Cards’ 4th homer of night is also last word in Game 2
ST. LOUIS — The last time the St. Louis Cardinals and the San Francisco Giants met in the playoffs in the 2012 National League Championship Series, the Cardinals jumped out to a three games to one lead and had a chance to close out the series at home. Then the Giants stormed back, winning the last three games in swift, dominating fashion.
John Mozeliak, the Cardinals’ general manager, recalled that series, the collapse and the aftermath during batting practice Sunday evening. The Cardinals did not sound any proverbial alarms. They did not hold any emergency meetings. They saw no reason to tweak their philosophy, often called the Cardinal Way.
They made the World Series the next year.
Mozeliak said he focused on building the team as best he could, but the postseason often gives way to randomness, depending on who’s healthy, who’s pitching well, or who’s hot at the right time.
Case in point: The Cardinals’ dramatic 5-4 victory against the Giants later Sunday night. The Cardinals squandered a two-run lead. They lost their catcher and emotional leader, Yadier Molina, to injury. And their closer, Trevor Rosenthal, blew the save in the ninth.
The Cardinals compensated with four solo home runs — the last by Kolten Wong in the bottom of the ninth — to even the series at a game apiece. The power surge was even more surprising coming from a team that was last in the NL in homers in the regular season.
Wong, who a year ago was picked off first base to end the World Series, tried to explain the Cardinals’ sudden increase in home runs.
“I think it is the postseason,” he said. “You have so much adrenaline, so much excitement going on at this stage, things are going to happen. That’s the beauty of baseball. Things you never expect to happen, happen.”
The series shifts to San Francisco for Game 3 on Tuesday. The Cardinals are uncertain what Molina’s status will be.
The first obvious sign that Molina might be limited came in the fourth inning. The Cardinals had two runners on, with no outs, when Molina came to bat. Matt Carpenter had given them a 1-0 lead with a homer in the third, and this seemed to be their chance to put the game out of reach. But manager Mike Matheny allowed Molina, one of his better hitters, to bunt with the bottom of the order coming up.
After the game, Matheny indicated that Molina had felt some discomfort in his oblique during his first atbat, and he decided to play it safe and have Molina bunt rather than swing away.
The Cardinals managed only one run that inning to take a 2-0 lead.
Molina hit a ground ball that led to a double play in his next at-bat in the sixth, and held up near the home plate area, and hunched over with his hands on his knees before exiting the game. He was said to have a strained left oblique.
“We’ll know later, but didn’t look real good,” Matheny said when asked about Molina’s status.
By then, the Giants had tied the game, 2-2, and had the momentum. This was the kind of game the Giants had won throughout the playoffs. They seemed to be the team catching all the breaks, winning games that appeared out of their reach.
They outlasted the Washington Nationals in the longest game by time in playoff history — 6 hours 23 minutes — by rallying in the ninth inning and hitting a go-ahead homer a few hours later in the 18th. They clinched that division series with a 3-2 win, and all three runs scored without the ball leaving the infield: on a bases-loaded walk, a bases-loaded groundout and a wild pitch.
Entering Sunday, they had scored seven runs in their last three games, and six had come without a hit.
“Luck, it’s a beautiful thing,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said before Sunday’s game. “You take it if it goes your way.”
The Giants’ luck arrived Sunday in the fifth. With one out and a runner on first, Travis Ishikawa lifted a fly ball to left-center field. The Cardinals’ Jon Jay sprinted over, launched toward the ball, and grabbed it. For a moment, the play conjured memories of Jim Edmonds’ diving catch in the 2004 NLCS. But as Jay landed, the ball popped out. The Giants runners advanced to second and third.
The next batter, pinchhitter Joaquin Arias, broke his bat as he softly grounded out to second to score a run.
The Giants seemed to be gaining confidence. Pablo Sandoval hit a two-out double in the sixth, and Hunter Pence singled him home to tie the score at 2-2. In the seventh, Gregor Blanco singled home Brandon Crawford to give the Giants a 3-2 lead.
The Cardinals responded with solo home runs in the seventh and eighth, from the rookie Oscar Taveras and Matt Adams. As soon as Adams made contact, he flipped his bat. The Cardinals led, 4-3, and Rosenthal would come on to pitch the ninth. But the Giants were not done just yet.
In the top of the ninth, Andrew Susac and Juan Perez singled off Rosenthal. Facing Joe Panik, on a 3-2 count, Rosenthal bounced a fastball well in front of the plate. Tony Cruz, Molina’s replacement at catcher, could not handle it, and pinch-runner Matt Duffy raced home from second to tie the game.
In the bottom of the ninth, A.J. Pierzynski, the veteran catcher, stopped Wong before he headed to the plate and reminded him to keep his swing simple, to look for a base hit.
During the Cardinals’ celebration, Wong went looking for Pierzynski.
“Is that good enough for you?” Wong asked him, and they laughed.