Baseball, St. Louis Cardinals | featured news

Allen Craig, coming off a breakout season with the St. Louis Cardinals, agreed Friday to a $31 million, five-year contract that could be worth $43 million over six seasons....

The big curveball was back, and Barry Zito mixed in some well-placed fastballs, too. It was just like the good old days. Zito was at his best Friday night, pitching San Francisco back into the NL championship series with a 5-0 win over the St. Louis Cardinals that narrowed its deficit to 3-2.

One more win and another bunch of wild-card Cardinals get their chance to repeat. Adam Wainwright threw seven innings of four-hit ball and St. Louis roughed up Tim Lincecum and the San Francisco Giants in an 8-3 rout Thursday night that gave the Cardinals a 3-1 lead in the NL championship series.

The sight of Marco Scutaro on the ground in pain after getting flattened by Matt Holliday's hard takeout was just the spark the San Francisco Giants needed. Scutaro even got into the act with his own big blow that helped the Giants end their home slide.

In the end, it made sense that Yadier Molina and David Freese would work those key walks, and that Daniel Descalso and Pete Kozma would come through with those tying and go-ahead, two-run hits....

The St. Louis Cardinals are replacing a manager who's third on the career victory list with a man who'll be writing his first lineup card on opening day. Mike Matheny, a former catcher with the Cardinals who had been a minor league instructor, will be introduced as Tony La Russa's successor at a news conference Monday.

Tony La Russa, the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, announced Monday he is retiring after 33 seasons as a manager in professional baseball. The Cardinals capped an improbable comeback last week by defeating the Texas Rangers to win the World Series.

The Cardinals, who made the postseason with the fewest wins, 90, of any playoff team, won their 11th World Series title by beating the Rangers in a series that went all seven games.

David Freese homered to lead off the bottom of the 11th inning, and the St. Louis Cardinals forced the World Series to a Game 7 by rallying from two-run deficits against the Texas Rangers in the 9th and 10th on Thursday night.

MLB announced that tonight’s scheduled Game 6 of the World Series has been postponed because of expected rain in St. Louis. Cardinals and Rangers officials learned of the early postponement during an afternoon conference call with MLB. Light rain has been falling throughout the day in St. Louis and various weather reports peg the chances of rain tonight at 75-90 percent. Rather than attempt to play through the bad weather and perhaps get stuck having to delay the game after several innings they’ll push Game 6 to Thursday night and schedule a potential Game 7 for Friday night.