S'T. LOUIS – Matt Holliday and Yadier Molina drove in runs as the St. Louis Cardinals got three singles off Jake Peavy in a four-pitch span of the first and took a 2-0 lead over the Boston Red Sox after three innings of World Series Game 3 on Saturday night.
With the Series tied at a game apiece, Joe Kelly retired his first nine batters, striking out three and throwing a fastball at up to 98 mph.
Kelly, 0-1 in three postseason starts and seven relief appearances, threw a called third strike past Jacoby Ellsbury leading off, jumped to barehand Shane Victorino's comebacker and make an easy throw to first, then retired Dustin Pedroia on a grounder to first.
Peavy entered 0-3 in his postseason career, with two of those losses to the Cardinals while with San Diego. He immediately got into trouble in a 21-pitch first inning.
Matt Carpenter singled to right and, with the infield shifted to the right side, Carlos Beltran bunted on a 3-1 pitch, but not hard enough. Peavy raced to the third base line and threw to first for the out — giving Beltran his first-ever postseason sacrifice.
Holliday lined a single to right, Matt Adams singled on his second pitch and Molina singled sharply to left as fans waved their white rally towels.
That prompted a trip to the mound by pitching coach Juan Nieves, and Felix Doubront started to warm up, but Peavy recovered to retire David Freese on a hard liner to right and Jon Jay on a groundout.
Peavy didn't allow another run through three innings.
In a Series full of fielding foibles, there was another in the third. Ellsbury dropped Holliday's fly to short center for an error, but Pedroia picked up the ball and threw to first, where Holliday had made a wide turn.
Boston won the opener 8-1, then dropped the second game 4-2, ending its nine-game Series winning streak.
Of the 55 previous times a Series had been tied 1-1, the Game 3 winner went on to take the title on 37 occasions — including 11 of the last 12. The exception was the 2003 New York Yankees.
St. Louis, 54-27 at Busch during the regular season, entered 26-6 at home from Aug. 11 on but had not scored in the first inning during the entire postseason.
The Cardinals wore their cream colored Saturday uniforms that were launched this year — the first time since 1932 their jerseys had "St. Louis" across the chest instead of the team nickname.
Budweiser's Clydesdales took a lap around the warning track at Busch Stadium before the player introductions. Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. owned the Cardinals from 1953-96. There also was pregame video tribute to Hall of Famer Stan Musial, the Cardinals great who died in January.
With the shift to the NL city, there was no designated hitter. Wanting to keep David Ortiz in the lineup after home runs in Games 1 and 2, Red Sox manager John Farrell put Big Papi at first base — where he played just 39 innings during the regular season.
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