by ST. LOUIS — When the Phillies and Cardinals last met in the postseason in 2011, the end of the streak felt like a fork in the road. Since St. Louis won Game 5 of that NLDS—and, ultimately, the World Series—went on to enjoy years of consistent success. After Philadelphia lost, it entered a confusing, disappointing decade of mediocrity, failing to return to the postseason at all until this year. Their playoff run certainly wasn’t the catalyst for everything that followed. But it felt like a turning point.
There was a vaguely similar quality to this series. However, this time it was the Phillies who won — taking two games on the road to sweep the best-of-three wild card and advance to the NLDS. The respective loss does not represent the closing of a window for the Cardinals. (This team is just too good for that.) But it does represent the end of an era. It means goodbye to two franchise icons, Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina, who are both retiring and, by extension, guaranteeing that baseball will never be the same here again. As it happened in 2011: This series could not be the cause. But it’s hard not to feel like a turning point.
And it’s hard to imagine it could have happened in a more disappointing way for the Cardinals. After a sloppy, uncharacteristic collapse in the ninth inning of Game 1, they couldn’t get hot enough to melt anything in the lead in Game 2. Their lineup faced an excellent starting pitcher in the Phillies’ Aaron Nola. But even in that context, the failures of their biggest winners have been glaring, especially in the biggest situations.
The Cardinals lost, 2-0, without a single extra base hit. That meant a farewell season that so often felt special—almost magical—ended not with a bang but with something less than a whimper.
“There’s so much magic with Albert and Yandy,” said Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright, a franchise mainstay in his own right. “I just felt like you can’t go out like that. There is only so much good in losing two games in a row to the Phillies. And that’s a good team over there, don’t get me wrong, it’s a great team… But I just thought with those two guys here, what they brought to the table, I just felt like we were going to win is for them.”
And yet they could not.
Pujols and Molina did their part to try to extend their careers for one more day. With a two-run deficit in place heading into the eighth, Pujols walked to the plate for his final at-bat, and he delivered — a single down the third-base line that felt like the beginning of a fairytale ending. There was only one out in the inning, and the Cardinals’ two biggest talents were up next: No. 3 hitter Paul Goldschmidt, the presumptive NL MVP, and No. 4 player Nolan Arenado, having the best offensive season of his career. St. Louis couldn’t have asked for a better scoring opportunity.
Both Goldschmidt and Arenado struck out.
A variation of the scenario repeated with two outs in the ninth. Molina came to the plate with a runner on the line and the season on the line — setting up another potential storybook ending, yes, but also a questionable managerial decision. (If the beauty of Pujols’ farewell season was his renaissance as a player, Molina wasn’t exactly in a similar situation, with a 53 OPS+.) Still, the Cardinals let Molina have that last at-bat. And he made it worth it: He also delivered a single, proving he still had some magic left. That put runners on the corners, with the potential tying run at first, the potential winning run at the plate.
But the next batter was Cardinals shortstop Tommy Edman, who grounded out to end the game, the series and the season.
“I didn’t want to be the last one out,” Molina said. “That was hard.”
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The end result was an indictment for the offense as a whole. But it was especially so for Goldschmidt and Arenado. The pair went 1-for-15 with eight strikeouts in the two-game series: Credit to the Phillies’ pitching staff, sure, but also an extension of a crazy few weeks for both. Both had produced career performances over the summer. However, they had then faded hard in the fall.
“These guys carried us all year. They did an amazing job of not taking any bats away. And at the end of the day, baseball is tough,” Cardinals manager Ollie Marmol said. “They had a tough stretch there at the end. It’s part of the game. Obviously the timing isn’t ideal, but it wasn’t the lack of preparation or the race.”
Goldschmidt had finished August a strong contender for the Triple Crown. But in September and the first week of October, he hit his worst stretch of the season, with just two home runs and a 105 OPS+. If this is not necessary bad– is by definition slightly above average – it was still impressive for a hitter who is usually one of the best in the game and also one of the most consistent. In 12 years in the major leagues, Goldschmidt had only nine individual months with an OPS+ as bad as that. He only got on base in that series when he was hit by a pitch. And the situation was no better for Arenado. His 86 OPS+ for September and October represented nearly half the production he had earlier in the year.
On Saturday, given the chance to cash in on their recent performances by stepping up big when the team needed it most, neither could.
The result was a club that said its goodbyes. The season was full of attempts to capture what the retiring twin pillars meant not only to the Cardinals but to all of St. Louis: Molina is beloved in part because he chose to stay, Pujols because he chose to return. The whole year, in some ways, has been an exercise in saying goodbye — but the last one, of course, is the hardest.
“This is my home,” Molina said, pulling out a demonstrative pronoun that could have referred to the city, the ballpark, the clubhouse, the locker room adjacent to Pujols or all of the above. We didn’t need to clarify: It was clear how much the word contained.
“Will miss him”.
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