Well **** this shit.

lol

Ugh

Got the ground ball he needed just to the wrong spot.

That's baseball for ya.

Tailor-made DP ball but we had the infield in and it juuuuuuuuust sneaked through the hole.

Oof.

well shit

Bullpen meltdown but Tommy needs to make that play.

Damn, that's been a strike for several innings now

4 ****ing runs so far and only 1 out in the 9th. JFC.

Just not sure why you bring the IF in there. I mean I know you're looking to cut the run down at home, but it's a force situation. You shouldn't need to pull the IF in to get a force at home.

If they're at standard depth, it's a double play ball.

Ugh - and now that happens.

This is how a season gets away from ya. Doesn't take an implosion - just one guy loses his feel and then your defense is lined up a bit funky and now a really well played game means precisely dick in a best of 3 setup.

Just...ouch.

Jesus. Just hit the glove.

Run was still going to score based on the infield alignment. Maaaaaaybe he gets the runner at 1b.

But once the IF got pulled, that play became exponentially harder.

Maybe I didn't see it right when I watched the replay, but if I did I have a hard time stomaching that one. Infield in just doesn't seem like the way to have played that situation.

And now gold glovers are kicking routine hoppers. Cooooool.

Cardinals have imploded this inning

I felt like Helsley was always going to come back down to earth at some point

Oh, for ****'s sake. This isn't Pallante's fault, but he's done, pull him.

Now Arenado is missing the ball.

I dont remember a Cards 9th inning meltdown this bad in the playoffs that I can recall.

Marmol can own this crap. Helsley didn’t have it.

Why?

No sense in burning anyone else. Kid's gotten a double play ball and a bunny hop to 3b.

Pallante has looked fine. I mean, he stepped onto the mound scared shit out of his mind, but he still looks decent enough.

Just get the last out and lick your wounds I guess. That was pretty rough.

Oh, I'm pretty sure it's happened. And I'm pretty sure I was at one of them. But it's been awhile.

Hopefully we get a Sunday game.

He jammed his finger on Tuesday, took him out of the game. When he got to 25 pitched it must have stiffened and he lost the feel for the fastball.

that all makes sense. But the kid looks defeated. Not sure what it helps to pile on at this point. Also, it was still just 4-2 when I posted that.

Helsley looked great until the last 6 pitches of the inning.

He carved them up in the 8th, threw a nasty pitch 3-2 to retire the leadoff guy, threw two pitches right where he wanted them on 2-2 and 3-2 to Harper.

He just came unglued in the span of 6 pitches. That's not on the manager.

If there's anything to blame Ollie for it's the defensive alignment with the bases loaded. I just don't think you bring the infield in there. You play for the double play.

93-0 leading by 2 after 8 innings this season.

He looked deflated when he took the mound.

I think that's just kinda how he looks.

He’s been a little leaky since the all star break.

Lowest ERA in baseball coming into the game.

He had no idea where his fastball was going

Well all we need to do is what they just did :-)

He was good. No one squared him up. He had the double play ball. No one hit the ball over 88 mph.

This is on Ollie not pulling a pitcher that you know is injured. He doesn’t miss like this all season. You have to know it’s the jammed finger on his pitching hand.

Maybe you're right. Kind of like RBF?

That means exactly dick right now, he shit his pants at the most crucial time and now there's like a 70% chance the season is cooked.

I was responding to the point he was leaky after the AS break, Im well aware it doesn't mean anything right now.

Paul DeJong getting a critical at bat says all you need to know about this team.

For the last 6 pitches of the game, yes.

Did you not see him dot that ****er repeatedly to the first several batters he faced? He was even doing a nice job getting it down, which he doesn't always do.

When he's way off, he leaks armside and the ball runs up and away from him. He wasn't doing that...y'know, until he was.

