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Baseball’s 16th season of interleague play is under way with celebrations of natural rivalries -- Cubs against White Sox, Orioles against Nationals, A’s against Giants among others -- and in one instance a chance for National League fans to get a load of Josh Hamilton.

The Texas Rangers will travel down I-45 and give Houston Astros fans a look at baseball’s hottest hitter.

Hamilton already has the second-highest career batting average in interleague games, but also comes into this series on a historic tear.

Hamilton’s 16-game hit streak came to an end on Thursday when his day off ended early against Oakland. He pinch-hit and ended up 0-for-2 in a loss to the Athletics, but Hamilton still leads the American League in home runs, RBIs and batting average.

Hamilton’s hitting streak included a week, from May 7-13, that might have been as impressive as any in history.

He hit .467 with nine home runs and 18 RBI and an OPS of 1.963. His week included the 16th four-home run game in baseball history, and his nine home runs for the week matched the combined total hit that week by last season’s nine leading home run hitters: Jose Bautista 3, Curtis Granderson 2, Giancarlo Stanton 2, Dan Uggla 1 and Prince Fielder 1.

Texas and Houston meet each season in home-and-home series in interleague play (competing for the Silver Boot trophy), so the Astros have experienced Hamilton’s bat. Over the past three seasons against Houston pitching, Hamilton is 26-for-65 (.400) with four home runs and 13 RBI.

Hammer time comes to Sunday Night Baseball (8 ET, ESPN) as Josh Hamilton and the Texas Rangers host the Los Angeles Angels in the rubber match of their three-game series.

Hamilton has already had quite a week, with nine home runs and 15 RBI in six games. With a home run on Sunday, he can become the first player with 19 home runs in his team’s first 35 games of a season. Albert Pujols (2006 Cardinals) and Cy Williams (1923 Phillies) had 18 home runs after 35 team games.

He needs one homer to match Shawn Green (2002), Albert Belle (1995) and Frank Howard (1968) for the most home runs in a seven-game span with ten.

In fact, Hamilton has almost outproduced the Angels on his own since Monday. Compared to his nine homers and 15 RBI since Monday, the Angels have driven in 18 on four home runs in the same span.

It hasn’t just been Hamilton for the Rangers this season. The Rangers and Cardinals are both outscoring their opponents by more than two runs per game. No other team is averaging more than one more run scored than its opponent.

Jered Weaver will look to slow down Hamilton and the Rangers offense. He is looking to start a season 6-0 for the third time in his career. Only nine pitchers, none of them active, have done that in major-league history. The record is four seasons by Roger Clemens.

Weaver has allowed just one run in his last 23 innings, but has struggled in Arlington. In 13 career starts at Rangers Ballpark, he has posted a 2-6 record with a 4.55 ERA. The only ballpark where he has a worse ERA in more than three starts is Fenway Park, where he has a 7.16 ERA in six starts.

Weaver has been able to succeed by relying on his fastball early and expanding his repertoire as the game progresses. He throws fastballs 77 percent of the time the first time through the order but only relies on heat 54 percent of the time after that.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Albert Pujols has struggled since joining the Angels in the offseason. Entering the year, his 1.037 OPS was the sixth-highest in major-league history. So far this season, his .514 OPS is the fourth-lowest in the American League.

His biggest problem has been identifying pitches outside the strike zone. He drew a walk against the Rangers on Saturday, snapping a career-long streak of 14 straight games without a free pass.

In his first 11 seasons, he drew a walk in 13 percent of his plate appearances – so far this year, he’s drawing walks only 5 percent of the time. He is swinging at pitches outside the zone 36 percent of the time, compared to a league average of 28 percent.

Josh Hamilton homered for the ninth time in his past six games Saturday, sending C.J. Wilson’s 80 mph curveball into the right-field seats in the sixth inning of the Texas Rangers' 4-2 loss to the Los Angeles Angels.

One key to Hamilton’s power surge has been his ability hit breaking balls out of the yard. After Saturday, Hamilton now has seven home runs on breaking balls this season, already his most in any season since joining the Rangers in 2008.

