St. Louis Cardinals: Kolten Wong Propels Memphis Victory With Two Homers

St. Louis Cardinals’ second baseman, Wong, appeared in his first Memphis Redbirds game in Memphis last night and had quite the night.

A person shows his/her personal qualities when he/she faces adversity.  In the major leagues this type of adversity often comes in the way of a demotion.  This befell Kolten Wong when the St. Louis Cardinals sent him to AAA in order to active Jhonny Peralta.

In his first game with Memphis, Kolten showed that his reassignment was not going to define him in a negative way.  In this game, Wong went 3-for-4 at the plate.

Wong, who had been begging for the lead-off spot since spring training, showed that this might actually be a good idea for him as he belted the game’s first home run in his first at-bat.

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Later in the game, Wong singled and then walked showing his patience at the plate.

With Memphis down 5-2 going into the bottom of the ninth, the Redbirds managed to work the Colorado Springs pitcher.  David Washington singled, Jacob Wilson singled, Michael McKenry singled, Matt Williams was hit by the pitch to walk in a run, Dean Anna walked to score another run, and then walked in Kolten.

Kolten’s at-bat in the bottom of the ninth came with the score at 5-4 with the bases loaded.  Wong took ball one, then ball two, then ball three in what looked to be yet another walk to score yet another run.  Taking the fourth pitch for a strike, Wong looked at a 3-1 count.

Then came the magical pitch that hit middle-low in the strike zone and Kolten pulverized over the wall in right-center field for a walk-off grand slam!  A grand slam from a player who many predicted would have been demoralized by the demotion!

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Have a game, Kolten, have a game… Let us all hope this production continues and sticks so that Wong can either find his way back to St. Louis or find his value for another team wherein Mozeliak might find some needed arms for the birds.