Tony La Russa and Albert Pujols celebrate 11 in '11. UPI/Bill Greenblatt
11 in ’11. That was the rally cry for St. Louis Cardinal fans. As the postseason began, the hope was that the National League’s leader of World Series titles would be able to achieve their 11th in franchise history. Let’s start with the obvious. It takes 11 wins in the postseason to win the World Series. Here are some other interesting facts you may not have known about…in fact there are…11 of them.
1. When the season started on March 31st the Cardinals lost their first game of the year to San Diego…in 11 innings.
2. After that game and the first month of the season, the Cardinals had a winning record…16-11. We know of all the ups and downs during this season, but the low point came in the month of June when they had a losing record…11-15.
3. As bad as things got and when it became quite obvious Milwaukee was going to win the division, their lead was never more than 11 games…the lowest was 10.5 out on September 5th. As thoughts of the postseason even looked bleak in the Wild Card the deficit never reached 11 games. In late August the Cardinals trailed Atlanta by…10.5 games.
4. Chris Carpenter, the winning pitcher in game seven got the Cardinals into the postseason when he pitched that gem of a ball game on the last day of the regular season, a two-hit shutout over Houston for his…11th win.
5. Wouldn’t it have been something if Allen Craig’s solo home run in the ninth inning of that game would have been the team’s 11th hit of the game? Well it wasn’t, it was the 12th hit of the night, but it happened to be Craig’s 11th homer of the season.
The number 11 also popped up during this World Series. For example:
6. In the first two games of this series, Texas had…11 hits. In the last two games of this series, Texas lost both games despite scoring…11 runs.
7. Lance Berkman had an on-base percentage of .516 thanks to five walks and…11 hits. Berkman has played in two World Series…11 games total. He has 11 RBIs in his World Series career.
8. With the score 6-2 in game seven, Tony LaRussa turned the ball over to his bullpen. Lance Lynn pitched a total of…11 innings this post season. He needed just 11 pitches to get through the 8th inning. In the ninth, Jason Motte finished the game needing only…11 pitches.
9. Of course, we know of David Freese’s heroic home run in game six that came in the…11th inning.
10. The Cardinals scored multiple runs in you guessed it…11 innings. The Cardinals also managed to score at least one run in…11 other different innings.
11. Last and definitely least…the number wasn’t all good. Jon Jay only got a hit 11% of the time he came up to bat. His batting average, .111
