Rain delay eases burden on weary bullpens

Instead of splish-splashing their way through another nail-biter, the weary bullpens of the Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals get an extra day's rest prior to game six of the World Series. Major League Baseball postponed game six at Busch Stadium to Thursday because of heavy rains forecast for the St. Louis area. Relief pitchers have played key roles in the success of both clubs in the post-season, so Tuesday's travel day followed by Wednesday's postponement gives the players another day to recover from the physical demands of the play-offs. Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said his players were ready to play Wednesday but happy to wait until Thursday. "It gives them a little break," said La Russa, who will use the extra night off to go see the newly released baseball movie "Moneyball". "At this time of year, if you get an extra day, it is going to be the same for both teams." The Rangers lead the series 3-2 and can wrap up their first championship in their 51-year franchise history with a victory in game six. About 4 1/2 hours before the scheduled opening pitch of what could be the deciding game in the best-of-seven championship series, the decision was made to postpone the matchup. A seventh game, if needed, would be played on Friday. Forecasts for both days predict better weather conditions. "This town is one of the toughest as far as trying to figure out the weather," said Joe Torre, MLB executive vice-president of baseball operations. "We have a good forecast for the next two days and more importantly than anything else, you want to have a complete game. We are going to do what we can to give both teams a chance to play in good weather." MLB wanted to avoid a repeat of the 2008 World Series when rain halted game five in the bottom of the sixth inning between Philadelphia and Tampa Bay, resulting in the first time in history a World Series contest was suspended in the middle of a game. La Russa said the day off would not change his starting pitcher for game six, Jaime Garcia (13-7, 3.56 ERA), who is still looking for his first win in the post-season after two losses. The Rangers will counter with Colby Lewis (14-10, 4.40 ERA), who has one win and one loss in the post-season. La Russa will tweak his lineup a bit for Thursday's game but isn't saying who his game seven starter is. He did say he is considering using righthanded ace Chris Carpenter on short rest. Carpenter pitched game five, which the Cardinals lost 4-2. Rangers manager Ron Washington has already tagged Matt Harrison as his game seven starter and said Wednesday he might use starter Derek Holland in relief if they need him in game six or seven. The Texas bullpen has a record six victories in the post-season which is the second most all-time along with the 1996 New York Yankees and the 2002 Anaheim Angels. Their closer Neftali Feliz has six saves in the playoff, including two so far in the World Series. The Cardinals bullpen has been just as busy -- their relievers have made 65 appearances in 16 post-season games, setting a MLB record for most relievers used in a single post-season. "Our bullpen was available full strength going into tonight," Washington said. "So it is just giving them another day to rest. We still have to go out and play good baseball." The Rangers had to rally from a two-run deficit to win game five and it marked the second time in this series that the deciding runs have come in the last two innings of a nerve-racking contest. Texas, who have not lost back-to-back games since late August, got a brilliant performance from catcher Mike Napoli who belted a bases-loaded double that drove in two runs in the eighth inning. It was also the first time in six years that multiple World Series games have been decided by the winning run scored in the eighth inning-or-later. Napoli has three homers and 14 RBIs in the post-season. On Monday, he also gunned the ball to second base to catch Cardinals Allen Craig trying to steal in the seventh with St. Louis slugger Albert Pujols threatening at the plate. Washington said when the pressure is on, no one delivers with timely hits better than Napoli. "If you ever stood in the box as a hitter and you got 51,000 people chanting out your name and you are already a focused player, it just brings that focus into play even more," Washington said.