Cards ride hot streak into World Series

ST. LOUIS -- As improbable as it was for the wild-card Cardinals to be spraying each other with champagne late Sunday night after a clinching NLCS Game 6, there may have been no stranger sight than Octavio Dotel standing in the middle of the soaked visitors' clubhouse.

In his right hand, Dotel held a Cardinal-red bottle of beer. In his left, clutched just as tightly, was a stuffed squirrel.

Every underdog has its good-luck talisman, and St. Louis is no different, adopting the Rally Squirrel after a bushy-tailed rodent disrupted the Phillies' Roy Oswalt by dashing across home plate at Busch Stadium in Game 4 of the Division Series.

That was odd, but these Cardinals in the World Series, which begins here Wednesday night against the Rangers? Stranger still.

"It's crazy to be where we are right now," said Dotel, a key member of Tony La Russa's versatile and durable bullpen. "I don't know how to explain it. I go to bed and sometimes think, 'Wow, I can't believe we're in this position.' "

Unlike the Rangers, the repeat AL West winners who are making their second straight trip to the World Series, the Cardinals really should have been home before October. But they wiped out a 101/2-game deficit to the Braves in a little more than a month to seize the wild card and are 30-13 since Aug. 24, an impressive roll that requires more than just talent to sustain it.

"St. Louis is hot," Brewers manager Ron Roenicke said after his team was eliminated. "Did they do anything wrong during the series? That's incredible to go through a series and have everything you do go right. That's what you have to have happen in the playoffs. But they're a good team and they outplayed us."

In a lineup that boasts Albert Pujols, Matt Holliday and Lance Berkman, it was third baseman David Freese who slugged his way to NLCS MVP honors. Freese, limited to 95 games during the regular season by a broken hand, batted .545 (12-for-22) with three home runs, three doubles, seven runs and nine RBIs.

Despite having to squeeze into the playoffs, the Cardinals were the highest-scoring team (762 runs) in the National League. That could set up some toe-to-toe offensive brawls with Texas, which led the AL in batting average (.283), was third in runs (855) and finished second in homers (210) to the Yankees.

"The Rangers are scary," Freese said. "You look at that lineup, you look at that staff -- that's going to be a battle. And I think we're a team that can match up with them a little bit. They're confident, we're confident."

The difference, as staff ace Chris Carpenter put it midway through the NLCS, is that the Cardinals feel as if they have nothing to lose. For the Rangers, it's just the opposite. Losing the World Series once is painful. But to make back-to-back trips and come up empty is unthinkable.

"I think we were a little bit in shock last year," Texas' Josh Hamilton said. "We wanted to win, but this year I think we expect to win more than anything."

Texas knows what it takes to stop a streaking team. In the first round, the Rangers absorbed a surprising Game 1 loss to the Rays before winning three straight. The Tigers were confident after knocking out the Yankees, but after a close duel for five games, the Rangers pummeled them, 15-5, in Saturday's Game 6 clincher.

"I think they came away a little disappointed that they didn't get it done last year," Rangers CEO and president Nolan Ryan said, "and I think that was the driving force for the season we had and the postseason we've had so far."

Two teams with the same goal, but maybe slightly different motivation. Can the Rangers crush the dreams of another October upstart? Or will the Cardinals' momentum carry them through four more victories?

"It's not my approach, it's the Cardinal approach," La Russa said. "That's what this franchise is famous for: play hard every day, minimize mistakes."

With Erik Boland