Winners peaked at perfect time

ST. LOUIS -- You've heard it before: The best team doesn't always win. And in the 2006 World Series, the St. Louis Cardinals weren't the best team.

You could invoke Bill Belichick's philosophy here -- the Cardinals are champions because they played better than the Detroit Tigers.

Semantics perhaps, but you could have put the Blue Jays, Red Sox, Angels, and White Sox, four American League teams that didn't make the playoffs but had better records than the 83-win Cardinals, in the Series and they might have beaten St. Louis.

"The team that's standing here as the World Series champion is the team that's played the best," Tony La Russa said amid the confetti flying through the air as the St. Louis fans celebrated their 10th World Series championship.

The Yankees have to be kicking themselves. The A's must feel horrible for playing the way they did against the Tigers in the American League Championship Series.

Are we being too harsh? Not giving the Cardinals their just due?

Give the Cardinals credit for this -- they are the champions because they played their best baseball when it counted most. They were able to avenge a four-game sweep at the hands of the Red Sox in 2004 at the old Busch Stadium and won their first championship at the new Busch.

Give them credit for getting back to the Series for the second time in three years. That's hard to do.

Series MVP David Eckstein is fun to watch and he's a winning ballplayer. We never really saw the dominant Albert Pujols (no RBIs in his last 19 plate appearances), though he made one of the finest defensive plays of the Series with a diving grab and throw from his back on Placido Polanco's grounder in the seventh.

"Nobody thought we would ever get here," said Pujols, with his son sitting on his shoulders. "But we proved everybody wrong. I'm so happy we got to do it in front of our fans."

You're happy for Cardinals fans because they love baseball. It's Midwestern style, a kinder, gentler fan base, but their passion is undeniable.

You want people who love baseball to win.

The Cardinals got a terrific performance in Game 1 by rookie Anthony Reyes, and that's when this team knew it could beat the Tigers, who peaked in the ALCS.

Jeff Suppan, the NLCS MVP, pitched well and Chris Carpenter lived up to his billing as the best pitcher in the NL with a shutdown performance in Game 3. And Jeff Weaver, released by the Angels, overpowered the Tigers last night (8 innings, 4 hits, 2 runs) almost as if brother Jered (who was in the stands dressed in Cardinals garb) had swapped places with him.

They did a lot of things well, but the Tigers wound up being one of the worst AL representatives in years.

If you predicted this Series to play out the way it did, take a bow. You're the prognosticator of the year.

Blame it on the Tigers' anemic offense, poor defense, and young pitchers.

Blame it on Missouri. The Tigers were swept by the Kansas City Royals at the end of the regular season and they were manhandled by the Cardinals.

The Tigers won 95 games in the vastly superior AL. The Cardinals barely held off the Astros (1 1/2 games) in the NL Central. Yet they persevered, beating the Padres and highly favored Mets en route to the Series.

They caught the Tigers flat-footed.

The matchups were one-sided. The Tigers had the best pitching in the majors. Kenny Rogers had become Sandy Koufax. Justin Verlander throws in the high 90s. Jeremy Bonderman's a bulldog. Nate Robertson pitches tough. How could you crack Joel Zumaya, Fernando Rodney, and Todd Jones in the bullpen?

The Cardinals did, though the Tigers did in themselves.

Manager Jim Leyland watched as his young pitchers fell apart. Verlander's hideous throw wide of third base in the fourth last night on a Weaver bunt allowed the tying run to score. It ultimately led to the go-ahead run. It was the fifth straight game in which a Tigers pitcher committed an error.

Leyland had made the pitchers practice bunt plays over and over during their week off after the ALCS.

Despite the loss, the Tigers were the feel-good story of the season. They lost 119 games three years ago. They won 71 last season. They have an outstanding manager and a fine young pitching staff.

The Tigers shouldn't feel bad about the fact they cracked under World Series pressure.

More than anything, the Tigers were done in by their inability to generate offense.

Veterans Magglio Ordonez (2 for 19), Polanco (0 for 17), Pudge Rodriguez (3 for 19), and Curtis Granderson (2 for 21) were not only AWOL but AWFUL.

That left the burden on Craig Monroe (five postseason homers) and Sean Casey, who stroked a two-run homer to give the Tigers a 2-1 lead in the fourth. Casey even tried to start a ninth-inning rally with a one-out double, but to no avail.

"It starts with the manager," Leyland said. "I didn't have our team prepared to play. I didn't do enough. We're not going to point any fingers here. I just hope people don't forget where this team came from. I hope they get the credit they deserve. We just didn't play well enough to win the World Series."

The Cardinals did.

They were not the best team, but history will recognize them as the champions.

Nick Cafardo can be reached at cafardo@globe.com.