The Cardinals lost 2-1 to Milwaukee last night and in so doing (a) the Brewers clinched a playoff spot; and (b) the Cards failed to make up any ground in the Wild Card race, in which they currently trail the Dodgers by a game. Not good!
An unfortunate part of that is that St. Louis had a chance to win that game but some mistakes, both in terms of strategy and simply physical mistakes blew it for them.
The strategy bit was deciding that Christian Yelich was Barry Bonds circa 2002 and choosing to walk him five times. Yes, he’s hot, and yes he’s been killing St. Louis lately, but I’ll take my chances with a .600 slugging percentage over a guaranteed 1.000 on-base percentage any day. As it was, Yelich came around to score both of Milwaukee’s runs with the help of the free passes he was given, each of which came with no one on base and a man out.
That decision was overshadowed, though, by the blown opportunity in the eighth inning. With two outs, Adolis Garcia came in to pinch run for Matt Carpenter and stood on first base. Jose Martinez hit it to third, but Mike Moustakas threw the ball away, giving Garcia, who was already safely to third base, a chance to score the tying run. RUN, ADOLIS, RUN!
Dang.
I feel bad for the kid. There’s a chance he would’ve been thrown out even if he stayed upright, but that’s a tough, tough way to go either way.