Hamilton is hitting .420 against breaking balls in 2012, a dramatic increase over his .260 average against such pitches a year ago. And his slugging percentage against curveballs and sliders is .860, dwarfing his 2011 mark of .468.

Hamilton’s sudden ability to smash breaking balls has helped him get off to one of the best starts to a season in major league history.

His 18 homers have tied Cy Williams of the 1923 Phillies for the most all-time through 34 team games. And with nine home runs in his past six games, Hamilton is just one shy of the MLB record for homers in a six-game span set by Frank Howard with 10 in 1968, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Hamilton’s 18 home runs this season are five more than the entire San Diego Padres team and one fewer than the Chicago Cubs and Minnesota Twins.

Hamilton will look to continue his record run Sunday night against Jered Weaver and the Angels on ESPN. Hamilton has 34 career at-bats against Weaver, his second most against any pitcher, but just one home run.

Elsewhere in the majors Saturday:

• 2011 home run champ Jose Bautista hit his 10th career home run at Target Field in just his 10th game at the park. Only four players, all Twins, have more HR at Target Field since it opened in 2010. According to Elias, Bautista is the first player to hit 10 HR in his first 10 games in a ballpark since Shawn Green at Miller Park from 2001 to 2004.

• Roy Halladay took the loss after allowing seven hits and two runs in seven innings as the Philadelphia Phillies lost to the Padres. The Phillies have now lost each of Halladay’s past five starts. That ties the longest losing streak for a team in Roy Halladay starts, matching the Toronto Blue Jays' five-game losing streak in Halladay starts in 1999.

• The Boston Red Sox beat the Cleveland Indians 4-1 for their second straight home win following a six-game losing streak at Fenway Park. It’s the first time the Red Sox have won back-to-back home games since April 13-15.

The American League West was supposed to be a two-team race between the Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Angels.

However, not only are the Angels in last place in the West, but they are seven games behind the first-place Rangers.

The series begins Friday with C.J. Wilson making his return to Texas after signing the largest free agent contract by a starting pitcher in the offseason. And a big matchup will be how Wilson handles the red-hot Josh Hamilton, who has hit six home runs in his last four games.

Wilson hasn’t been one of the American League’s elite pitchers against left-handed hitters, but he’s been better than most. Lefties are hitting .174 and slugging .239 against Wilson. He’s also struck out 36 percent of the left-handed hitters he’s faced (18-50) and allowed only one home run.

Hamilton is hitting .381 against left-handed pitching with four home runs.

Opposing Wilson will be Yu Darvish, who signed the second-largest contract by a starting pitcher in the offseason.

Darvish has many pitches, including two different curveballs. Almost 15 percent of Darvish’s pitches this season (98 of 661) have been curveballs, and opponents are hitting just .059 against it. That’s the lowest batting average this season against a pitcher who has thrown at least 75 curveballs.

Darvish has been tough on right-handed hitters this season (.196 BA, 9-46), which does not bode well for the struggling Albert Pujols.

Based on the numbers, Pujols can expect to see a heavy diet of off-speed pitches from Darvish. Pujols is hitting .239 against fastballs and .125 against off-speed pitches (changeups, curves, sliders).

As good as Darvish is against righties, left-handed bats have teed off on his fastball. Left-handed batters are hitting .457 against his heater, another reason why the Angels might see a lot of off-speed pitches from Darvish.

In his first start against the Pittsburgh Pirates since striking out 14 in his MLB debut, falling one shy of the MLB record for strikeouts in a debut, Stephen Strasburg fanned 13 in just 6 innings Thursday night.

Strasburg deftly mixed up his fastball and off-speed pitches against Pittsburgh, registering seven strikeouts with a fastball and holding Pirates hitters to one hit with six strikeouts in eight at-bats ending with off-speed pitches.

He also kept the ball away, with 52.4 percent of his pitches (54 of 103) over the outer part of the plate. The Pirates were hitless with five strikeouts in six at-bats ending with pitches away.

