DENVER -- Asked to play baseball at Coors Field on Saturday night, the Cardinals instead played wall ball.
That’s what was needed when Rockies catcher Elias Díaz grounded into a tailor-made double play in the bottom of the fourth inning. Paul DeJong fielded it cleanly at shortstop, but second baseman Edmundo Sosa’s turn and throw to first baseman Paul Goldschmidt skipped low and past the three-time Gold Glover.
Ryan McMahon, who started the at-bat at second, saw the opportunity and tried to scurry home. What he didn’t calculate for was a fortuitous carom off the home dugout fence that landed right in Goldschmidt’s bare hand. The first baseman fired home to Yadier Molina, who tagged out McMahon with ease to end the inning and hold the 0-0 gridlock.
St. Louis was just lucky it didn’t play with a tennis ball, or there’s no telling how that round of wall ball may have ended.
But for Cardinals starting pitcher Wade LeBlanc, career struggles at Coors Field and all, it resembled more than just a wacky play.
“Every day since college, on a game day, my brother-in-law, I call him, and we say some prayers, he speaks some motivation,” LeBlanc recalled. “And today, one of the things he said while he was praying was that something was going to happen today to produce a game where it would be beyond statistics and any kind of reason.
“When you watch this game unfold, unfortunately we came out on the wrong end, but you watched like a double play that happened like that, I mean, there's things that you can't put into words. A guy like me is not supposed to have success in a place like this. My history has shown that.”