After being one strike away from elimination in back-to-back innings, the St. Louis Cardinals twice rallied from two runs down to win an 11-inning classic and force Game 7 of the World Series.

The Cards trailed Texas by two runs in both the ninth and tenth innings, but got multiple clutch hits from the likes of Albert Pujols and Lance Berkman to the tie the game both times. Then David Freese — who tied the game with a triple in the ninth — led off the bottom of the 11th inning with a monster home run to center field, leaving baseball fans giddy at the prospect of a seventh game, the first in the World Series since 2002.

The epic, four-hour-plus contest was a sloppy affair (the teams combined for five errors), but is already being compared to some of the best games in Series history. Particularly other great Game Sixes, like the ones in 1975, 1986, 1991, and 1993.

The game featured 15 pitchers (not counting one who had to pinch hit in the 10th), 5 home runs and 5 errors. One of the home runs came from St. Louis' Allen Craig, who was only in the game because outfielder Matt Holiday hurt his finger getting picked off first by Texas catcher Mike Napoli.

Game 7 will be tomorrow night at 8 p.m., in St. Louis. The starting pitchers are expected to be Matt Harrison, who lost Game 4 for Texas and Chris Carpenter, who (thanks to yesterday's rain delay) will start his third game of the series on just three days rest.

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Dashiell Bennett