And while Strasburg fell one punch-out short of his career high, he did set a personal record with 20 pitches resulting in swings-and-misses.

Strasburg’s start Thursday was the 24th of his career, making him the fifth pitcher to strike out 13 or more hitters twice his first 25 career games in the divisional era and first since Kerry Wood in 1998.

Thursday was the fourth time in Strasburg’s career he struck out at least 10 batters in a game, the most such games by a Nationals pitcher since the franchise moved to Washington in 2005. He also became the first pitcher in the history of the Nationals or Expos to register 13 strikeouts in six of fewer innings.

Elsewhere in the majors Thursday:

• Josh Hamilton homered in his second game since tying an MLB record with 4 HR on Tuesday. Hamilton, who became the first player with 6 HR in a series since Hee Seop Choi in 2005 according to Elias, now has more HR since Monday than Jose Bautista, Alex Rodriguez, Joey Votto and Albert Pujols have all season.

• Josh Beckett allowed 7 runs in just 2⅓ innings as the Boston Red Sox lost to the Cleveland Indians. It was Beckett’s first start since 2008 in which he allowed at least 7 runs in fewer than 3 innings. Boston’s six straight losses at Fenway Park matches its longest home losing streak since losing 12 home games in a row in 1994.

• Elias tells us the Baltimore Orioles became the first AL team to open a game with back-to-back-to-back HR when Ryan Flaherty, J.J. Hardy and Nick Markakis homered to start the bottom of the first inning. All five of the Orioles hits were HR Thursday, making Baltimore just the third team to have five or more hits with all hits being homers in the live-ball era (since 1920).

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, there have been 200,519 regular-season games in the history if Major League Baseball.

After Josh Hamilton's performance on Tuesday, there now have been 16 games in major-league history in which a single player hit four home runs. The chance of seeing a game in which there were four home runs hit by one player is one in 12,532.

Courtesy of Elias, here are some other regular-season, single-game accomplishments by an individual from other major professional leagues that have similar frequencies of occurrence. (You will notice the number four shows up quite a bit.)

NBA
There have been roughly 51,500 games in NBA history. Only four times has a player made 30 field goals or more in a single game. The chance of seeing a game in which one player makes 30 field goals is roughly one in 12,900. The last player to do it was the Golden State Warriors’ Rick Barry on March 26, 1974 against the Portland Trail Blazers.

NHL
There have been roughly 48,000 games in NHL history, or 145,500 periods (not counting overtimes). Only 11 times has a player scored four goals in a single regulation period. So, the chance of seeing a period in which a player scores four goals is roughly 1 in 13,200. The last player to do it was Mario Lemieux on Jan. 26, 1997, against the Montreal Canadiens.

NFL
There have been roughly 13,500 games in NFL history, and only once has a player scored 40 points in a game: Ernie Nevers (Nov. 28, 1929) for the Chicago Cardinals against the Chicago Bears. He scored six touchdowns and kicked four extra points.

ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE
Since the inception of the Premier League in 1992, there have been 7,836 matches, or 15,672 halves of action. Only once has a player scored five goals in a single half, Jermain Defoe on Nov. 22, 2009 for Tottenham against Wigan.

Stats & Info insights into this morning's top sports stories.

1. HAMILTON MAKES HISTORY: Josh Hamilton became the 16th player in MLB history to hit four home runs in a single game on Tuesday night in Baltimore. He is the sixth player in American League history to do it, and the first since Carlos Delgado in 2003.

2. VERY RARE OCCASION: This is the first time in major league history that a pitcher has thrown a perfect game and a hitter has hit four home runs in a game in the same season. Philip Humber of the Chicago White Sox threw a perfect game earlier this season.

3. ANOTHER RECORD FOR HAMILTON: Hamilton's 18 total bases are an AL record, one shy of Shawn Green's MLB record of 19 in his four-homer game on May 23, 2002. The previous AL record was 16, done eight times.

