St. Louis Cardinals: The biggest players stepped up when they needed to

In yesterday’s elimination game, the biggest players on the St. Louis Cardinals stepped up and it’s the only reason the team is alive today.

There have been plenty of times this year where the best players on the St. Louis Cardinals were not playing like they were. It was actually something mentioned by Fox Sports Midwest announcer, Dan McLaughlin, that jarred this idea. The team’s biggest offensive threats, Paul Goldschmidt and Marcell Ozuna, have never truly been hot at the same time.

Both players had good years, both players are certainly streaky players, but they never were on at the same time. Danny Mac wondered, what would the offense look like if they were both on fire?

At the same time, how many times have the Cardinals needed a big player to step up in a big moment and they haven’t? How many more games could the Cardinals have won in the regular season and postseason if the team’s biggest players had stepped up just one more time?

This hindsight is not necessarily fair to those players, but if they don’t step up, who else is supposed to?

As the Cardinals went into NLDS Game 4 on Monday in Busch Stadium, fans were scared that it could be the final game of the 2019 season. The Braves had jumped on Carlos Martinez and everyone’s mood seemed to be grim and angry at the same time.

The biggest players on the Cardinals wanted to play more baseball it seems.

It started with Goldschmidt in the first inning. Seeing Dallas Keuchel for the second time in four days, Goldy hit his second homer of the series, putting the Cardinals out front early. Marcell Ozuna followed that up with a homer of his own and all the sudden Cardinals fans were in the game.

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In his next trip to the plate, Ozuna hit yet another homer off Keuchel, making it a 3-1 game at the time. Dakota Hudson, in his first postseason start, started off well and ended up going 4.2 innings, only pulled because of the two unearned runs he gave up when Ozzie Albies gave the Braves the lead in the 5th inning.

Along with Hudson, fans were knocked out of the game too as all of a sudden, everyone realized they could be four innings from the end of the season.

The Cardinals had something to say about that though.

After a Paul Goldschmidt double, the guy who is always part of the biggest moments, Yadier Molina, stepped up.

https://twitter.com/Cardinals/status/1181336155394056196

The Cardinals were about an inch away from not tying the game. Wow.

So the Cardinals then went on to extra-innings in an elimination game. In the 10th inning, after a Kolten Wong double, an Ozuna groundout brought Molina back up to the plate with Wong at third.

https://twitter.com/Cardinals/status/1181348683733966848

So in the end, the Cardinals stave off elimination and now have another life. The pitching stepped up huge to even get the team to the 10th inning, even featuring a good inning by Carlos Martinez and Miles Mikolas.

The important thing for the Cardinals when breaking down Game 4 was that the biggest players did exactly what they should’ve. They stepped up early, they stepped up late, and they did what they had to when the team had their backs against the wall.

Molina has played in plenty of elimination games in his career and it’s no surprise that the moment wasn’t too big for him.

This is exactly what makes baseball romantic. The Cardinals had their backs against the wall, they were losing in the 8th inning, and they found a way to make it happen. Going back to Atlanta, if Goldschmidt, Ozuna, and Molina stay hot, it’ll be hard to say that the Cardinals won’t advance to the NLCS.