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ST. LOUIS, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- Chris Carpenter closed out one of baseball's great comebacks Friday, pitching St. Louis to a 6-2 win over Texas and a seven-game triumph in the World Series. The Cardinals trailed Atlanta by 10 1/2 games in the National League wild-card race Aug. 24. Two months and four days later they became champions of Major League Baseball, the first wild-card World Series winner in seven years.
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Their ultimate victory came one night after they were twice down to their final strike of the season, eventually putting together a pair of two-run rallies and recording a memorable 10-9 win in 11 innings.
Carpenter threw a three-hit shutout in the fifth and deciding game against Philadelphia in the National League Division Series, in which they came back from a 2-1 deficit in a five-game series. He won Game 3 of the NLCS against Milwaukee and was the winning pitcher in both the first and last games of the World Series.
He allowed two runs over six-plus innings Friday in the first World Series Game 7 since 2002. Four St. Louis relievers combined to throw three hitless innings.
Texas pitchers Matt Harrison and Scott Feldman suffered untimely wildness that allowed the Cardinals to score twice in both the first and fifth innings on a total of one hit. St. Louis capitalized on five walks and two hit batters in those two innings to build a 5-2 lead.
After suffering their brutal loss in Game 6, the Rangers wound up dropping two in a row for the first time in more than two months and became the first team to lose consecutive World Series since Atlanta did so in 1991-92. Texas is the first American League team to lose two straight years since the New York Yankees in 1963-64.
Run scoring doubles by Josh Hamilton and Michael Young gave Texas a 2-0 lead in the first, but the Cardinals came right back to tie it on a two-run double by David Freese. Both the base runners had reached on walks by Harrison.
Allen Craig put St. Louis in front for good with a solo homer in the third off Harrison and the Cardinals scored twice more in the fifth without the benefit of a hit.
Feldman loaded the bases on two walks, one of them intentional to Freese, and a hit batsman. He then forced in the two runs by walking Yadier Molina and hitting Rafael Furcal with the first pitch of the at-bat.
Molina singled in another run in the seventh against Mike Adams, part of a Texas bullpen that helped get the Rangers to the World Series but could not come through in the epic sixth game Thursday.
St. Louis won the World Series for the 11th time, having last claimed the title in 2004. Texas had been seeking the first championship in franchise history, having been founded as the Washington Senators in 1961. The Rangers have been in Texas since 1972.