4. COLLISON HELPS PACERS ADVANCE: The Indiana Pacers advanced to the Eastern Conference Semifinals with a win over the Orlando Magic. It is Indiana's first series win since the First Round in 2005 versus the Boston Celtics. FROM ELIAS: Darren Collison (23 assists, one turnover in series) is the first player in 22 years to have at least 20 assists and one or fewer turnovers in a playoff series. John Paxson did it for the Chicago Bulls in 1990.

5. THREE NBA TEAMS STILL FIGHTING: The Pacers were able to advance, but the Los Angeles Lakers, Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers were unable to close out their respective series, as each team lost its Game Five and must play on in the First Round. FROM ELIAS: This is the first time three teams avoided elimination on the same day since April 30, 2003. The Detroit Pistons, New Orleans Hornets and Portland Trail Blazers all won Game Fives on that date - only the Pistons used the momentum to come back to win the series (beat Magic in seven games).

6. DEVILS ADVANCE DESPITE ODD TREND: FROM ELIAS: The New Jersey Devils lost the opener of their conference semifinal series against the Philadelphia Flyers, then won the next four games. Even though Philadelphia scored the first goal in each game, New Jersey is the fourth team in NHL history to win four games in which their opponent scored the first goal in one series. Also, the Devils are the first team to do that in four consecutive games in one series. The other clubs with four such wins one series were the 1956 Detroit Red Wings (vs Toronto Maple Leafs), 1991 Edmonton Oilers (vs Calgary Flames) and 1995 Red Wings (vs Chicago Blackhawks).

Josh Hamilton became the 16th player in major-league history to hit four home runs in a game as the Texas Rangers beat the Baltimore Orioles 10-3.

The first quarter of the 2012 MLB season has been a good one for historians, with Hamilton’s four-homer game and Philip Humber’s perfect game. This is the first year in MLB history when there has been a perfect game and four-homer game in the season.

Hamilton became the first American League player to go 5-for-5 with four home runs. His 18 total bases are an AL record, surpassing the previous mark of 16 that was done eight times. He fell one base short of Shawn Green’s major-league record of 19 during his four-homer game in 2002.

Hamilton and Matt Kemp each have at least 12 home runs within their team’s first 30 games. It is the first time since 2006 that at least two players did that in the same season. In the 13 seasons from 1994 to 2006, it happened in nine seasons. Prior to that, it hadn’t happened since 1971, when Hank Aaron and Willie Stargell both pulled it off.

With 14 home runs in the Rangers' first 30 games, Hamilton broke the franchise record for homers at this point in the season. Frank Howard hit 12 home runs in the first 30 games in 1968, when the franchise was still the Washington Senators. Since the franchise moved to Texas in 1972, no other player had hit more than 11 homers in the team’s first 30 games.

Hamilton is already more than halfway to his total of 25 home runs from last season. His third-inning home run was his first of the season to the opposite field. He had 13 opposite-field home runs over the previous three seasons.

All four of Hamilton’s homers came with Elvis Andrus on base, netting a total of eight RBI for the game. That is tied for the third-most RBI in a four-homer game, trailing Mark Whiten’s 12 in 1993 and Gil Hodges’ nine in 1950.

It is often said that baseball's glamor position is centerfield, and the best hitters bat third in the order. During the live-ball era (since 1920), only two players have been 4-for-4 or better with three homers and four extra-base hits while playing center and batting third. Hamilton joins Ty Cobb, who went 6-for-6 with three home runs and a double on May 5, 1925.

Around the diamond
• Before he left the game with left hamstring tightness, Will Middlebrooks became the second player since 1900 with an extra-base hit in each of his first five career games. Elias reports that Enos Slaughter also had a five-game streak to start his career in 1938.

• Andrew McCutchen hit his first home run of the season in his 95th at-bat. Last season he had five home runs at the same point in the season.

• Curtis Granderson has reached base in 28 consecutive games, the longest streak in the majors this season. He extended the streak today against James Shields. Granderson entered the game 3-for-46 against Shields; according to Elias, that .065 average was the lowest career mark in any batter-pitcher matchup between active players (minimum 35 at-bats).

