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World Series Game 5: Red Sox @ Cardinals. What bizarre way will this game end?

After a couple of unlikely ends to games, the Red Sox and Cardinals are back in action in the World Series for Game 5 on Monday night. In a rematch from Game 1, Jon Lester starts against Adam Wainwright.

Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports

One occasionally unappreciated aspect of baseball is its capacity to be weird. The last two World Series games have seen bizarre endings. Weird can happen at any time in baseball in a way that it can't in any of the other major American sports.

One reason for this may be that baseball statistics are tracked back into the prehistoric era, so that we can say things like that was the first ever game-ending pickoff in postseason history and the first game ending on a base-running out in the postseason since 1936. How many people do you even know who were alive in 1936?

This year's World Series - and the entire postseason - have been full of long and boring games punctuated with exciting moments. There's nothing quite like those sorts of things in any other sport, either. Sometimes, they are frustrating moments, such as when the villainous Boston Red Sox claw back to a tie in the series. Whatever team wins tonight will be on the brink of clinching on Tuesday.

Will Adam Wainwright, the probable NL Cy Young runner-up, turn in a better performance than he did in Fenway in the opening game of the series? Will the Cardinals actually score a run off Jon Lester this time around? The anti-Red Sox universe's hopes lie with Cardinals Devil Magic.


ST. LOUIS CARDINALS BOSTON RED SOX
Matt Carpenter (L) - 2B Jacoby Ellsbury (L) - CF
Shane Robinson (R) - CF Dustin Pedroia (R) - 2B
Matt Holliday (R) - LF David Ortiz (L) - 1B
Carlos Beltran (S) - RF Jonny Gomes (R) - LF
Yadier Molina (R) - C Daniel Nava (S) - RF
Allen Craig (R) - 1B Xander Bogaerts (R) - 3B
David Freese (R) - 3B Stephen Drew (L) - SS
Pete Kozma (R) - SS David Ross (R) - C
Adam Wainwright (R) - P Jon Lester (L) - P