PITTSBURGH -- The signs of déjà vu were abound. The Cardinals saw one of their steadfast arms -- another one who owned a double-digit-game scoreless streak -- show signs of stumbling. Luis García allowed the first three batters he faced to reach, walking in J.A. Happ’s baserunner to tie an inauspicious team mark.
But unlike Thursday’s collapse, the floodgates held firm, and the Cardinals walked away with another nimble yet pick-me-up victory, 4-3, over the Pirates at PNC Park on Friday night.
“We got punched pretty hard last night,” said manager Mike Shildt, “and we punched right back.”
Happ, taking firm hold of his second lease on the season in this post-Trade Deadline life, held the Pirates to one run through five innings. His last batter, a walk to Colin Moran with two outs in the sixth, was the first of three by a Cardinal in the inning. The last, from García, was the Cardinals’ 28th of the season with the bases loaded, tying the 1999 Mariners’ Expansion Era record of bases-loaded free passes in a season.
But García rebounded for a 1-2-3 seventh inning. The offense, burgeoned by Paul Goldschmidt falling a homer short of the cycle and Tommy Edman’s emphatic two-run blast in the fifth along with a sacrifice fly in the seventh, was enough.
That Yadier Molina passed Gary Carter for seventh on the all-time hits list among catchers and went viral once again by enticing and then picking off Michael Chavis at first base in the fourth inning simply became the cherry of a game the Cardinals desperately needed -- with shakiness in the sixth and seventh innings skirted around.
“Last night's game was kind of miserable,” Edman said, “but we did a good job of bouncing back and holding on to that late lead tonight.”
And it came with a pair of keen highlights:
Goldy’s loud and lucky night
Goldschmidt, on a tear through August, has been playing to the level where a cycle might not be of grand surprise. His first-inning triple, only his second of the season and third since the start of the 2019 season, was misplayed by Yoshi Tsutsugo in right field. Same went for his double in the fifth. That single in the fourth? It traveled just two feet before dribbling slowly enough up the third-base line.
Three hits in hand, Goldschmidt had four more innings to homer, which would have been his first career cycle and the first for a Cardinal since Mark Grudzielanek in 2005. Goldschmidt, known for his laser-focus, admitted that he knew the opportunity that was in front of him.
But he struck out looking in the seventh and fell an immaculate Chavis diving catch short of one more chance in the ninth.
“That last at-bat that I had that I lined out on, I was really, really hoping I was going to sneak through to get Goldy another chance,” Edman said.
So Goldschmidt and the Cardinals’ drought of cycles lives on another day. Goldschmidt will happily take the win in its stead.
“Of course, who wouldn’t want [a cycle]? Another hit, whatever, anyway to help us win,” Goldschmidt said. “ … But to think about it or try to do it is not very smart, especially where we are right now to think about yourself, when we are coming down the stretch here getting a chance to try and make a run and get into the playoffs.”
Yadi continues to do it all
It wasn’t quite as viral as the moment in Spring Training, when Molina dared an Astros Minor Leaguer to steal on him and then threw him out anyways. But the backstop’s tantalizing pump-fake of Chavis in the fourth inning on Friday comes close.
Chavis, reaching on a forceout, seemed to break momentarily on Happ’s 90.7 mph fastball home. Molina recognized it and started to feign a throw to Goldschmidt at first, almost as to warn Chavis to get back to the bag. Chavis didn’t heed such advice.
Molina then fired a 72.5 mph throw to first to pick off the Pirates’ second baseman.
“Spending all my time working on my mechanics, I don't know how you throw the ball the way he throws the ball,” said Happ, who earned the win falling just one out short of a quality start.
Another one bites the infield dust.
"If anybody wants to say, 'Hey, Hall of Fame or not Hall of Famer' -- that's the play,” Shildt said. “There are special plays you see that Hall of Famers [do to be] difference-makers consistently and do different things that other people don't."
It was yet another pickoff in the illustrious career of Molina, who ranks fourth in the category since 1974. To sweeten the day even more, he tied Carter, a Hall of Famer, on the all-time hits list with the 2,092nd base knock of his career. And he has one more year, now officially, to keep climbing those ranks.