His command was really good until it was just gone. There's nothing to hang on Marmol for sticking with him. He was carving them up and if that's not Harper batting, that 2-2 fastball he threw and really the 3-2 slider punches him out. But Harper can see the ball as well as anyone out there and he won the AB. Shit happens when you're facing a Hall of Famer.

But then the wheels flew off.

Yea I dont know how Ollie was supposed to predict that scenario. He was 1 pitch from getting out of it the whole time.

As does Eflin getting a critical inning for the Phillies.

This game would bother me more if I thought the Cardinals were legit contenders. They aren't. Neither is Philly.

This is mostly just masturbating until the Dodgers, Braves, Mets and maybe Padres sort it out amongst themselves.

You know me - always defending Ollie Marmol...

Well we are a miracle HR from tying it up.

LMAO

Just get a hit here Molina dont try to do too much.

That was predictable. See you guys tomorrow.

What a shit show.

That was ugly

I think Ollie has done a good job this year. You forgot more about Baseball in the last week than I know total.

But, I still think if you have an injured pitcher this week with his pitching hand. Then he loses it and can’t throw a strike. You have to think it’s related and pull him regardless if you don’t have better choices.

Sure. But when did he 'lose it'?

I think we're talking maybe a 1 batter difference. He got Hoskins for the first out. Realmuto hit a decent slider at the knees - no warning signs. Harper drew a walk off two really good takes after he throws a nasty 1-0 curve and then dots the black at 102 to get a swinging strike and take him to 1-2.

Suddenly he throws a 5 pitch walk to Castellanos that took like...a minute. Can you argue he should've had someone warm? Sure, I suppose. But remember how pissed off folks used to get at LaRussa for 'dry humping' relievers? You gotta be careful there as well.

When he pitches as well as he did in the 8th and then got the first batter of the 9th, what's your justification for getting someone warmed?

You can get them loose; have them soft-tossing. But 'getting loose' and getting warm are two different animals. You can have them out there getting loose but to 'get warm' means making high effort pitches from the mound. But even that's gonna take more than 1 batter to get them lathered and in the game. I mean there are a very select few that could do it faster than that (Steve Klein, for instance), but most take 10-12 pitches and that's gonna be a couple of batters.

The wheels just came off too damn fast.

As the acknowledged homer in here even I know we don’t have much of a chance against the Dodgers, Braves etc.

Maybe if Goldy/Arenado/Pujols and one other hitter got hot and hit a couple of homers but that’s really a long shot and the only way.

But, I thought we could win this series. :shake:

I think the mistake was pulling Quintana when he did. That led to the downstream bullpen usage/overusage.

I blame Pablo and Prison Bitch, everything is going their way this year.

That felt ENTIRELY like a call from the number crunchers.

I think the organization has numbers guys that will essentially tell Marmol what to do. Going into that game I'm betting Marmol was told to do it because the analytics department found some numbers to suggested it was the way to go.

He's said as much about Quintana's third time through the lineup, and while I appreciate the impact such decisions have across 160 games, in 1 game you have to allow for statistical outliers or you don't understand the context of the numbers.

There is no doubt that guys will do better on average the third time seeing a guy, but there are also days when a pitcher's arsenal is such that he's a much better version of his average self.

Cardinals go into the bottom of the 9th tied 2-2 if your defense didn't go full Bill Buckner. If the Cardinals were playing at normal depth on Segura's hit I'm still not convinced they turn that for 2 to end the game, given that Edman was still going to be running away from 2nd to field that ball and Segura's not thaaaat slow, but at least they get 1 out and then on Stott's grounder all Goldschmidt would have to do is step on first the end the inning. Even with Edman playing half way in, he still should have at least stopped that ball, it looked like he actually over ran the ball and it went behind his glove, and gotten Segura out at first and then Goldschmidt just has to step on first to end the inning. Helsley blew the save, but as ugly as he was exiting that game, the defense lost the game. And I didn't even get to the part where Arenado completely whiffed on a chest high hop.

