Worth noting

• A day after the Cardinals' Game 3 win, Matheny revisited his decision to have Seth Maness, not Randy Choate, face switch-hitting Nava with two runners on, one out and a one-run lead in the sixth inning. Nava has been a much tougher out batting left-handed (.322 regular-season batting average) than right-handed (.252). By bringing in the right-handed Maness, Matheny ensured Nava would hit from the left side.

However, Matheny also factored in his pitchers' strengths. Maness has been a ground-ball machine and led all relievers in double plays this season. As for Choate, he is a left-on-left specialist who let right-handed hitters bat 100 points higher than lefties. Nava would have hit right-handed against him.

"I was waiting to the last second again," Matheny said. "Just the unbelievable ability that [Maness] has had to get a double play, instead of asking Randy to face a right-handed hitter even though Nava's splits were strong going against it. Seth did a great job of getting us out of that inning. Obviously, he's done it a lot more against right-handers, but right there we're in a situation where do we want this game to possibly be turned by Randy facing a right-hander? And the answer to that most of the season is no."

• The Cards expected to have both Carlos Martinez and Trevor Rosenthal available out of the bullpen for Game 4 even though both threw 20 pitches on Saturday.

• Matheny tweaked the bottom part of his lineup on Sunday in order to break up his left-handed bats and in an attempt to provide better protection behind five-hole hitter Molina. Jon Jay batted sixth, followed by David Freese and Daniel Descalso. This marked Descalso's second start at shortstop in the World Series.