Helsley struggles with command as Cardinals lose Game 1 of Wild Card series against Philly

Ryan Helsley was one of the most dominant closers in baseball throughout the course of the season, allowing only nine earned runs across 64 ⅔ innings that saw him make his first All-Star team and carve out a reputation as a pitcher who – literally, at home –turns the lights out.

And now, a stumble in Pittsburgh in the 161st game of the season has the Cardinals on the brink of elimination.

Struggling with his command after jamming the middle finger on his pitching hand in that Tuesday appearance, Helsley walked two batters and hit a third with a pitch in Friday’s ninth inning, creating a jam from which Andre Pallante was unable to escape in an eventual 6-3 Philadelphia victory.

The four earned runs charged to Helsley were more than he allowed in any month of the regular season.

“He felt good when he came off the first time, went back out,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “No issues early on, but then said he started to lose feel.”

Helsley wasn’t available for comment postgame; Marmol and the team disclosed that he was taken off site for imaging and additional tests on his injured finger. The result of those tests, Marmol said, would determine whether Helsley would need to be removed from the roster for the remainder of the series.

If removed, should the Cardinals advance, Helsley wouldn’t be eligible to re-join the roster until the League Championship Series.

Monitoring the health of one of their most important pitching hands was perhaps the primary worry on the minds of the Cardinals as they prepared to begin the Wild Card series, even as they downplayed the concern.

Exiting the field Friday morning, Helsley was asked if he would be able to throw all of his pitches with the stiffness in his fingertip. “I guess we’ll find out,” he said, light-heartedly, before offering that he’d “flipped” a fewbreaking balls while playing catch.

Indeed, seven of the 11 breaking pitches Helsley delivered in the ninth inning before exiting with one out landed for a ball, and an eighth was driven to left for a single by JT Realmuto to kick off the rally.

Helsley’s exit gave way to ground ball specialist Andre Pallante, who induced Phillies second baseman Jean Segura to poke a slow ground ball to second base. With the Cardinals positioned defensively to make a split second decision between attempting a game-ending double play and a lead-saving throw to the plate, however, the ball barely eluded the glove of Tommy Edman at second.

As it rolled harmlessly into the right field grass, two Phillies crossed home plate, and they wouldn’t again trail.

“It’s definitely one of those, you saw, on the ground,” Pallante said. “Got what I wanted. It just got through.”

A second consecutive ground ball from the Phillies against Pallante saw first baseman Paul Goldschmidt throw home just behind a strong slide by former Cardinal Edmundo Sosa.

Brandon Marsh then chopped another potential inning-ending grounder to third base that instead eluded all-world third baseman Nolan Arenado.

“I was thinking double play, so I wanted to go get it,” Arenado explained. “It was just probably the wrong play. Should have just gone back.”

Zack Wheeler continued his season-long dominance of St. Louis by spinning 6 ⅓ scoreless innings, upping his total without allowing a run against them to 20 ⅓. He was matched, however, by José Quintana, the trade deadline acquisition who went from a 2021 waiver claim to 2022 playoff starter.

“It was a great matchup,” Quintana said. “It was a tough game. Inning by inning, we threw the ball really good.”

Quintana provided 5 ⅓ scoreless innings before passing the baton to Jordan Hicks and Giovanny Gallegos before Helsley was tasked with recording the game’s final five outs. He would record only three.

Two innings earlier, and eight years to the day after Matt Adams broke the hearts of Dodgers fans with a thunderous playoff homer against Clayton Kershaw, the player for whom he was traded seemed to have created his own magic moment.

Juan Yepez, hitting for Corey Dickerson, wrapped a home run around the left field foul pole against lefty reliever José Alvarado in the bottom of the seventh inning to break the ice and provide a jolt to the slumbering St. Louis offense.

The homer was the first pinch-hit, go-ahead home run in franchise history, according to Sarah Langs, a statistician for MLB.com.

Hours before the game, in his office, manager Oliver Marmol seemed to precisely foretell the spot in which Yepez found himself.

“If they want to bring in a left-hander for that Donovan-Dickerson lane, Carlson’s better from the right side, and we’ve got some options off the bench,” he explained before heading out to observe batting practice.

Several hours later, Marmol chose the correct option on the offensive end. It was his pitching gambit that would not work out.

Throughout the season, the Cardinals handled Helsley carefully, with an eye on preserving his health for the postseason. Only eight times did he appear on back-to-back days, and as he was peppered with questions about his closer’s availability, Marmol’s mantra remained consistent throughout the months – better to not use him and have him in October than to use him too often and lose him for an extended period.

Now, with potentially only one game remaining in the season, inexorable bad luck could have him entirely out of the equation with a devastating loss tacked to his ledger – after being charged with just one loss in the regular season.

“You check every box,” Marmol said. “We’ve been honest with each other all year. You say you’re good to go, then you’re good to go.

“These guys all year have done a nice job, whether we win a big game or lose a big game. The next day is a new day. This will be no different. We know what’s at stake. We either win or go home. We’ll embrace that.”

This story was originally published October 7, 2022 at 5:18 PM.