The Cardinals season is over.
With Chris Taylor’s walk-off homer off Alex Reyes, the Dodgers punched their ticket to the NLDS for a date with the Giants, and eliminated the Cards’ in the postseason for the first time since 2009.
“It’s just a tough game. You try to just bare down as best you can on all sides of the ball,” said Harrison Bader. “It just didn’t go our way, but it’s really important to understand again, how many positives there were to the season, and again it’s all about a career and a marathon. We’ve got a lot of good pieces coming back and I’m already excited for next year.”
After they scored early off of Max Scherzer, St. Louis couldn’t muster anything else. They managed to knock Scherzer out of the game in the fifth, but the Dodgers bullpen, including former Cardinal Joe Kelly, kept the Birds at bay.
“I thought we did a good job against Max today, kind of not really chasing him around the zone and really driving his pitch count up” Tommy Edman said. “We got to that bullpen quick, but their bullpen just did a great job of shutting us down once they got in there.”
Adam Wainwright turned in yet another strong start, going 5 ⅓ and only allowing one run on a home run by Justin Turner. He also managed to induce a huge double play with the bases loaded in the bottom of the third, and Trea Turner at the plate.
“Whoever won this game was going to have a really great chance to have a deep run in the postseason,” said Wainwright. “That’s how we looked at it. We really felt confident coming into this game, that we were going to win today. We’ve been playing great baseball. The takeaway from this, from our team, is to understand how far we came, the adjustments we made, and what a great baseball team we can be when play like we’re supposed to.”
Luis Garcia threw an inning and two-thirds of scoreless baseball after coming on in relief of Wainwright. Giovanny Gallegos followed with a scoreless eighth, but was pulled before the ninth with a nail issue.
T.J. McFarland got two men out before walking Cody Bellinger and giving way to Reyes.
Reyes ran the count to 2-1, then hung a slider. Taylor crushed it and put an end to the Cardinals season after a valiant effort by St. Louis to even reach the postseason.
Following the loss, Reyes received nothing but positive affirmations from his team.
“We’re not here without Alex Reyes,” said manager Mike Shildt. “We’re just not.”
“Just gave him a huge hug, told him we loved him, told him I loved him and gave him another big hug and just told him how special he was as a player, as a teammate, and as a person,” Wainwright said. “That’s all you can say in a moment like that. He doesn’t, probably, want to hear any of it but it’s all true. He’s a great teammate, he’s a great player, he’s a great pitcher, he’s a great friend and you hate to see anyone go through that, but he’s got an incredible future ahead of him. I can’t wait to see what he does next.”
For more MLB coverage, click here.
