Here’s a review of the St. Louis Cardinals’ ‘strangest’ of years
Something reliable was bound to give way eventually.
The fracture point turned out to be the Cardinals defense, which for so many weeks papered over a spackling of offense and which supported a pitching staff composed at times of players whose activities over the prior few months were largely unknown.
They didn’t score either, in a 4-0, season-ending loss to the San Diego Padres, but it was a seventh inning Padres rally in which seven hitters came to the plate but only one ball left the infield that saw errors at both second and third base to make the game feel really and truly out of reach.
Former Cardinals closer Trevor Rosenthal pitched the ninth inning for San Diego, and in succession, Matt Carpenter, Dexter Fowler and Austin Dean watched third strikes pass them by.
The streets of San Diego burst into wild celebration, with screams of fans and blasts from car horns wrenching the air as they celebrated the first Padres playoff series win since 1998.
And yet the Cardinals mourned, but barely for their season. In the time intervening between the game’s last pitch and the first postgame interview session, news broke wide that the legendary Bob Gibson, fighting pancreatic cancer for more than a year, had passed away.
Under the circumstances, who could care about the hitting?
“I don’t want to think about myself right now,” said Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina, his eyes and voice thick with tears. “I just heard the news of losing Bob Gibson. It’s kinda hard losing a legend.
“Game is a game. You can lose a game but when you lose a guy like Bob Gibson, a legend, just hard. I just want to say that. I wish the family the best, Gibson family. We lose another one. Cardinal Nation lose another one.”
Gibson’s death came less than a month after that of Lou Brock, a dear friend and teammate of Gibson’s who was another of the giants of Cardinals history. Gibson was 84; Brock, 81. Both were members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Neither was a young man, or a healthy man, but both were beloved by those in the clubhouse who are.
Cardinals starter Jack Flaherty, whose six innings of one-run baseball represented the only start of longer than 3 ⅔ innings for a starter on either team in the series, was especially close to Gibson. As Flaherty emphasized several times, Gibson sought him out, made steps to offer guidance, saw in Flaherty something of himself. What must it mean to be told that by Bob Gibson?
“The last piece of advice I got from him was just be a man, be you,” Flaherty said. “It’s pretty simple. You take that to heart. But yeah, that one hurts.
“For someone of that caliber to come and seek you out … What you want to do as an athlete is you want to seek advice from the best of the best, and there’s not many people better than a guy like that.”
Molina will be spoken of in similar tones one day, if he’s not already. For now, he approaches free agency for the first time in the 20 years since signing with the Cardinals. He may well return, but there is acknowledgment on both sides that business is business. There is no guarantee that either Molina or Adam Wainwright will return.
Cardinals manager Mike Shildt was unequivocal on Friday night in his desire to have both back and see them early at the Jupiter complex in spring training. They may well be there, but others will not. There will certainly be staffing changes among the hitting coaches, as well as a reshuffling of the outfielders. Power and thump must come from outside the organization, as those developed inside have not provided it consistently enough; or, at least, have done so for other teams.
The strangest conceivable year of covering a battered, exhausted, but always strong-willed team leaves endless notes and countless observations gone unnoted. In the end, the season boils down to two fundamental hurdles: they didn’t hit very well, and the forced adjustments in their schedule ground them to dust. It would be dishonest to assume that those two things were unrelated.
“We played a lot of games,” Molina said. “Many games in a row. Obviously you’re gonna get fatigued, gonna get tired, and you’re gonna have some days that the bat’s gonna get heavy. It’s human.
“It was a really really tough season for us. Really really, a tough season … But we battle. I’m so proud of these guys, this group. We battled so hard. Every day we came ready to play.”
There were so, so many days, and they came in waves, without rest or respite. There will be time to mourn what these Cardinals, these people, lost. There will be time to find bats and fire coaches. There will be time to look back and be astonished and proud.
The season was rushed enough. There’s no shame in finally giving it a chance to breathe.