'Never-say-die' Cardinals fall just short of gritty comeback win

SAN FRANCISCO – Members of the Cardinals walked slowly off the field as a contingent of Giants rushed out of the dugout to celebrate a walk-off victory.

After a back-and-forth battle that had St. Louis on the precipice of a thrilling win a few times, such a deliberately paced trek across the infield made sense.

But while those waning seconds of the Cardinals’ 5-4 loss to the Giants in 11 innings on Monday night were the ones that will understandably linger the longest, the scrappiness of manager Oliver Marmol’s squad can’t go unnoticed, either.

“Our guys work so hard,” said starter Michael McGreevy. “It's a never-say-die team. These guys grind their [butts] off.”

That St. Louis was even in a position to come back at all after falling into an early 3-0 hole was due in large part to a gritty outing from McGreevy, who (quite literally) shook off a painful comebacker off his glove hand and some early traffic to post a season-high 6 2/3 innings, keeping his offense within striking distance.

After that third-inning comebacker sequence ruffled his feathers a bit, an admittedly “sped-up” McGreevy then made amends with himself with a ranging barehanded play to retire Osleivis Basabe up the third-base line in the fourth.

“From the get-go, I was pretty frustrated early on because the pitch count was so high, and I want to help the bullpen out and go deep,” said McGreevy. “And then you blink, and it’s 6 2/3. … You feel better about the job that you did to help the guys out a little bit, despite, you know, putting us up in the hole early.”

Marmol felt there were more runs to be had on the night, and the numbers back him up: The Cardinals stranded 12 runners on base and went 2-for-12 with runners in scoring position.

“We just weren't able to get the big hit when necessary,” said Marmol. “We did a nice job of fighting back, though. I liked our bats.”

The manager appreciated McGreevy’s ability to dodge the big inning.

“He did a nice job getting the bottom of that lineup,” said Marmol. “He was efficient through the fifth or the sixth in order to go back out there for the seventh, and set the roll up for [Giants leadoff man Turner] Hill at the top. Really nice job.”

A key sequence came with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 10th, when rookie catcher Leonardo Bernal sprang into action on a tapper off the bat of the speedy Drew Gilbert, instinctively touching the plate and firing to first to escape the jam with a 2-3 double play and push the game into the 11th still tied at 4-4.

It was a play you’d expect from a seasoned veteran backstop more than the organization’s No. 7 prospect per MLB Pipeline, playing in just his seventh Major League game.

“Obviously, everything looked a little bit faster in the game, but in my mind, we try to [take things] a little bit slower,” recalled Bernal. “So I just made sure I got my foot on home plate and then made the play at first.”

Marmol also cited Bernal’s play as a standout moment.

“He did a nice job making sure his foot was on the ground when he was picking up the ball; that’s what made it much easier to finish the play,” said Marmol of Bernal, who’s pushing all the right buttons thus far in his young Major League career.

Through five innings, the Cardinals weren’t doing much of anything on offense against Giants ace Logan Webb.

The comeback began in the sixth, though, when Alec Burleson clubbed a splash hit into McCovey Cove to set a new career high with 22 home runs. It was the third splash hit by a Cardinal, joining Larry Walker (2005) and Matt Carpenter (2018).

Nathan Church’s two-out double in the seventh and José Fermín’s game-tying sac fly in the ninth spared McGreevy from a loss. More importantly, the late rally kept alight the spark that has characterized the 2026 Cardinals, who remain on the periphery of the National League Wild Card picture at 72-73, five games back of the Diamondbacks with the Padres and Marlins ahead of them even without the services of a few key players (notably Rookie of the Year candidate JJ Wetherholt and Masyn Winn, though Winn could return soon).

McGreevy summed up that “never-say-die” approach:

“The ninth inning is just three more chances, three more opportunities to tie the game or win the game, and I couldn't be more proud of our guys for fighting.”