Andrus flashes leather to help spark Rangers

ST. LOUIS -- Elvis Andrus ranged as far as he could to his left, diving at the edge of the infield grass behind second base, and snared the hard grounder off the bat of Rafael Furcal.

In one fluid motion, the Rangers shortstop scooped the ball with his glove to Ian Kinsler as the second baseman glided over the bag for the force, ending the inning and preventing St. Louis from scoring a run.

Little did he know how critical that run would be.

The defensive gem in the fifth inning Thursday night kept things scoreless, and the Rangers managed to get two sacrifice flies in the ninth inning to beat the St. Louis Cardinals 2-1 and send the series back to Texas tied at one game apiece.

Naturally, it was Andrus who scored the go-ahead run on Michael Young's flyball to center.

But it was Andrus's play with the leather that allowed Texas to stick around. Kinsler said the glove-toss was perfect, and he struggled to come up with a better defensive play he'd seen.

"The situation that was in, and being that it was a World Series game and just the run-saving play, that play was ridiculous," Kinsler said with a chuckle. "It was probably one of the best I've seen, not just him, but one of the best defensive plays."

"When we get home tonight," Josh Hamilton said, "I'm going to watch it again."

Andrus also made another nifty play the previous inning.

Lance Berkman had reached base on an error with one out in the fourth, and Matt Holliday sent a hard grounder toward second base. Andrus again tracked it down and made a backhanded toss to Kinsler, who turned and fired to first base for the inning-ending double play.

Bumpy Rhodes

Arthur Rhodes followed up a night to remember with one to forget.

The Cardinals reliever made his World Series debut in Game 1 on Wednesday night after 900 regular-season appearances, combining with Octavio Dotel to work a perfect inning in a 3-2 win.

Rhodes was summoned again in Game 2 to face Josh Hamilton with the tying run on third base with none out in the ninth inning. This time, Hamilton managed to send a flyball to right field for a sac fly that evened the score at 1-1.