Did Kenny Rogers cheat? Did he use pine tar to help his control during the postseason? Did it help him pitch twenty-three scoreless postseason innings? Does it matter? It didn't during last night's Game 3 of the World Series. Certainly not to Chris Carpenter who responded with a scoreless performance of his own.

During the regular season, when two baseball teams meet on national television, viewers cheer for the slugfest. Unless their team is playing, most people won't be paying attention to the game by the fifth inning unless the teams are putting on a hitter's clinic. A pitcher's duel!?! Yawn! Wake me so I can stretch during the seventh.

Everything changes for the playoffs. The playoffs are about nine (sometimes more) nail-biting innings where every pitch counts. In the World Series, games are won and lost on the arms of the pitchers. This is the atmosphere of the playoffs, and this was the atmosphere last night.

Game 3 was a classic pitchers duel in the playoffs. It was defined by the two starting pitchers. Not surprisingly, the game was won by the team whose pitcher dueled longer and harder.

The Detroit Tigers threw left-hander Nate Robertson on 13 days rest. The St. Louis Cardinals opposed him with 2005 National League Cy Young winner, Chris Carpenter.

The two pitchers combined to retire the first eleven batters of the game and eighteen of the first twenty. Each allowed only one base runner through the first three innings.

The game rolled quickly along its tracks. Thankfully, it left the Kenny Rogers story at the station. Rogers was the topic of conversation in an on-field pregame interview with Bud Selig. However, with Robertson and Carpenter pitching like they had a dinner engagement, it became clear the story was all about the game. The only acknowledgment of Rogers' presence was during the fifth inning in FOX's "Sounds of the Game," when a comment he made to Chris Shelton about Albert Pujols' fourth inning double was replayed.

In his only off-inning, Robertson stumbled through that fourth. Preston Wilson led off with the Cardinals first hit of the game and was followed by an Albert Pujols double and a Scott Rolen walk. With no one out, Tigers' manager Jim Leyland visited Robertson on the mound as Jason Grilli warmed. Leyland stuck with the lefty, telling him to make his pitches and not worry about the base runners. Jim Edmonds would later double in Pujols and Rolen, but Robertson would limit the damage by getting Carpenter to pop out with bases loaded to end the inning.

Robertson was pulled after five innings in favor of a pinch-hitter. The fourth inning was the only mark on an otherwise clean sheet. He yielded two earned runs and five hits, while striking out three. However, despite pitching well, the bases loaded pop-out was the only thing Robertson could hold above Carpenter.

Carpenter kept the mound warm most of the night. The sixth inning became the seventh, the seventh became the eighth. In the cold St. Louis night, this cold weather, New Hampshire native pitched on. He made plate appearances in both the sixth and the eighth innings. Even in the seventh when the medical staff checked on a thumb cramp and Carpenter's night appeared to be over, he stayed in the game. Finally, with the Cardinals comfortably in the driver's seat of a 5-0 win, Carpenter was pulled in favor of Braden Looper for the ninth inning.

Carpenter's stat line was jaw-dropping. He pitched eight shutout innings yielding only three hits and no walks while striking out six. Brandon Inge, who singled and advanced in the third inning, was the only batter to make it past first base on Carpenter. This was the game the Cardinals expected from their ace. Carpenter directed a show to be remembered.

"I came out tonight and had good stuff," Carpenter said in a postgame interview on FOX. "I was working both sides of the plate and executed my pitches."

Carpenter's dominance gives the Cardinals a two-games-to-one lead in the best-of-seven series. While St. Louis is happy to win, it certainly won't dwell on the game.

"We have to take it one game at a time," said Carpenter. "We need to come out tomorrow and play like we did tonight."

Game 4 is set for tonight at St. Louis's Busch Stadium. St. Louis' Jeff Suppan will face Detroit's Jeremy Bonderman. With the series at a turning point, the Game 4 story should again be all about the pitcher's pitches and not about their hands.

GAME 4 NOTE: Game 4 was postponed due to rain. It is rescheduled for 8 pm EDT on October 26, 2006.

NOTE: This blog was written as part of an in-class assignment on October 24, 2006, for the Journalism 499: Sports Commentary class at the University of Southern California, taught by Joshua Adande.

Yahoo! Sports Game Column