BOSTON—Seven times this season, the St. Louis Cardinals lost by seven or more runs. In the games immediately following those shellackings, they were 3-4. So, what does that mean about Game 2 of the World Series after the Boston Red Sox's 8-1 rout in the opener on Wednesday night?
Nothing. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Move along, nothing to see here.
In the history of the World Series, there have been 10 other opening games decided by seven or more runs. The losing team from those Game 1 blowouts came back to win four times. Take away the 1919 Cincinnati Reds, who won Game 1 by a 9-1 score against a Chicago White Sox team that was losing on purpose, and it's four out of nine. Since the end of World War II, it's four out of eight.
Game 1 matters because the Red Sox now are 25 percent of the way to the total number of wins they need to win the series, while the Cardinals are at zero percent. The margin? Utterly meaningless.
For their part, the Red Sox are well aware that a lopsided total only means that Wednesday night was stress-free, while Thursday brings a fresh challenge. Namely, that challenge is facing Cardinals rookie right-hander Michael Wacha, the NLCS MVP who has allowed one run in 21 innings over three postseason starts.
"We're facing a guy that's been unbelievable," said Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia. "We've got to try to come out and find a way to win that ballgame. ... He's got great stuff. Everyone's seen what he's done in the postseason and since he's been in the big leagues."
The Red Sox counter with John Lackey, who outdueled Justin Verlander in Game 3 of the ALCS, so they have confidence in the man they will have on the mound. It is Wacha, though, who gives St. Louis a chance to do what every road team wants to do in the first two games of a best-of-seven series: get the split.
"Wacha's done a terrific job in this postseason and we feel extremely confident when he's out there," said Allen Craig, who went 1-for-4 in Game 1 as he returned from a foot injury to play for the first time since early September. "You couldn't have a better guy going out there. He's pitched really well in big situations. That start that he had in Pittsburgh, I think that's something he can build off of and give us a good start."
In Pittsburgh, the Cardinals were facing elimination and Wacha took a no-hitter into the eighth inning. In Boston on Thursday, the worst that can happen to the Cardinals would be falling behind 2-0 in the series—far from ideal, but also not insurmountable, even if the margin in Game 1 made it appear that there was a wide gulf between these teams.
"We had a wake-up call," Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said. "This is not the kind of team that we've been all season. And they're frustrated. I'm sure embarrassed, to a point. We get an opportunity to show the kind of baseball we played all season long and it didn't look anything like what we saw tonight."
There were, however, those seven times that the Cardinals did look like they did on Wednesday, and got hammered. Sometimes they bounced back, sometimes they didn't. One game to the next, there's just no carryover.