Three Big Cards Fold at Fenway

October baseball being one thing, the World Series in October being another, the St. Louis Cardinals might have counted heads on their way out of the Back Bay on Saturday night, a police escort circling their buses.

Albert Pujols?

Scott Rolen?

Jim Edmonds?

They carried the National League championship series.

They pulled the Cardinals past the Houston Astros, bludgeoned the Astros, hammered the Astros by the barrels of their bats.

By all accounts, they got off the bus Saturday afternoon at Fenway Park. Their manager, Tony La Russa, having witnessed this, wrote their names into the usual places, Rolen behind Pujols, Edmonds behind Rolen, three through five.

And then, well, nothing.

The Cardinals scored nine runs. But needed 12.

The Cardinals put runners on base. Edgar Renteria was on three times. Larry Walker five times. All ahead of The Big Three.

But, as mid-October turned to late October, and Busch Stadium became Fenway Park, and their series became the series, the middle three Cardinals were no-shows.

Pujols, who hit .500 -- .500! -- in the seven-game NLCS, was hitless in three at-bats, all with runners in scoring position.

Rolen, who hit what would become the game-winning home run in Game 7, was hitless in five at-bats, three of them with runners on base.

Edmonds had a bunt single in the second inning against a defensive shift that played him to pull Tim Wakefield’s knuckleball, but when he swung away was hitless in three at-bats, the last two with a chance to put the Cardinals ahead.

In one of the great hitters’ ballparks of all time, against a line of pitchers that either could not throw strikes or did too predictably, on a night in which seemingly everyone else hit, the thick of the Cardinal lineup did not allow them to stay with the Boston Red Sox, who were 11-9 winners.

Perhaps this all changes tonight, with Curt Schilling and Matt Morris pitching in what is again expected to be brisk weather. But, ultimately, the Red Sox forced their way past the New York Yankees with their bats, and will do the same to the Cardinals if Walker and Renteria and Mike Matheny are left on their own.

While the Red Sox hit their way through their defensive mistakes, their baserunning mistakes, their manager’s mistakes, the Cardinals weren’t as fortunate. Pujols left seven runners on base, Rolen five and Edmonds, who led off two innings, three.

Closer Keith Foulke pitched around and through all three of them in the pivotal eighth inning, moments before Mark Bellhorn’s two-run home run would clank off the right-field foul pole. With runners at second and third, Manny Ramirez already having played the Red Sox into a tie with his Old Manny dexterity in left field, Foulke intentionally walked Pujols, had Rolen pop to the infield on the first pitch, and struck out Edmonds with a fastball that looked several inches off the plate.

These are huge moments in baseball, in late October, when the other guys won’t stop hitting, and what you require is solid contact, or simply contact.

In their clubhouse, Julian Tavarez, who gave up Bellhorn’s home run, rewound the tape of Bellhorn’s home run a dozen times. Unsatisfied, a dozen more. Tony Womack cranked his arm against the bruise on his left collarbone. Woody Williams rued his lack of control, his 2 1/3 innings the briefest start of his season.

But, the Cardinals, they were supposed to be able to keep up. On the night the World Series returned to Boston for the first time in 18 years, carrying 105 regular-season wins and the most potent offense in either league, they would stay with the Red Sox because of the three who brought them.

Pujols, failure perhaps too new after dominating the NL all season and then being selected NLCS most valuable player, hardly slowed on his way out.

“Not right now,” he clipped. “I got to go.”

Ever California, Edmonds shrugged and let it go. He’d struck out looking twice in the middle innings.

“Pretty wild, huh?,” he said. “Just a crazy game.”

Clearly, it would seem, the three of them would have to hit with the Red Sox. Clearly, it would seem, the top-scoring teams of each league will pound each other to win, especially in the little bandbox on Ted Williams Way.

“I haven’t thought about it yet,” Edmonds said. “Obviously, I didn’t have too many good at-bats. That’s the way it goes.”

So, on a night the Red Sox gave up nine runs and still got the ball into the hands of Foulke, and in time to face the Cardinals’ Big Three, the at-bat that would dog Rolen was in the eighth, with the bases loaded. He swung at ball one, a slider, and third baseman Bill Mueller eased under the popup that resulted.

“I don’t think I swung at a strike all day,” Rolen said, quite unhappily. “He made a good pitch. It was a pitch I shouldn’t be swinging at.”

They left the score, 9-9, right where the Red Sox wanted it.

“We came back,” Edmonds said. “Sometimes that can crush you. Not them.”