CINCINNATI -- With the game on the line in the top of the ninth on Thursday afternoon, the Cardinals desperately needed a ball in the air.
Pinch-hitter Everson Pereira couldn’t provide it, meaning that JJ Wetherholt simply lofting a routine fly ball thereafter was not supposed to have any tangible impact that would favor the Cardinals, who were down to their final out after Pereira’s strikeout.
But the fly ball’s placement into left-center field off Wetherholt’s bat created just the right kind of chaos between Reds left fielder TJ Friedl and center fielder Dane Myers.
Myers ranged a considerable distance to call off Friedl, who had just entered as a defensive substitution in the eighth inning.
The ball clanged off his leather to stun the afternoon crowd at Great American Ball Park.
Wetherholt’s swing plated the tying and go-ahead runs to spark a stunning six-run ninth inning for the visitors as the Cardinals shocked the Reds in a 10-9 win.
Swiftly, the proceedings transitioned from a likely one-run loss to a scenario where Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol looked to spare closer Riley O’Brien from a day of work amid a grueling stretch.
But there was plenty more chaos yet to play out in Cincinnati.
George Soriano entered to pitch the bottom of the ninth with a five-run lead.
O’Brien wound up pitching anyway, as the evidence of a beleaguered bullpen showed up in Soriano’s struggles, throwing the game back firmly into the balance.
Four Cincinnati runs later, Matt McLain -- who had already hit a grand slam in the sixth inning -- was up in another bases-loaded spot. And this time, he wouldn’t need to clear the fence to win the game.
McLain drove one to the wall in right, but Jordan Walker secured it for the final out to conclude what might go down as the wildest win of the Cardinals' season.
“I was very happy with that catch,” O’Brien said. “I was begging him to catch it.”
Not just an All-Star and a Home Run Derby champion, Jordan Walker has turned himself into an outfielder who makes those clutch catches, too.
“You feel really comfortable when the ball’s hit that way,” Marmol said. “That’s a credit to him, because that hasn’t always been the case. But he’s put in a lot of work, and it’s been a huge improvement.”
Walker’s catch cemented the Cardinals’ fifth consecutive series win in August -- and ensured that their manager would be in rare form with his postgame reaction.
“I’m going to shower. I’m going to have an adult beverage, and I’m going to get on the plane and not think about that one,” Marmol said. “Because there’s ... you can’t. There’s so many things that put us in a position to win. There’s so many things that allowed us to almost give it away.”
From a game that would drive you crazy the longer you linger on the details, the top takeaway from the manager -- the person who sees as intimately as anyone the strain of a stretch this one on the club’s relievers -- was simply to credit his bullpen.
"The reality is, you have a bullpen that’s answered the bell,” Marmol said. “There’s going to be days where they’re tired. Today, they were tired. We just played a five-game series without flipping any guys. That’s very difficult to do.
“They want this real bad. And they’re gonna want to take the ball, which I appreciate. But today was their first day where it showed. Where there was some real fatigue. [Ryne] Stanek, I take him on McLain. Like, that’s a matchup we take. But he gives it up, which is unfortunate. But then Sori and Riley? Man, that was just ... they were tired today. But I appreciate them taking the ball, more than anything.”
If this week in Cincinnati has shown anything, it’s how little is publicly understood about the rigors faced by a Major League bullpen.
A doubleheader in August is the perfect illustration.
“You have stretches where you’ll be on the mound 10 out of 12 days, and a lot of times, nobody sees the workload that goes into it,” Stanek said.
“The offensive line of the team is the bullpen. Nobody cares about how it looks. All they care about is the zero.”
Thursday, the zeros were hard to come by. How’d it look? Well, it looked like the Cardinals bullpen was gassed.
But bottom line? They got the 27th out.
“We have a lot of guys that are committed to taking the ball and being there for the boys,” Stanek said. “That’s something I’m really proud of our group for.”