Other sites can give you all the match-ups and tactical forecasts for the showdown between the Rangers and Cardinals. At the VORG, we’re going to give you the fact(oids):

Cardinals:

Yadier Molasses Molina stole four bases in 2011, and is now up to 25 for his career. This ties him for 83rd all-time amongst catchers. He is 25 out of 46 (54.3%) in steal attempts in his career despite being slow enough to ground into a DP in 20% of those opportunities in his career (ML average is 11%).

“.300-30-100” seems to be popular benchmarks for hitters to aim for, and writers to write about. Albert Pujols was the first to reach those marks in each of his first ten seasons (2001-2010). He ended 2011 at .299-37-99. Not only does this make him the first player to end a season exactly at .299 and 99 RBI while over 30 homers, it makes him the only one regardless of the homer total. Yup, no one has ever finished .001 short of .300 and one RBI short of 100 in the same season before.

Skip Schumaker is only the sixth “Skip” to play in the majors, and would be the first to ever make a World Series roster.

Ryan Theriot led the National League in singles in three straight years (2008-2010), but during those three years, the longest streak of games in which he singled was a mere 10. Of all players who appeared in 450 or more games from 2008-2010, Theriot was dead last in ISO.

With 11 games and 40+ PAs under his belt in 2011, David Freese has compiled the second-highest all-time playoff batting average (.425) as well as the highest all-time playoff slugging percentage (.850).

Matt Holliday has seen his batting average decline in each of the last four seasons (from .340 to .321, .313, .312, .296).

Of all player names in ML history with three letters in both the first and last, only Gus Gil and Jon Jay are alliterative. Despite a more than 50% increase in his plate appearances from year to year, Jay’s slash line hardly varied at all from 2010 to 2011 (.300/.359/.422 in ’10, .297/.344/.424 in ’11).

Lance Berkman has the most career plate appearances of any Rice University graduate (7,422).

Chris Carpenter anagrams to, amongst other things, “Sphincter Racer”. Of all active pitchers with 2,200+ IP, Carpenter has the fifth-lowest HR/9 rate (0.89).

Jaime Garcia was taken in the 22nd round of the 2005 draft (#680 overall). Logan Morrison and Tommy Hanson were also taken in that round. Though he’s only been in the league two years, he’s already second in WAR in the history of 680th overall picks, behind catcher Dan Wilson.

Of all batters with 25 or more plate appearances against Kyle Lohse, three of the top six batting averages are by guys named Carlos (Delgado, Beltran, Guillen), while another player is named Carl (Everett).

Two pitchers hit grandslam homeruns this year . . . Shawn Marcum and Jake Westbrook.

Edwin Jackson, at 27, is in his ninth major league season (fifth full season), and has pitched at least 75 innings for six different teams already.

The Cardinals finished fifth in the NL with 47 saves. Eight different relievers had at least one save for them (the record is 12), led by Fernando Salas‘ 24.

If Tony LaRussa wins NL Manager of the Year, he will have won the award in four different decades (80s: ’83,’88; 90s: ’92; 00s: ’02)

Rangers:

Yorvit Torrealba, with roughly ten years of service time and at age 32, has never appeared in more than 113 games or had more than 443 plate appearances in a season. But, he has been on four playoff rosters and is appearing in his second World Series.

Mitch Moreland‘s middle name is Austin, and Keith Moreland (no relation) went to school at the University of Texas at Austin.

Ian Kinsler‘s batting average for his career: Even years – .299, odd years – .256.

Only three years into what looks to be a promising career, Elvis Andrus nonetheless already has the 20th-most plate appearances among active players with an OBP under .350 and an ISO under .100.

Adrian Beltre just turned 32, and he is already 14th all-time in games played at 3B, with 1,930. Despite this, he is still 940 games behind Brooks Robinson for the all-time mark. Beltre would need six more seasons averaging 157 games to beat it (or seven more seasons averaging 135).

Josh Hamilton‘s middle name is “Holt”. A holt is an archaic term for a wooded grove or hill.

David Murphy had practically the same number of plate appearances batting sixth (129) and seventh (136) during 2011. When batting sixth he hit .328/.388/.517. When batting seventh he hit .230/.287/.317.

Nelson Cruz is one of 29 active players with lifetime numbers of at least .270/.330/.500 in at least 2,000 plate appearances. The bad news here is that due to injury, he hasn’t appeared in more than 128 games in any season.

Michael Young is one of two active players with two seasons of 100+ RBIs while homering 15 or fewer times (Bobby Abreu is the other).

Mike Napoli averages one homer per 15.7 at-bats in his career, including a 2011 rate of one per 12.3 at-bats. This 15.7 would rate ninth-highest amongst active players if he had 3,000 plate appearances.

C.J. Wilson is heading to free agency as perhaps the top starting pitcher available. This is despite his already being 30 years old and having only two seasons of more than 75 innings pitched.

Colby Lewis is only the 11th starting pitcher to qualify for the ERA title while allowing more than 1.5 HR per nine innings yet giving up no more than 8.5 hits per nine.

Derek Holland is the first pitcher since Dontrelle Willis in 2005 to throw four shutouts in his age 24 season or younger.

Matt Harrison wishes there were still day games during the World Series. He went 6-2, 1.98 ERA during the day versus 8-7, 4.13 ERA in the evening during 2011.

There have only been three “Alexi” in major league history. All of them were active in 2011, including Alexi Ogando.

Neftali Feliz has the lowest career hits per nine innings (5.42) of anyone with 162 or more innings pitched.

Ron Washington has managed five seasons, and has seen his team’s win total increase in each one.