of an effect, and perhaps doesn’t always exist in the first place.

The Rangers’ victory in Game Two seemed to hand the momentum their way, coming from behind in the ninth inning to level the series before the teams headed to Arlington for the next three games. Instead, the Cardinals came out and absolutely hammered the Rangers in Game Three. That would seem to have swung the momentum back to the Cardinals, but then the Rangers came back to win the next two games.

So there’s really no way to predict what impact Game Six will have on Game Seven. All I can safely predict is that it will be another great game and whichever team comes out on top, they will have done so by beating a formidable opponent.