Shannon Stapleton / Reuters

Yadier Molina celebrates his two-run home run with Cardinals teammate Scott Rolen in the ninth inning against the Mets in Game 7 of the NLCS on Thursday.

Oliver Perez, an unlikely starter for the injury-depleted Mets, matched Suppan most of the night, yielding only one run through six innings.

But New York’s normally relentless lineup couldn’t muster enough offense.

“It’s really disappointing. It was a great game,” Mets manager Willie Randolph said. “We just didn’t get any big hits.”

With a runner on in the sixth, Rolen pulled Perez’s first pitch deep to left and Chavez, a defensive whiz starting because Floyd has an injured Achilles’ tendon, raced back to the fence as fast as he could.

In one motion, the 6-foot Chavez jumped with all his might and reached his right arm up and over the 8-foot wall as far as it would stretch. His mouth wide open, he snagged the drive in the tip-top of his glove — the white of the ball showing atop the webbing like a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Chavez banged into the padded blue wall, buckling a couple of panels, but landed on his feet and came up firing back into the infield.

Jim Edmonds, who had walked, had already rounded second, so second baseman Valentin relayed to first for a spectacular double play that ended the inning with Pujols and the bewildered Cardinals watching from the top step of the dugout in amazement.

“I had to check because my glove almost went out of my hand. I didn’t know if I kept it inside,” Chavez said. “I jumped as high as I can. Like a 10 percent chance in my mind I could catch it. I had to improvise myself and do it on the run. See the ball, see the wall and do the thing that I’ve got to do.”

Fans chanted “En-dy Cha-vez!” and roared “Whooaaa!” over and over again as the replay was shown several times on the big video board in left-center.

Chavez watched, too, and finally came out for a curtain call — a rarity for a defensive play.

Perhaps still thinking about his near-miss but more likely bothered by a slick ball, Rolen, a Gold Glove third baseman, threw away David Wright’s slow grounder for a potentially costly error in the bottom of the sixth.

That helped the Mets load the bases with one out, but Suppan struck out Valentin.

The light-hitting Chavez then had a chance to deliver with his bat, but he flied out, leaving him 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position during the series.

“A little tumultuous inning there for No. 27,” Rolen said.

Perez, often leaping over the foul line on his way to the dugout, pitched the game of his life on only three days’ rest.

This from a guy who was demoted to the minors by lowly Pittsburgh in June and finished 3-13 with a 6.55 ERA this season. In fact, he was barely an afterthought when the Mets acquired him with reliever Roberto Hernandez at the July 31 trade deadline.

Perez, however, won Game 4 in St. Louis and gave the Mets all they could have hoped for Thursday.

“We went down fighting,” said injured Mets ace Pedro Martinez, sidelined for the entire postseason. “That’s all you can ask for. We went through a lot of troubles. I’m really proud of everybody. I guarantee next year, if we are healthy, we are going to be in the World Series.”

New York took the lead in the first when Wright blooped an RBI single.

But the Cardinals responded to New York runs throughout the series, and they did it again in the second.

Molina dunked a soft single into short left, putting runners at the corners and setting up Ronnie Belliard’s run-scoring sacrifice bunt.

Notes: St. Louis improved to 10-4 in do-or-die Game 7s, the most such wins of any major league team. ... The Cardinals lost their previous two Game 7s on the road by a combined score of 26-0.

More news

Tom Szczerbowski / Getty Images

Who deserves some early awards?

DeMarco: David Wright's hot bat — he's hitting .405 — makes him the pick for NL MVP thus far. But that's just for starters in our feature.

NBC Sports

Does winning a postseason award matter?

  Tyson Chandler oddly was honored and snubbed as defensive player of the year. What do such awards mean anyway?

Headlines

• Label

Phillies edge Cardinals with 18-hit attack

HBT: Cardinals game streaker says he lost a bet

Padres' offense busts out in win vs. Mets

Pujols hits 450th HR, Haren blanks M's

HBT: Are Pujols, Angels finally turning the corner?

HBT: Decent first pitch by Snoop Dogg (video)

Mailbag: Harper, Trout have superstar potential

HBT: Now MLB debunking Yankee sale rumors