Yeah, the Cardinals all year were, in general, one of the best defenses in baseball. When Arenado is whiffing on a ball he fields 99/100 times you know the collapse is on.

We wouldn't have been in this position if the offense had woke up. We had a player that was in the minors most of the 2nd half bail us out. Goldy is a legit contender for MVP. If he doesn't snap out of this slump starting tomorrow, we are toast.

What position? You think the Cardinals wouldn't be in the WC game or something? Nah. They would still be in the WC game. They wouldn't have been in the position to lose the game in the 9th if they scored more runs? Sure, but that Zack Wheeler guy is a pretty good pitcher, dont you think? He was the 15th best pitcher in baseball by fWAR this year and he threw like 30+ innings less than the majority of guys ahead of him. Give him the innings and you are probably talking about him in the discussion for top 5.

And you should be thinking about getting to tomorrow before thinking about it. You still have to beat Aaron Nola tonight, who's advanced numbers would suggest he is the NL Cy Young, but he wont get it because of his ERA.

This is a ****ing terrible decision.

Vegas just made a call into New York on that challenge.

This offense is garbage. Goldy and Arenado went cold and there is nothing left.

Neither one has ever had a big hit in October.

Goldy and Nado are having their chance and blowing it. I don’t want to hear any whining from them about winning in the postseason.

I said it at the start of the season that playing to just win this shit ass division wasn't good enough. Cardinals were in the drivers seat to acquire a HoF player and they weren't willing to trade players that arent even on the field for this game.

What a choke job by Goldy.

That HOF player has done jack and shit.

And Arenado strikes out as well after Goldy.

Jack and shit for him is apparently still 30% above average.

50 year old Albert showed up though. Nice job Goldy and Nado.

Trade that ****ing choking piece of shit for whatever you can get. I don't ever want to see him take another AB. He can shove that ****ing MVP trophy right up his weeping ****ing ****.

All 3 swings were at balls inches off the ground. :eek:

Soto has done literally nothing in the playoffs.

I still like Nado. I’d trade Goldy for whatever you can get though.

Other than going 2 for 3 against deGrom and being on base 3 times tonight. Sure, he's done nothing.

Something to be said about Albert and Molina’s final at bats. And why guys like Goldy are frauds.

ROFLROFL

So are you ready for Walker at third? First baseman aren’t that hard to replace.

Hall of Fame: Albert, Yadi
Hall of Fraud: Dogshit, Arenado

Great way to go out.
Only thing better would have been a HR.


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For 5 months of the season the pitching was the problem. All of a sudden the offense goes completely cold and the pitching becomes decent. It’s such a weird and awesome sport.

Pitching improved once Quintana and Montgomery came aboard. That's not an accident.

Marmol proved he's the same clueless stooge as the last two buffoons they hired.

Goldschmidt and Arenado completely no showed October yet again. The moment is too big for them. Arenado tries to hit every ball 600 feet, and Goldschmidt has the guts of a garter snake that was hit by a semi.

I hope Arenado opts out. He can go chase a ring with the Dodgers where he can hide as the sixth best bat in their lineup in October. Trade Goldschmidt at the deadline to the Yankees where those fans can eat his ****ing bitch ass alive.

Thank you immensely for the memories, Albert and Yadi. Albert went out like the champion and inner circle HOF'er that he is. Those will be the moments I recall with fondness from this season.

There's no point in trying to cobble something together for next season. Liberatore is going to be a bust (he'll be out of baseball in three years), Gorman needs more time, Carlson is blah, O'Neill can't stay healthy, Walker and Wynn haven't taken an MLB AB, and no Cardinals prospect has lived up to the hype in over a decade.

Great careers.


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It's crazy that Pujols and Molina are done. Two amazing players

When they blew it yesterday I knew it wasn’t meant to be unfortunately. :(

That’s awesome. I’m not gonna let the stench of how this season ended ruin that for me. I hope Waino comes back for 1 more year.