World Series: Texas 4 - 0 St. Louis (series tied 2-2)

After all of the offense in Game 3, the bats went back to sleep tonight. Texas scored on a double by Josh Hamilton in the first and on a three-run blast by Mike Napoli in the sixth, and that was it. St. Louis was completely mystified by young lefty Derek Holland, who was good during the regular season (16-5, 3.95 ERA), but who looked like Sandy Koufax tonight. Holland went 8 1/3 innings, gave up only two hits, no runs, walked two, and struck out seven. He was completely dominant -- the first pitcher to go at least 8 1/3 innings and give up no more than two hits in the World Series since Greg Maddux opened the 1995 Series with a two-hit complete game victory for the Atlanta Braves. Normally, you don't see the Game 4 starters again, but it will be interesting to see if the Rangers figure out some way to use Holland in the next few games.

On the other hand, with the exception of Game 3, the Rangers have gotten excellent pitching. The Cardinals scored 16 runs in Game 3, but they scored a total of only four runs in the other three games so far in this series. Now it feels to me like the Cardinals are under the gun -- they really need Chris Carpenter to come through for them tomorrow night. And even that may not be enough -- the Cards got pretty good pitching in Games 2 and 4, and they lost both of them. Of course, Texas will also feel like it needs to win Game 5. That train trip all the way from the Wild West of Dallas to the big-city glamour of St. Louis will really be depressing if the Rangers know they have to beat the Redbirds twice in their park -- and without the ability to use a DH.

While tonight's game was annoying to Cardinals fans, it was good news for neutrals and for MLB. Believe it or not, this is the first time since 2003 that the World Series has been tied at two games apiece, and there hasn't been a Game 7 in the World Series since 2002. Now, after four quite entertaining games, the pieces are in place for some drama the likes of which baseball fans haven't experienced for a long time.

Oh, and for the record I listened to most of this game on the radio. I enjoyed it almost as much as the people in this Onion article -- which may be (and I do not say this lightly) the best piece ever written for that publication.