The clock finally struck midnight.
The wild and wonderful Cinderella run the Pittsburgh Pirates had been on, officially came to an end with one final Pedro Alvarez swing. The St. Louis Cardinals advanced to the National League Championship Series for the third consecutive year by beating the Pirates 6-1 in Game 5 of the NLDS.
Starter Adam Wainwright cemented his name in Cardinals lore by pitching a complete-game win. Wainwright was vintage on this night, keeping the Pirates lineup off-balance with an assortment of curveballs and cut-fastballs.
Pirates’ rookie starter Gerrit Cole was up to the task. However, one mistake cost him dearly. 2011 postseason hero David Freese got a hold of a hanging slider from Cole and lined a two-run home run to left field in the bottom of the second inning. The rally commenced when Cardinals’ centerfielder John Jay worked a two-out walk – setting the stage for Freese.
Meanwhile, the Pirates’ hot-and-cold offense picked the absolute worst time to go cold. The Bucs were not able to sustain any kind of a rally until the top of the seventh inning. With two-out and nobody on base, Justin Morneau and Marlon Byrd rolled back-to-back infield singles. Alvarez followed with a grounder down the first base line that hit the base just as first baseman Matt Adams was about to field the ball. The ball took a kangaroo hop over his head allowing Morneau to score from second. Fortunately for the Cardinals, second baseman Matt Carpenter was backing up the play and fielded the ball before it had a chance to roll down the right field line. That would have allowed Byrd to score to make it a 3-2 game. Russell Martin ended the rally by grounding into a fielders’ choice on the very next pitch.
Once Cole was lifted for a pinch hitter, the Cardinals took full advantage of the Pirates’ bullpen. They started to pad their lead with a run in the sixth and salted the game – and series – away with a three-run bottom of the eighth inning. That inning highlighted by a prodigious home run off the bat of Adams.
The hero of this night – and the series – was Wainwright. He was 2-0 with a sparkling 1.13 ERA against the Pirates. Wainwright joins fellow St. Louis greats Dizzy Dean, Bob Gibson, Danny Cox and Chris Carpenter to throw a complete-game win in a winner-take-all game.
The Pirates’ offense could only muster three runs during the three losses in the series. THREE. For three games. Pirates’ hitters must have felt as if they were facing Gibson and Dean themselves when Wainwright and Michael Wacha toed the rubber.
This series was a matchup of two starkly different offenses. The Cardinals lead the National League in batting average with runners’ in scoring position. The Pirates were dead last in the same category. The flaw would lead to their downfall. The breakdown started at the top: Starling Marte and Neil Walker were a combined 1 for 38 in the series. That is an .026 batting average and that is NOT good. Team MVP Andrew McCutchen consistently came to bat with the bases empty.
The Pirates gave their fans something to cheer about. Something they had not experienced in 21 years. For Cardinals’ fans, it’s more of the same. A berth in the National League Championship Series for the third consecutive year and a chance at their third World Series title since 2006. The Cardinals advance to play the Los Angeles Dodgers in what will be a star-studded NLCS.
For the Pirates, the carriage has turned into a pumpkin. The flight back to Pittsburgh will seem long…and quiet. But with the talent in the organization, it will not be 21 years until another generation of fans can experience the joy and drama of postseason baseball.
NOTES: Pirates’ starter Gerrit Cole became the first rookie pitcher in franchise history to start a winner-take-all postseason game since Babe Adams started Game 7 in the 1909 World Series versus the Detroit Tigers…Pirates’ third baseman Pedro Alvarez became the first player in Major League history to drive in a run in his first six postseason games…The St. Louis Cardinals will be playing in the NLCS for the eighth time since 2000.
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