The St. Louis Cardinals are one of the most successful franchises in baseball history, but on Thursday night they evened the World Series against the Boston Red Sox thanks to a trio of youngsters.

Michael Wacha wasn't quite as sharp as we've come to expect this postseason, but the 22-year-old did enough to earn the win at Fenway Park.

"Nerves weren't too bad. Just kind of anxious to get out there," Wacha admitted. "It's the World Series, big-time game. So I just tried to use it to my advantage to go out and pitch with some adrenaline, and just try to block out the fans and the crowd. I didn't have my best stuff tonight. Definitely a little bit more wild. Didn't have the command. I tried to let my defense be behind me and pitch to contact, and they made some great plays."

The right-hander threw 114 pitches, but struggled to find the strike out. He walked four batters, while striking out six and allowing just three hits.

"A very good change-up, maintained his stuff throughout the time," Boston manager John Farrell said of Wacha. "I thought we pressed him in terms of building the pitch count, and giving ourselves opportunities. I thought he threw the ball into our guys effectively. He started flipping a curveball to get a different look. He was impressive."

The biggest hit against the rookie came in the sixth inning when David Ortiz connected on a two-run home run, furthering his lengthy October legacy. Wacha, who pitched out of a few jams throughout the night, calmly retired Mike Napoli and Jonny Gomes to end that inning and his first World Series start.

With the crowd electrified by Ortiz's shot to left field, the Cardinals calmly went about their business in the next half inning. Allen Craig struck out to begin the seventh, but David Freese walked and Jon Jay singled to begin the rally. Pete Kozma pinch ran for Freese and Mike Matheny successfully executed a double-steal to put runners on second and third. Daniel Descalso then walked to load the bases.

"We've done that quite a bit this year with double-switches, getting our defense set, an opportunity to get [Kozma] in the game," the St. Louis manager said.

"Regardless of what may have happened yesterday, [Kozma] is a plus-defender and we have a lot of confidence in him. So we want to get him in the game. Also you're looking at an opportunity to increase our base-running speed, and it ended up playing in."

The momentum turned as Matt Carpenter came to the plate to face Craig Breslow, who relieved John Lackey after six-plus innings.

Carpenter hit a sacrifice fly to left. Gomes fired the ball to home in an effort to throw Kozma out at the plate, but catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia couldn't field it cleanly. Breslow then made a wild throw that ended up in the seats. After an RBI single by Carlos Beltran, the Cardinals had built a 4-2 lead that would stand as the final score.

With Wacha finished after six innings, the Cardinals called upon Carlos Martinez for two innings of work with the lead in hand. Martinez, who turned 22 just a month ago, pitched a 1-2-3 seventh before working out of trouble in the eighth.

Jacoby Ellsbury reached on an error by Carpenter to begin the eighth. Martinez struck out Shane Victorino and Dustin Pedroia before Ortiz reached on a rare infield single. With two on and two outs, Martinez got Napoli to pop up to shortstop to end the threat.

"I felt the bullpen did a great job," Matheny said. "Carlos Martinez, we saw a little bit of him yesterday, and what we saw here today is a lot more of what we've seen here recently -- just the life on the ball. He's a kid that can carry it into a couple of innings, too."

Trevor Rosenthal, 23, made quick work of the Red Sox to finish off the victory. He struck out the side in the bottom of the ninth on 11 pitches.

Wacha, who has allowed just three runs over 27 innings, improved to 4-0 this postseason. He had a streak of 19 scoreless innings between runs in the playoffs. Prior to the Ortiz home run, Pedro Alvarez was the last one to tag Wacha. He hit a solo homer in Game 4 of the NLDS.

"The kid continues to impress," Matheny said. "I don't know what else you could ask. Put him on any stage and he does a real nice job of limiting distractions. He and [Yadier Molina] work well together and make good adjustments along the way. He stuck with his strengths and really went out and was aggressive, and that's exactly what we needed him to do."