In 2011, everything went wrong for Adam Dunn.

After spending his first 10 seasons in the National League, Dunn signed with the Chicago White Sox in 2011 and posted one of the worst seasons in major-league history.

Dunn hit .159 in 2011 and struck out a franchise-record 177 times. His average was the lowest in MLB since 1900 among hitters with at least 450 plate-appearances. (His average is not the lowest in history because Dunn was six plate appearances shy of qualifying.)

Dunn also hit 11 home runs and drove in 42, both career lows.

So far in 2012, he’s looked very much like the Dunn of old.

Overall, he is not swinging appreciably more, has not cut down on his strikeouts, increased his walks, or decreased the rate at which he’s chasing pitches outside of the zone.

Rather, it appears he’s simply doing more when he does make contact. Dunn’s Home Run-to-Fly Ball rate is 28 percent, which ranks tied for fourth in MLB. Last season that rate was 10 percent.

Entering play on Tuesday, Dunn is tied for third in all of baseball with nine home runs.

His home run rate is at 9.0 percent, more than three times what it was last season (2.7).

Dunn -- who did not hit a HR in his final 28 games of 2011 -- didn’t hit his ninth home run of the season last year until July 8.

In terms of specific pitches, Dunn’s greatest improvement has come against fastballs. He hit .182 with eight home runs against fastballs last season. In 2012, Dunn already has eight HR off fastballs and is hitting .288.

Part of the uptick can be explained by an increase in his batting average on balls in play against fastballs, cutters and sinkers. It was .245 last season (244th out of 254 players who saw at least 750 fastballs/cutters/sinkers). This season, it's .273.

After one month of baseball, the American League East sits atop ESPN Stats & Info’s MLB Divisional Power Rankings by a wide margin.

Dating to last season, the AL East has never held a larger lead than its current 25.6-point lead over the National League East. Strong starts by the Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays have given the AL East five of the top 12 teams in baseball, according to ESPN.com’s most recent power rankings.

Additionally, the AL East has been close to unstoppable outside of the division, posting a 44-25 (.637 win percentage) record in games against non-divisional opponents. No other division has a win percentage above .515 in non-divisional games.

What may be most surprising about the AL East is that unheralded names are making an impact for their teams. Toronto's Edwin Encarnacion and Kelly Johnson rank fourth and 20th, respectively, in ESPN’s Player Rating system, combining for 15 of Toronto’s 32 home runs through May 2.

The AL West has its share of players off to fast starts with Josh Hamilton, Ian Kinsler, Felix Hernandez, Yu Darvish and Jered Weaver all ranking in the top 10 of ESPN’s batter and pitcher ratings. Five players from the AL West is the most from one division.

The Los Angeles Angels play 17 more games in May against teams that currently do not have a winning record. If the Angels can turn things around and live up to preseason expectations, the AL West has a chance to close the gap on the AL East.

The AL Central currently sits at the bottom of the divisional rankings with only one team above .500. Against non-divisional opponents, the AL Central is 29-48 (.377 win percent), by far the worst win percentage of any division.

The Minnesota Twins have been the worst team in baseball outside their division, winning five of 17 games against non-divisional opponents.

The weekend of May 18 presents several opportunities to shake up the rankings.

Divisional leaders clash in the National League, with the St. Louis Cardinals visiting the Los Angeles Dodgers. Interleague highlights include the Philadelphia Phillies hosting the Boston Red Sox and Cincinnati Reds visiting the New York Yankees.

For a brief recap of how we rank the divisions, click here.

Tonight in Arlington, Sunday Night Baseball features a clash of the division-leading Tampa Bay Rays and Texas Rangers.

Texas leads the league in runs, but the most interesting thing to watch when the Rangers are batting will actually be the shifting Rays defense.

Last season Tampa Bay led the majors by shifting their infield 216 times, an average of 1.3 shifts per game.

This season the Rays have already used 125 infield shifts, amplifying their usage to nearly six times per game.

