St. Louis Cardinals revert to old habits in down-to-the wire wild card loss to Dodgers
All season long, time and time again, through its depths and its heights, St. Louis Cardinals manager Mike Shildt would say that his team had scratched and clawed, fought their tails off, win or lose, true or not.
It was fitting, then, that the season would end by a fingernail.
An instant classic unfolded on Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium, culminating in a 3-1 Cardinals loss after Chris Taylor drove a home run deep into the California night and the Dodger Stadium bleachers against Alex Reyes in the bottom of the ninth inning.
That spot found Reyes because Giovanny Gallegos, who took over for Reyes as the team’s closer late in the season, split a nail on his pitching hand in the eighth inning. He exited after throwing only 12 pitches in the eighth against the heart of the Dodgers order, and then warmed up for the ninth as a feint to force the Dodgers to waste reserve infielder Gavin Lux.
TJ McFarland, following Gallegos, retired Albert Pujols and Stephen Souza Jr. to open the inning — both righty pinch hitters — before walking Cody Bellinger with two out. Bellinger stole second, and there he stood as Reyes spun a slider which hung in the middle of the zone, right where it could be given a ride that ended the St. Louis season.
“You know, he’s hurting,” Shildt said of Reyes. “I just told him tonight, ‘man, you can hold your head up. You’ve got a lot to be pleased about this year.’”
Reyes may never have been in such a game-changing situation had St. Louis’ offense not reverted to the form it took during the season’s most frustrating stretches. The Cardinals were 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position on Wednesday night, and the team did not record an extra base hit.
The third through sixth hitters in the order — Tyler O’Neill, Nolan Arenado, Dylan Carlson and Yadier Molina — combined to go 1-for-16 with a walk.
“I just felt like we had a team that was gonna win the World Series, honestly,” Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright said.
“That’s two great baseball teams, great baseball game. Whoever won this game is going to have a really great chance, and that’s how we looked at it.”
The imagined duel for the ages between two of baseball’s most venerable right-handers may not have materialized precisely as imagined, but Wainwright and the Dodgers’ Max Scherzer battled and brought the wire to them, fighting to a draw in their portion of the evening before the remaining drama unfolded.
The farther the game moved from the decisions by Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts and Shildt regarding the proper time to pull the rip cords on their starters, the smaller those starts loomed in the landscape of the game.
And yet when Roberts relieved Scherzer in the top of the fifth inning, Max was mad enough to shake his manager’s hand but refused to turn over the ball.
Roberts instead dug it out from Scherzer’s glove himself, turning it over to former Cardinal Joe Kelly who engineered a vital escape.
When the decision point arrived for Shildt and Wainwright, it followed an offensive opportunity wasted. Wainwright was allowed to hit for himself with Harrison Bader on first base and two outs in the sixth inning, and was then pulled after retiring Corey Seager but allowing Trea Turner to reach on a swinging bunt up the third base line.
The Cardinals traded an out at the plate for one in the field, leaning then not on one of their extra, available starters who could act as lightning bolts from the bullpen.
Luis García, who arrived as an afterthought in July, cleaned up the season’s most important inning to that point and followed with a scoreless seventh in his first appearance recording more than three outs since August 29.
Tommy Edman singled twice and scored a run as the first batter of the game, and turned a vital double play in the third inning after Wainwright broke an overeager Trea Turner’s bat with a curveball. The bases were loaded with one out before Edman scooped a ground ball, stepped on the bag, and then fired to first to preserve a then-one-run lead.
Edman finished with three hits and two stolen bases, becoming only the fourth Cardinal to record those totals in a single postseason game.
“Whatever advantage we can get, whenever you see a weakness you’ve got to take advantage of that,” Edman said.
The weakness the Cardinals struggled to cover for too much of the season was an inconsistent offense. The team that seemed to blossom in September was unable to harness that power and carry it into a postseason run that would have been appropriately unlikely given the path the season took.
Instead, the Cardinals fly home to St. Louis on Thursday before dispersing for the offseason. Nolan Arenado has already declared that he won’t exercise his option to become a free agent this winter, and both Wainwright and Yadier Molina have signed contracts for one last season in the sun.
Baseball’s coming winter carries labor uncertainty and the ongoing instability of recovery. For the Cardinals it will likely be wistful, but they will indeed be able to face it with their heads high.
This story was originally published October 7, 2021 at 7:50 AM.
