01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, October 27, 2004

ST. LOUIS -- They still need one more, of course, but let's face it: at this point, one more win is merely a formality.

How strange is that? Here it is October, here it is the World Series, and for a change the living is easy for the Red Sox.

Who expected this?

Their 4-1 victory last night over the St. Louis Cardinals positions the Red Sox to win the World Series, and win it without breaking much of a sweat. After all this time, winning a title hasn't been as grueling as anticipated.

To the contrary, it's been almost routine.

"I think," concluded St. Louis manager Tony La Russa in his Game 3 postgame assessment, "they're doing a lot of good things and we're not doing enough."

A more succinct analysis might not be offered. As the Red Sox hit their stride, the Cardinals are stumbling. One team is ascending while the other is descending. The result is a one-sided Series that promises the real possibility of the first Fall Classic sweep since 1998.

When the Series began, a letdown or hangover from the draining seven-game ALCS seemed like a pretty safe bet.

With the benefit of hindsight, it's clear now that the Red Sox gathered strength, momentum and confidence from the ALCS. Getting past the Yankees -- their nemesis -- was the hard part. Once they hurdled their rivals, everything has been relatively -- dare we say it? -- easy.

A year ago, the Yankees were emotionally spent by the time they got around to meeting the Florida Marlins in the World Series. Now, in the same position, the Red Sox have, in stark contrast, seemingly been bolstered by the experience, been made better. Having survived that -- after trailing, 3-0, no less -- the Red Sox now correctly believe they can do anything.

It's the Cardinals' misfortune to be their opponent. Nothing scares the Red Sox, nothing catches them off guard. After years of having everything go wrong for them when it counts the most, suddenly everything is going right.

The Cardinals can take some of that credit. Their Fearsome Foursome of Larry Walker, Albert Pujols, Scott Rolen and Jim Edmonds has done nothing after Walker's performance in Game 1, and last night old friend Jeff Suppan was guilty of a colossal baserunning blunder.

But the Sox' opponents aren't a fluke. The Cardinals won a major league-best 105 games and effectively had their division wrapped up in August. Now, they're being thoroughly outclassed by the Sox.

Boston's starters are routinely pitching into the late innings and, once there, handing the game over to the safekeeping of the bullpen. Keith Foulke showed himself to be human, after all, last night, allowing a ninth-inning solo homer to Walker for the first earned run off him this postseason.

At the plate, the Red Sox continue to stake their starters to early leads. They've scored in the first inning of all three games to date, and once they led, they habitually produced two-out hits, the kind of hits that can be backbreakers for the opponent.

For so long obsessed with the Yankees, the Red Sox were constructed to get past them. So often they found themselves stopped short. Now that they've leapfrogged over them, everything is falling into place.

These are uncharted waters for the Red Sox. The last four times they've been to the World Series, they've pushed -- or been pushed -- to seven games, losing to the better team each time.

Now, it's all different. They've established themselves as the superior team, and they appear poised to do what the better team should do -- put the other guys away.

The Sox gave the Cardinals two chances last night: one in the first and another in the third. Both times, the Cards ran themselves out of innings without scoring.

"We had that one slip and they didn't take advantage of it," said Curt Schilling. "And that was it."

After the win last night, about 100 Red Sox fans gathered behind the visitors' dugout. A handful of players were conducting TV interviews on the field, and as a backdrop a chant went up.

"One more win . . . one more win . . . one more win," they shouted.

With four chances at it, the Red Sox aren't taking any chances.

"We've got to go out and play Game 7 (tonight)," said Orlando Cabrera.

They're taking nothing for granted in a World Series that, inexplicably, feels already like a done deal.