We’re one win away. We played a really hard-fought game here
tonight. We were down 3-0 early and came back to fight. David Eckstein did a
great job. Supp kept us in it. Our bullpen was big. We definitely had a lot of
key plays that happened in that game. All around, the team effort was just
great.

Even though I didn’t get a hit, I got an at-bat in a key
situation tonight, and that’s something that I wanted. My timing is a little off,
but that’s fine. I’m not going to make any excuses. I’m going to go out there
and if they put me in that situation again, I’m going to be even more focused
to get it done.

I’m going to sleep well tonight. But I’ll definitely make
sure that I wake up early, make sure I get things done, eat a good breakfast
and just come ready to play.

That was a masterful performance by Chris Carpenter tonight.

It was a great night all around, from introductions on through the game. It’s an amazing feeling, as a fan, as a player, as
coaches, anybody that’s here for the first time and is experiencing this for
the first time, it’s just joyous. It’s definitely one of the best feelings I’ve
ever had, just to stand there and see the sea of red and hear them cheering for
us. It was amazing.

You know what’s funny? With Carp, and at times when Jeff Suppan
and Jeff Weaver have pitched like that, or when Anthony Reyes pitched in Detroit,
the game just went by so fast that we couldn’t even enjoy what he was doing. When
the sixth, seventh, eighth inning came along, we looked up at the scoreboard and
we were like, "Are you serious? It’s that late in the game already?"

Usually, we pinch-hitters start getting ready around the
fifth or sixth. But those pitching performances have been top-notch, to where
we were surprised — not by their performances, but by how we didn’t recognize
where the game was.

Now they really can’t win it in three. But we just let people
say whatever they’re going to say about us being up 2-1. We’re going to stay
within ourselves, within our family and go out there and play our best
baseball.

It was 43 degrees at game time, but as far as we’re concerned, the weather is beautiful. We’re thinking of it as Hawaii right now.

Practice before Game 3 was just your normal day. We go out there for batting practice, talk with the guys, and just talk about situations that happened with Game 1 and Game 2. See what we can correct and what adjustments we have to make. We’re just getting ready for tomorrow. Now we can go home and relax and just enjoy our families.

This will be my first World Series home game — me along with probably half the team. Especially with it being in the new ballpark, the fans are probably just going to go crazy. I expect them to be crazy.

We’re going to have fun with it. It will be a great experience. But first and foremost we’ve got to go out there and play hard and win. I’ve got family coming in town, so it’s going to be even more exciting.

This was a weird night. It was a good game plan by Kenny Rogers. His changeup was working.
He was hitting his spots. He had us off balance a couple of times. We had a
couple of chances to score, but all in all, we fell short. That’s fine. We got
one game out of two. We were expecting both, but sometimes you can’t make
miracles happen.

But we have a tough team. We’re going to bounce back. Especially
since we’re going home and we’ve got Carp on the mound for Game 3. We’re going to
be ready, no matter what. We’re going to come back and play Cardinal baseball.

There was just a little bit of talk about what was going on
with Kenny Rogers, just wondering what was going on. Obviously from the first
inning to the eighth inning, he still had good stuff. So there really wasn’t
any discussion after the second inning. He did his job. He did what he had to
do to keep us off balance. You’ve got to tip your hat to him. He did his job.

Nobody expected us to win tonight besides us, but we just went out there and proved that we could. I think that’s what made us more upset and more driven to win this game, and go out and win the next one, and the next one, and the next one after that.

Critics were saying that they were going to beat us in three, when we’ve got to play four. Let them keep underestimating us, and let us continue to be the underdog, because we love it right now.

It was amazing to be introduced for the World Series. Having the camera go by my face and knowing that my family and friends were watching was incredible. Knowing that I came from the projects. I came from having nearly nothing. I’m the only one from my neighborhood to be in the World Series or even go to pro ball. It’s a very big deal to me, a very big deal to my family and friends. They’re behind me 100 percent, and I’m sure they were going crazy after that third out in the ninth inning.

We didn’t spend any time talking about making up for 2004 or anything like that. We never talk about the past. We always look forward. Just like we haven’t talked about our regular season. Things change. Once you cross those lines, and it’s playoff time, everybody is even. The records are even and there’s nothing like that to be thinking about.

What a feeling. St. Louis, I know you guys are going crazy back there. We did it. We’re going to the World Series. We’re going to play Detroit.

What can I say about this Game 7? It came down to the wire. A guy who was big for us defensively, but struggled somewhat offensively, came up big for us in the National League Championship Series. Yadier Molina, I can’t say enough about that guy. It’s his third year in the league, but he plays like a veteran back there.

