Cardinals’ top 10 moments of 2026, No. 7: Ivan Herrera saves Cardinals after umpire controversy

Umpire controversies are always frustrating, and yet Doug Eddings seemed to outdo himself with how he handled the St. Louis Cardinals' Friday night contest with the Colorado Rockies. Eddings made a scene of Hancel Rincon's hat, who was making his Major League debut, and more chaos began to ensue that seemed to point to the Cardinals unfairly dropping the contest.

Well, before Ivan Herrera decided to take over.

We are following along with the Dealin' the Cards podcast countdown of the 10 best moments of the Cardinals' 2026 season, and checking in at number seven was Herrera's game-saving home run in the midst of this umpire controversy.

In the top of the ninth inning, with the Cardinals down 6-4, Herrera blasted a three-run homer to give the St. Louis a 7-6 lead over Colorado, an awesome moment that saved what would have been a horrible day for the Cardinals and Major League Baseball as a whole.

Ivan Herrera helped the Cardinals overcome umpire controversy in Hancel Rincon's debut

Here's a rundown of the whole situation if you forgot how insane that was.

It all seemed to start on a play at third base where Nolan Gorman appeared to tag the runner out, but the call on the field was safe. Gorman called to the dugout for the play to be reviewed, and when it was, the call was confirmed on the field, but not before Eddings showed some attitude in his response, which even got a response from the Cardinals broadcast.

Eddings then stopped Rincon in the midst of a 2-0 count, calling for the rookie to straighten his cap after it was slanted to the side a bit. We've seen so many pitchers slant their caps in the past, like Sonny Gray, and never been told to do that. In fact, there is no rule against that.

This sparked frustration from Marmol, who talked to the umpiring crew about that when he went out to make a pitching change in the inning. Well, according to Eddings, Marmol took too much of his time to do that, so he gave a pitch clock violation to Just Bruihl after Marmol left the field. This obviously did not sit well with Marmol, who Eddings ejected quickly after.

Then, after the Cardinals lost their challenge earlier in the inning on that Gorman tag, Eddings called a runner safe right in front of him at the plate who was clearly out on the tag, but they could not challenge the call. All of this cost the Cardinals the lead before Herrera saved the day.

Major League Baseball let Eddings know after the game that he went too far with his handling of Rincon, resulting in an apology being issued to Rincon the next day.

The Cardinals did not just respond in the game on Rincon's behalf, but they also showed up to Coors Field the next day with their hats tilted in solidarity with Rincon, showing a kind of unity and brotherhood in the dugout that the Cardinals have been very encouraged by as they look to the future.

It'll be hard to forget how crazy that situation was, and looking back, it's really cool that the Cardinals were able to find a way to win that game.

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