It came with controversy, but the Cardinals, behind a walk-off RBI double by Yadier Molina, overcame their own bullpen blip to grab a critical 4-3 victory over the Reds at Busch Stadium on Thursday.
The win put pressure on the Giants, who defeated the Rockies late on Thursday to keep St. Louis a game back of the second National League Wild Card spot. The Wild Card-leading Mets, idle on Thursday, maintain the top spot with three days remaining in the regular season.
“Pure excitement. Pure joy,” Cardinals outfielder Stephen Piscotty said of the ending. “That’s a huge hit from a legendary player. Just the way the crowd reacted, it was just something that was playful, and it was cool to have that moment.”
Molina stepped to the plate with two out and the potential winning run on first and ripped a ball to left field. It bounced off the warning track and hit a panel of signage beyond the wall before caroming back into play. A throw from left fielder Adam Duvall was too late to get Carpenter, who slid into home to initiate the celebration.
As the Cardinals carried that celebration into the dugout, the Reds remained on the field wanting to challenge that the ball should have been ruled dead — and Molina, therefore, awarded a ground-rule double — when it hit the signage. Reds manager Bryan Price waited too long before requesting a review, and the game officially ended.
“In this situation, Bryan Price did not come up on the top step,” crew chief Bill Miller told a pool reporter after the game. “We stayed there. I waited for my partners to come off the field. I looked into the dugout, the Cincinnati dugout, and Bryan Price made no eye contact with me whatsoever, and then after 30 seconds he finally realized, somebody must have told him what had happened, and we were walking off the field.”
The Reds had climbed back into the game by scoring runs in the eighth and ninth innings. Duvall’s RBI single drove in one before an infield single by Scott Schebler in the ninth tied the score with two outs. In the bottom half of the ninth, Carpenter drew a one-out walk to spark the Cardinals’ final rally.
Leaning on Alex Reyes to improve their position in the Wild Card standings, the Cardinals watched the rookie right-hander rise to the occasion yet again. With solo homers from Jedd Gyorko and Molina backing him, Reyes weaved through a few trouble spots to limit the Reds to one run over six innings.
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