CARDINALS FORCE GAME 5 THANKS TO DRAMATIC FINISH
Extra-inning win over Braves sets up winner-take-all
If it is going to be a Braves new world this post-season, the first step to finally steer them past the first round will have to occur Wednesday.
The most important component to getting them to the NL Championship Series will be to score some big runs in a clutch situation.
The National League East champs couldn’t put away the host Cardinals on Monday afternoon at Busch Stadium and eventually paid the price, falling 5-4 in 10 innings.
To avoid a 10th consecutive playoff series defeat, the Braves will have to prevail in a winnertake-all showdown on Wednesday back in Atlanta.
“Usually, when you leave those spares out there, they seem to come back to haunt you,” said Braves manager Brian Snitker, referring to his team leaving the bases loaded in both the sixth and seventh innings, then again failing to score after a leadoff Ronald Acuna Jr. double in the ninth. “We were a hit away from continuing to add on.”
Instead, the Cards walked it off to end a dramatic back-and-forth between the respective division champions to force Game 5 at SunTrust Park two days later.
In what has been a deliciously entertaining series — particularly late in games — the back-andforth has been incredible.
“Two really good teams, two teams that put effort forward until the last outs are made,” said Cardinals pitcher Jack Flaherty, who will get the start in Game 5. “There’s no easy outs. It’s been that kind of series.”
A series worthy of going the distance, thanks especially to the heroics of accomplished Cardinals veteran Yadi Molina.
First to the eighth, where a soft-struck Molina ball had just enough mustard on it to elude 6-foot-4 Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman and drop for an RBI single to tie the game.
Then, with runners on first and third in the 10th, Molina hit a towering fly ball to left field, easily deep enough to bring home Kolten Wong from third via the sacrifice.
“He just finds a way to do it and that’s what makes him one of the greatest of all time,” Cards first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, who got his team started with a solo homer in the first, said of Molina. “It’s not an accident. The success that he’s had, he really works hard at it. It doesn’t go unnoticed. And it’s impressive.”
For Atlanta, it was a game — and a series — there for the taking, especially given the momentum they were riding following Sunday’s comeback win.
To advance in the second year under Canadian general manager Alex Anthopoulos, they’ll need to be more opportunistic than they were on Monday, when they went 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position.
“That’s baseball,” said Braves right fielder Nick Markakis. “Post-season, you get the best pitchers. It’s intense. It’s where you want to be. We just have to put this one behind us.”
And start getting some timely hits, especially with men on base.
“The whole post-season thing is timing and we had the deck stacked pretty good in our favour,” Snitker said. “We just couldn’t get a hit.
“Those guys have carried us all year but (the Cardinals) did a good job of pitching to them.”
YADI, YADI, YADI
In the Cardinals organization since 2004, Molina has seen plenty of good times with the team that drafted him, but Monday’s sac winner was his first post-season game-winning RBI since Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS.
“I just always appreciated how he competes and how he plays,” Cards manager Mike Shildt said. “And then you get the confirmation of just how special he is. This is exactly what Yadier Molina lives for. This is what he trains for. Yadier Molina is about winning and winning championships, period.”
Snitker echoes the sentiment. “This guys’s a Hall of Famer and he hits to the situation,” the Braves manager said. “He plays the game in front of him probably about as good as anybody in the game.”
GAME ON
Before the Molina heroics, the star of the show for the Cards was Marcell Ozuna, who had solo homers in the first and fourth.
“What I appreciate about him is just the fact that he’s embracing it and enjoying it and letting the game come to him,” Shildt said.
Stat for Wednesday in Georgia: The Braves are 0-3 in their previous NLDS Game 5 appearances, with all three losses at home. The Cards are 3-1 in their four franchise Game 5 NLDS appearances.