Cardinals and Rangers make it look like slo-pitch softball

Cardinals and Rangers make it look like slo-pitch softball.

I mentioned a couple of days ago that the Cardinals may have the best offense in baseball, although few people realize it. (They had the best road OBP, even better than the Red Sox and Yanks)

The Ballpark at Arlington is now even with Coors as the two best hitters' parks in all of baseball. The Rangers and their opponents scored 896 runs in Arlington and 636 on the road. That is a huge difference.

Take the best offense and put them in the best offensive environment, and you kinda knew there might be some fireworks, especially since the Rangers also put up massive numbers in Arlington. They led the major leagues in runs scored at home as well as four-baggers at home.

The fireworks show appeared as scheduled. The Cardinals won 16-7. It was 8-6 after five innings, but up until that point Albert Pujols had been sleepwalking. The big guy was decidedly awake for the rest of the game, with three long (420+) home runs. He finished the game with five hits, four runs scored, and six RBI - probably the single most impressive individual offensive performance in any game in World Series history.

All four of those stats (HR, hits, runs, RBI) tied the World Series single-game records, but nobody ever combined them all before. Babe Ruth and Reggie had the three homers and four runs scored, but neither of them ever had six RBI or five hits. Paul Molitor was the only previous guy ever to get five hits in a game during the October classic. The names of the two guys who collected six RBI in a Series game might surprise you: Hideki Matsui and light-hitting Bobby Richardson

During his career Richardson averaged 45 RBI per 162 games and had a lifetime OPS of .634, but he went bananas in the 1960 World Series, in which he also set the record for most RBI in the whole Series, with 12.

Richardson's Yankees lost that series to the Pirates - capped off by the famous Mazeroski homer. That 1960 fall classic was a screwy series. The Yankees outscored the Pirates 55-27, and Bobby was selected as the Series MVP, but the Pirates won it in seven games!