Jeff Suppan, what can I say again? That dude was masterful today, just masterful. The all-around team effort was just incredible. The feeling is magical. It’s magical.

Coming in there in the ninth, Adam Wainwright allowed the first two guys to reach, but our closer then retired the next two batters. The next guy walked, but after that it was over. It was just like an epic story right there, a childhood dream. You always dream about that — as a pitcher or a hitter. A 3-2 count, seventh game — if you’re the pitcher, you’re trying to strike the guy out. As a hitter, you’re trying to hit the game-winning home run. It just came down to the last strike.

I’m speechless right now. It’s just an amazing feeling.

This is definitely a loss that we need to forget about. We’ve just got to try to take the positives out of it. We can’t put our heads down, not for one second. We need to come out there Monday and have that same intensity like we had in Games 2 and 3. I think from there we’ll be all right, as long as we keep our heads up and stay focused.

We now know we’re definitely going back to New York. But I think that if we win Monday, we’ve got Chris Carpenter going in Game 6. It’s just something where we have to come tomorrow, stay focused, stay confident, concentrate and just go out there and play a hard nine.

The weather forecast for tomorrow looks terrible. They were saying it’s going to rain all day and all night. We’ll figure it out. But either way, I think we’re leaving for New York on Tuesday. So it really doesn’t matter that much. If we don’t play tomorrow, we’ll play on Tuesday and leave after the game.

It would just be another day off if it rains — but an earlier one. Either Monday or Tuesday we have the day off. So we’ve just got to take it all day by day.

This is going to be the shortest blog entry I’ve ever done, because I only have five things to say about this game.

The first thing about this game: Jeff Suppan.

The second thing: Timely hitting. We scored our runs.

Third thing: Suppan.

Fourth thing: defense.

Fifth and final: Suppan.

It was just a beautiful thing by us as a team. Wow. What can you say about Suppan? Like we said, we were going to come back home and do what we have to do, but hopefully not make it so interesting. That’s exactly what happened Saturday night.

I do just want to say one thing to the fans, though. I want to hear all of you just a little bit more. We heard them, but not quite as much. I want to hear them a little bit louder tomorrow. I want that red sea to come out. Everybody wear red T-shirts, red sweatshirts, red jackets, whatever. Just bring it all out tomorrow.

All I can say after Friday’s game is wow, wow, wow. This just shows you what type of team we have. In fact, a lot of guys think we should be up 2-0. It just tells you how much heart we have.

We didn’t give up. When we talk about a hard nine, that’s the way we play. A hard nine innings. Chris Carpenter didn’t have his good stuff today, but he kept us in it. We got big key hits from Yadier Molina, a two-run double, Jimmy Edmonds with the two-run home run, and Scott Spiezio came up big twice. And, of course, Guch, So Taguchi, with that go-ahead home run. Just the resilience of this team is incredible. We never give up. That’s just the power of this team.

I definitely appreciate seeing a guy like Josh Kinney, who had a long road to the Major Leagues like I did, succeed on this stage. From Josh to Adam Wainwright to Tyler Johnson, all those guys who are rookies in our bullpen are putting in their work in the bullpen and doing their job. Those guys are coming up big for us.

Now it’s a best-of-five series, and we’ve got the next three at home. The ball is in our court now. We’ve just got to go out there and play like we did today. But we need to go out there and make sure we don’t make it too interesting, like we did today.

It was a pitchers’ duel on Thursday night in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series. We hit a lot of balls hard that just didn’t fall our way. We had a couple of bloopers that could have dropped, but the Mets made diving plays on them. So like I said, it was just a pitchers’ duel. That one swing of Carlos Beltran put them on top. I guess that was the turning point of the game right there.

I tip my hat to Jeff Weaver. He pitched a heck of a game, but we just fell short. We’ll come back Friday and make sure we get it done.

Being introduced before a playoff game in my hometown of New York was wonderful. I tried to hear my family scream, but it was hard because the Mets fans were booing everybody. But I know they were out there. I just had a lot of fun this first day. Now it’s time to take care of business, though.

It wasn’t quite as loud as I thought it was going to be with 56,000 people. But that just tells you about how loud our fans in St. Louis can be.

I was just a little bit late in my at-bat tonight. I’ve got to start a little bit earlier next time. But I felt like I was on the ball. I swung at a bad pitch for strike three. But it happens, and tomorrow we’ll take care of business.