Cardinals’ mediocre season was not without its highlights. Here are the top five
This year in St. Louis Cardinals baseball was not nearly as bereft of exciting moments as the year before.
It bears repeating, seemingly on a loop, that the team posted a winning record. They were in contention for the postseason through August and played thrilling games full of exciting moments. Some of that excitement faded with their playoff chances. The rest, perhaps, tapered off with winter plans centered around stripping down payroll. But for seven long months, there were some flashes and reminders of the energy the game can bring.
These moments are focused on the field, so they don’t include anything around the front office shuffle or the jump up in the draft lottery. Masyn Winn doesn’t have a moment listed here, but his excitement floor exceeded that of his teammates all season long. Neither does Paul Goldschmidt, whose legacy of low key steadiness is hard to boil down into one dramatic incident.
Instead, these are the five most exciting moments of the season as remembered for the jolt they provided at the time, whether or not they turn out to endure the test of time.
5. Pedro Pagés slugs his way through Father’s Day at Wrigley, June 14-16
When Willson Contreras fractured his arm and Iván Herrera struggled to manage the running game, the Cardinals turned to Pagés for some stability and handling. Entering play on a Friday on the north side of Chicago, he was hitting a meager .107 with a ghastly .371 OPS. The Cardinals hoped he could help them survive, but were skeptical he would thrive.
On Friday, though, he launched an eighth inning homer off Hayden Wesneski to break a 0-0 tie. It would stand as the game winner in a 3-0 win and was his first career big league homer. It was followed two days later by a two-run shot in the second inning which stood up in a 2-1 win to clinch the series. His Sunday homer, on Father’s Day, was a low line drive shot that just snuck over the wall in left center. Six innings later, Patrick Wisdom would clobber a high drive against JoJo Romero that should’ve landed all the way across Waveland Avenue, blown only back in by an outlandishly stiff wind.
In the ballpark that weekend, seeing his son play in person for the first time in the big leagues, was Edgar Pagés, who fled Venezuela decades ago with his young family for a chance at a better life. The weekend was a perfect reminder of the struggle of the game and its unique ability to tie generations together.
4. Nolan Arenado slams off the Brewers, August 21
With their season teetering if not tipped, the Cardinals entered the bottom of the ninth on August 21 trailing Milwaukee by two runs and staring down feared closer Devin Williams. Williams, though, missed a chunk of the season hurt, had just recently returned, and had none of his command.
He walked in two runs after loading the bases and did not finish the ninth, and the Cardinals held serve in the top of the tenth behind Ryan Helsley’s two strikeouts. Alec Burleson hit a deep fly ball to lead off the bottom of the tenth to advance tiebreaker runner Masyn Winn, and Willson Contreras was walked intentionally with one out to set up the double play.
Light hitting José Fermín, who entered the game in the top of the eighth after Luken Baker hit for second baseman Brendan Donovan, stepped to the plate and worked a walk of his own against Trevor Megill. That brought the game to Arenado, who drove the fourth pitch of his at bat over the left field fence for a walk-off grand slam. If it does indeed turn out to be his last great home moment as a Cardinal, it will remain a treasured memory for many.
3. Lance Lynn lets it rip, March 30
Lynn’s first game as a Cardinal in seven years got off to an inauspicious start. In his first appearance of the season, the team’s third game of the year, he allowed consecutive singles to the Dodgers’ MVP trio of Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman to open the bottom of the first inning. Having lost the first two games of the series and staring at the bases loaded with no one out in the first inning of game three, the weight of the moment seemed to far exceed what’s normal before the calendar even turns to April.
Will Smith, Max Muncy and Teoscar Hernàndez followed – strikeout swinging, strikeout swinging, strikeout swinging. Lynn howled on his way off the mound, unleashing a torrent of language that is impossible to print but somehow even harder to duplicate; some people, after all, are just talented at swearing.
The torrent wasn’t done. He would leave after only four innings due to an extended Dodger Stadium rain delay – really – and then punctuate the occurrence with his own thunderclap in a crowded postgame clubhouse.
“They’re already loaded,” said Lynn when asked about his mindset in the first inning. “[Forget] it. Let it rip.”
2. Ryan Helsley breaks the franchise single season record for saves, September 27
Despite having been home for Hall of Famers Lee Smith and Bruce Sutter, it was Trevor Rosenthal who previously held Helsley’s mark, recording 48 for the 100-win Cardinals in 2015. A healthy year and dominant performances put the record within reach, but a team which faded down the stretch didn’t offer too many opportunities to rack up wins as the months dragged on.
Helsley persisted, though, and tied Rosenthal’s mark in Colorado on September 25. Two days later, polishing off a 6-3 win over the San Francisco Giants on the season’s last weekend, he recorded his 49th and put his name in the St. Louis record books.
That save locked up the 82nd win of the season for St. Louis. They would win one more game over the weekend, giving them 83, and giving Helsley a save in nearly 60% of their victories. If a team is going to greatly outperform a poor run differential like these Cardinals did, they almost certainly have to do so on the back of an outstanding bullpen. Anchored by Helsley, it was.
1. Pham Slam, July 30
Professional athletes are fueled by any number of different inspirations, but there is perhaps no ballplayer who – outwardly, at least – gets his energy from spite more purely than Tommy Pham. Acquired from the Chicago White Sox the day before the trade deadline in a three-way deal which saw Tommy Edman leave town, Pham was acquired to serve as a complimentary offensive piece.
Eventually, that assignment would serve as its own spiteful font, and Pham would strongly encourage the team to place him on waivers once they fell out of the playoff race. As soon as he got to Busch Stadium at the end of July, though, he was alight with the energy of being a Cardinal again, and demonstrating that they never should have let him go in the first place.
He was sent to the plate as a pinch hitter for Matt Carpenter to neutralize Texas Rangers lefty reliever Cody Bradford with the bases loaded, two out, and the Cardinals trailing by a run. Bradford issued an eight-pitch walk to Goldschmidt in the previous at bat and threw four more to Pham before the decisive delivery, veterans working him to the edge of the envelope.
The screaming line drive headed for the right-center gap as Pham took off at a sprint for first base. It just so happened to be hit hard enough to climb over the wall and send the stadium into a frenzy. Love him or hate him – and Tommy might prefer you hate him – he delivered far and away the most raucous moment in a long season which needed his boost.
