Best-Pitched Cardinal World Series games and Carp
In addition to providing today’s storyline of how the teams might re-order their rotations, last night’s postponement gave everyone another day to bask in the glow of Chris Carpenter’s Game 3 performance. Yesterday, we put it in context of the Tigers-Cardinals World Series history, so today we’ll consider it in view of the Cardinals’ entire World Series history. One figures that Hoot Gibson’s 17-strikeout masterpiece in Game 1 of the 1968 series is hard to top, and indeed, it ranks as the team’s best World Series start of all-time (by Game Score). So where does Game 3 of the 2006 series rank? Let’s look at the top 20 (actually, 21) Best-Pitched Cardinal World Series games:
| Pitcher | Year | Game | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | HR | GSc |
| Gibson | 1968 | 1 | 9 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 17 | 0 | 93 |
| Gibson | 1964 | 5 | 10 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 13 | 1 | 87 |
| Tudor | 1985 | 4 | 9 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 84 |
| Cooper | 1944 | 5 | 9 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 12 | 0 | 83 |
| Alexander | 1926 | 2 | 9 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 10 | 0 | 82 |
| Hallahan | 1931 | 2 | 9 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 8 | 0 | 82 |
| Gibson | 1967 | 4 | 9 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 82 |
| Carpenter | 2006 | 3 | 8 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 82 |
| White | 1942 | 3 | 9 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 81 |
| Gibson | 1968 | 4 | 9 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 10 | 1 | 81 |
| D. Dean | 1934 | 7 | 9 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 80 |
| Brecheen | 1946 | 2 | 9 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 80 |
| Gibson | 1967 | 1 | 9 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 10 | 1 | 80 |
| Gibson | 1967 | 7 | 9 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 10 | 0 | 80 |
| Haines | 1926 | 3 | 9 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 77 |
| Grimes | 1931 | 3 | 9 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 76 |
| Stuper | 1982 | 6 | 9 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 75 |
| Hallahan | 1930 | 3 | 9 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 6 | 0 | 74 |
| Grimes | 1930 | 5 | 9 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 7 | 1 | 73 |
| Haines | 1930 | 4 | 9 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 73 |
| Brecheen | 1946 | 6 | 9 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 73 |
So Carpenter takes his place among the top five of all-time (it’s worth noting that, had Carp pitched the ninth inning, which he easily could’ve done, he would’ve upped his Game Score to 84, which would’ve tied him for third-best). It’s a pretty heady list, considering that Gibson and Pete Alexander are both Hall of Famers, as are Pop Haines and Dizzy Dean, neither of whom pitched as fine a World Series game as Carpenter did. With all this rain, perhaps Carpenter will get chance to improve upon his feat — maybe even as soon as Game 6.