The huge spike in shifts has primarily been caused by adjusting more often against right-handed hitters. Last season, the Rays shifted on seven percent of such at-bats; this season, the number is 50 percent.

Is this hyper-shifting working? Perhaps. Twenty-one games into the season, the Rays rank 20th in defensive efficiency but are 2nd in defensive runs saved with 20.

Tampa Bay’s opponents are hitting .255 on ground balls this year, compared to the league average of .226.

Looking at a larger sample size, Rays opponents hit .222 on ground balls in 2011, notably worse than the league average of .237.

It’s worth pointing out that the shift not only affects ground balls, but also line drives. Opponents are hitting .642 on line drives against the Rays this season, six percentage points lower than the major-league average.

Again, this season’s sample size is small, but the Rays defense was very similar a year ago, also holding opponents to a line-drive batting average six percentage points lower than the major-league average.

Several Texas Rangers are strong candidates to see shifts tonight. Since 2009, Josh Hamilton has hit 68 percent of his ground balls to the middle-right or far-right portions of the field, with 19 percent to the middle-left or far-left.

Righties Ian Kinsler (74 percent) and Mike Napoli (75 percent) have both pulled about three-quarters of their ground balls since 2009. Adrian Beltre and Nelson Cruz aren’t far behind, at 65 percent each.

According to The Fielding Bible, the first known use of shifting was in 1946 against Ted Williams, who walked on four pitches. Sixty-six years later, the Rays are taking that idea to the extreme, and tonight’s game may be a showcase for their defensive revolution.

Information from Baseball Info Solutions was used in this post.

The Texas Rangers put on an awesome offensive display in Tuesday's 18-3 win over the Boston Red Sox. But tonight's pitching matchup features a pair of starters with a history of shutting down their opposition.

Let's take a closer look at Derek Holland's and Josh Beckett's performance so far this season as they prepare for this Wednesday Night Baseball meeting (7 pm ET, ESPN2).

Holland successful early
Holland has a 3.37 ERA and 0.83 WHIP through his first two starts in 2012. In particular, he's rated well in getting ahead of hitters early in the count, throwing his first pitch for a strike 67 percent of the time. In each of the previous three seasons, Holland's first-pitch strike rate has hovered between 56 and 58 percent.

Holland's fastball has averaged 93.9 miles-per-hour since the start of last season, a hair behind David Price for the distinction of hardest-throwing lefty starter in the majors. His fastball averages almost a mile-per-hour more than that of CC Sabathia and Clayton Kershaw.

Holland has faced the Red Sox three times previously, winning twice and posting a 2.95 ERA. In his last start against them, he pitched seven scoreless innings, allowing just two hits in a 10-0 win at Fenway Park.

Matchup to watch: Holland has won seven of the eight head-to-head battles he's had with Dustin Pedroia, holding him to just one base hit. Pedroia has worked his share of deep counts against Holland, but did not reach base in any of the three instances in which the count ran to 3-2.

Beckett's unusual start
Beckett's fastball velocity has been an early-season storyline.

Beckett's fastball is averaging 90.6 miles-per-hour through two starts. In his 1st 2 starts, Beckett has a total of four strikeouts in 12⅔ innings pitched. It’s the first time since June 2007 that Beckett has gone consecutive starts with less than four strikeouts. Beckett has never gone three consecutive starts without registering at least four strikeouts in a game.

Beckett has been able to get to two strikes on hitters, but has not finished them off at his usual success rate.

The four whiffs have come on 24 two-strike counts, a strikeout success rate of just 17 percent. From 2009 to 2011, Beckett fanned 43 percent of hitters against whom he got a two-strike count.

Since the start of the 2010 season, Rangers hitters have the lowest strikeout rate in the majors-- having fanned in just 15 percent of their plate appearances (the average major league hitters strikes out about one out of every 5.5 plate appearances.

Matchup to watch: Josh Hamilton is 6-for-14 with two home runs in his career against Beckett, with both home runs coming in 2010. Hamilton hit a 469-foot home run in Tuesday's win, the second-longest tracked home run at Fenway Park since the start of the 2006 season (Vladimir Guerrero hit a 484-foot home run there in 2006).

