PRESTON WILSON, Tony La Russa’s big lineup move for Game 7, not only struck out three times, but almost hurt Jim Edmonds – admittedly not a hard thing to do – running into the center fielder catching a fly ball. Wilson eventually was hit for by the guy he replaced in the lineup, Scott Spiezio.
Nope, it turned out the move that won the pennant for St. Louis came farther down in the lineup, almost as far down as the Cardinals were when they were almost blowing a seven-game lead in the NL central with 11 days to go. For Game 7, the Cardinals manager flip-flopped Yadier Molina, who had hit eighth during the series, and Ronnie Belliard, who had batted seventh.
“Yadier was swinging well against [Oliver] Perez [in Game 4] so I moved up him up and I also wanted to get some legs in front of the pitcher,” said La Russa.
In the second, with the Cardinals already down a run and Jim Edmonds on first with a leadoff single, Molina flared a hit to left, sending Edmonds to third, from where he scored on Belliard’s safety squeeze past the pitcher. That looked, after Endy Chavez pulled a two-run homer by the struggling Scott Rolen back over the fence in the sixth, like the last run the Cardinals would score this year until Rolen, suddenly not struggling any more, pulled a one-out, ninth-inning single to left.
Molina then hit Aaron Heilman’s next pitch where Chavez would have needed a trampoline to catch it, and the Cardinals, 3-1 winners, took their 83-win act to the World Series. The major league’s third catching Molina brother was a flying Molina around the bases after striking the biggest hit of his life.
“I can’t feel my feet,” he remembered thinking. “Everything was quiet. It was a great feeling.”
We can only imagine. The Cardinals, who lost important players from 105- and 100-win teams in 2004 and 2005, who seemed to make the playoffs this time mostly on memory, last night were getting another excellent starting performance from Jeff Suppan, just as they had from Chris Carpenter in Game 6. Yada, yada, yada, they still were going to go down again, when Yadi, Yadi, Yadi, who hit .216 in this, his second year as a starter, won it.
“He has always hit and when he got off to a rough start it bothered him,” said La Russa. “When he had a chance to start at .000, he took advantage and didn’t try to get two or three hits in one at bat. That’s the Yadi we’ll see the rest of his career.
“We were so even with the Mets it came down to who had the last hero and that was us. He’s going to be an All-Star catcher for a lot of years because of his weapons and he picked a great time to show everybody how good he is.”
No Francisco Cabrera is this guy, taking ten seconds of fame. For all the playoff losses the Cardinals suffered for lack of a big hit, there was some justice for them in this one, like there probably had been some comfort level as an underdog for a change.
“I’m emotional for our whole club,” said La Russa who said this was the best he’d felt about a win since managing the A’s to a World Series sweep of the Giants in 1989. It didn’t feel too bad, either to Rolen, who coming off shoulder surgery, was unhappy to be benched in Game 2, got robbed by Chavez and then in the bottom of the inning sailed a throw to set up the Mets at second and third with one out.
“Quite the sixth inning for me,” Rolen laughed, like only winners can laugh, the ultimate winner being Yadi Molina, who hit .348 over the seven games hit two home runs, and drove in six runs.
“I know I can hit,” he said. And now we know, too.