Hamilton has five home runs this season, all against pitches over the inner-third or middle-third of the plate. He's also 10-for-27 (.370 BA) in at-bats ending against pitches on the outer-third of the plate or further outside. Last season, Hamilton hit .262 against pitches thrown to that area.

Hamilton hasn't hit a home run against a pitch on the outer-third of the plate this season. But Beckett allowed three home runs on outer-third pitches to lefties in his first start of the season against the Tigers.

Mark Simon also contributed to this post

The hometown kid was the hero on Thursday night in St. Louis, as the Cardinals staved off elimination in the World Series with a come-from-behind 10-9 win in Game 6.

The Redbirds came back from two-run deficits in both the ninth and 10th innings. No other team has won a postseason game after trailing by two or more runs in the ninth inning and again in extra innings, according to Elias.

David Freese, who went to high school in Wildwood, Missouri, hit the first World Series walk-off homer in Cardinals history to give the Redbirds the win in the 11th inning. Freese also joins Tim McCarver in 1964 as the only Cardinals to hit an extra-inning World Series home run.

The longball gave Freese 19 RBI in the postseason this year, which matches Sandy Alomar, Jr. (1997), Scott Spiezio (2002) and David Ortiz (2004) for the most in a single postseason.

Freese earlier had tied the game with a two-run, two-out triple in the ninth. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Freese is the first player in World Series history to have a game-tying RBI in the ninth inning and then the game-winning RBI in extra innings.

The Cardinals rallied to tie the game with six combined runs in innings eight through 11. Elias tells us that the Cardinals were the first team in postseason history to score in the eighth, ninth, 10th and 11th inning in one game.

The Cardinals have now won Game 6 in five of the last six World Series in which they were down 3-games-to-2. Good news for Cardinals fans: of the five previous times that their team trailed 3-2 in the Fall Classic, they eventually rallied to win the title four times.

Alexi Ogando, Neftali Feliz, and Scott Feldman were all credited with blown saves in Game 6 for the Rangers as the Cardinals made five separate comebacks. It is the first time in World Series history that a team has had three blown saves in a single game.

Josh Hamilton nearly sent the Rangers home winners in the 10th inning, launching a first-pitch fastball over the fence to give the Rangers a 9-7 lead. With that blast, this became the first World Series in major-league history to feature a pair of extra-inning home runs.

Adrian Beltre and Nelson Cruz hit back-to-back homers in the seventh inning to put the Rangers ahead 6-4. Cruz’s homer was his eighth of the postseason, tying Barry Bonds (2002) and Carlos Beltran (2004) for the most in a single postseason in major-league history.

Friday night the Cardinals will host the first World Series Game 7 since 2002 between the Giants and Angels. The Redbirds will have history on their side in the deciding game. The home team has won eight straight World Series Game 7’s. The last team to lose a World Series Game 7 at home was the Orioles in 1979 against the Pirates.

The Texas Rangers sacrificed, in a manner of speaking, both offensively and defensively to steal Game 2 of the World Series from the St. Louis Cardinals.

Via the Elias Sports Bureau, the Rangers became the third team in World Series history to come back from a 1-0 deficit in the ninth inning or later to win, joining the 1911 Athletics and the 1985 Royals.

The Rangers were just 8-20 in one-run games on the road during the regular season (the second-worst record in the majors), but found a way to win this game, scoring their runs on back-to-back-sacrifice flies by Josh Hamilton and Michael Young.

Hamilton became the fourth player in World Series history to have the game-tying or go-ahead RBI in the ninth inning or later of a game in which his team trailed 1-0 at the time, joining Hall of Famers Home Run Baker (1911 Athletics) and Brooks Robinson (1969 Orioles), and Dane Iorg (1985 Royals).

Iorg is the one most familiar to Cardinals fans. His two-run walk-off single in the ninth inning gave the Royals a 2-1 win in Game 6 of the World Series, sending the series to a Game 7, which the Royals won 11-0.

That Game 6 loss is best remembered for the missed call by first-base umpire Don Denkinger, on the play that started the Royals' rally.

The other keys for the Rangers were stars with their gloves in the early innings and stars with their bats in the ninth inning -- Ian Kinsler and Elvis Andrus.

Kinsler made a bare-handed play to catch a throw from shortstop Andrus as part of a fourth-inning double play.
According to the metrics provided by Baseball Info Solutions, Kinsler turned 68 percent of double-play opportunities in which he was either the pivot man or fielder. His six double play runs saved (a component of defensive runs saved) were the most in the majors.

Baseball Info Solutions also charts every play of every game. Entering Game 2, Kinsler led all postseason players with 12 “good fielding plays” (think plays that would be Web Gem nominees).

Andrus made a Web Gem to get an out in the fifth inning. He rated third among shortstops in the majors with 13 defensive runs saved.

In the ninth inning, each had hits, with Andrus going to second base after his single on a failed cutoff attempt by Albert Pujols (who entered the day ranked second to Kinsler in good fielding plays). Based on win probability data from the Elias Sports Bureau, that hit lowered the Cardinals' chances of winning from 67.6 percent to 44.5 percent.

Prior to the ninth-inning comeback, it looked like the story of the night would again be Cardinals pinch-hitter Allen Craig.

Craig became the first player in World Series history with two go-ahead pinch-hit RBIs. He was the third player with a go-ahead RBI in the sixth inning or later of consecutive World Series games, joining Duke Snider (1952 Dodgers) and Amos Otis (1980 Royals).

The Cardinals had a chance for a rally of their own in the ninth inning, but it was their inability to sacrifice that hurt them, when Nick Punto struck out after twice failing to bunt with a man on first.

Punto had six sacrifices in 166 regular-season plate appearances (the fourth-best rate of sacrifices per plate appearance for a position player in the majors), but on this day, he couldn’t make the necessary play to help the Cardinals to a victory.

As the Tampa Bay Rays look to take a 2-1 edge Monday in the series, David Price looks to do something he’s never done before: Defeat the Texas Rangers.

Price is winless in six career regular season starts and two postseason starts against the Rangers. All together, Price is 0-5 with a 5.48 ERA. That’s his most losses against a single opponent, and Texas is just one of two teams against which he is two or more games under .500.

Among active starters, Kyle Davies (also 0-5) is the only other pitcher with more than four starts against the Rangers and no wins. In fact, you have to go all the way back to Scott Bailes to find a pitcher with a worse career record against Texas. Bailes, who last faced the Rangers in 1992, finished 0-7 against them.

In the 2010 ALDS, Price lost both Game 1 and the deciding Game 5 against the Rangers despite both starts coming at home. Oddly, the road team has won six of seven postseason games between these clubs. Price came up short despite a 14-0 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

Price has handled two of the Rangers’ top offensive weapons. Josh Hamilton, is 3-for-20 with six strikeouts in his career against the southpaw. Michael Young (2-for-19, 8 K) has also struggled against Price.

However, it’s been a much different story against Nelson Cruz. He is 7-for-13 (.538) lifetime against Price with two home runs. Among those with at least 10 plate appearances against Price, only Alex Rios and Victor Martinez have higher slugging percentages.

Both of Cruz’s home runs off of Price came on fastballs that drifted up and in. Coincidentally, that’s been an area of concern for Price.


In his last two starts, Price is 0-1 with a 6.30 ERA. Those came after Price was struck by a Mike Aviles line drive on September 18 against the Boston Red Sox.

Right-handed hitters have given him particular trouble over this time, as they have a .387 OBP and are slugging .577. Price typically works away to righties with his fastball, as the above heat map indicates. However, since being hit with the line drive, Price has lived up in the zone and inside to righties, with poor results that include a pair of home runs allowed. In his first 32 starts, 22.6 percent of Price's fastballs to righties went up and in. In those last two starts, that's jumped to 41.5 percent.