Kolten Wong lifts Cardinals' spirits after downer of losing Yadier Molina

ST. LOUIS – They'd board a flight to San Francisco on a special win, the kind that reroutes a playoff series and lifts a city, and on that the St. Louis Cardinals could rest their heads.

They'd hit four more home runs, including one each in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings, the last a Kolten Wong walk-off against Sergio Romo that concluded a perfectly imperfect, unpredictable, reeling Game 2 of the National League Championship Series. They'd won, 5-4, finally when Wong struck a flat slider and lashed it into the seats near the right-field foul pole, and on that they'd tied the series, so they'd gathered at home plate almost before the last of the San Francisco Giants had cleared the Busch Stadium grounds.

"I just made sure I didn't miss any bases," said Wong, who'd nearly skulled a nearby umpire when he'd thrown off his helmet in celebration.

They'd stood firmly against the Giants, who were just as determined, if not as prone to one-pitch, long-ball, thunderbolt runs. The Cardinals hadn't been so disposed to home runs themselves for most of the regular season, but they've been keeping them afloat in October, and on Sunday night they'd had Matt Carpenter give them a lead, Oscar Taveras tie the score, Matt Adams give them another lead and Wong end the game, all on home runs. Each hits left-handed and each homered against a right-handed pitcher, and these are the matchups that sour managers' stomachs around this time.

"Just barreling balls up, staying through the ball and getting that backspin to carry," said Adams, who'd won Game 4 of the division series with a homer on a 73-mph curveball from Clayton Kershaw and homered in the eighth inning Sunday on a 97-mph fastball from Hunter Strickland. "You know, throughout the season, people were worried about our power, but we knew inside the clubhouse that we didn't lose any power."

They'd hit a league-low 105 home runs from April through September, one every 51.7 at-bats. In their six postseason games, they'd hit 11 home runs, one every 16.8 at-bats, and it'd felt good to them, because it'd beaten the Los Angeles Dodgers, and it'd kept the NLCS a fair fight and, frankly, they'd really needed the runs. While the Giants were putting at-bats against at-bats against at-bats for runs, their last in the ninth when a wild pitch allowed their man to tie the score from second base, the Cardinals were turning on pitches, back-footing those pitches, demolishing those pitches, and finally getting off the field with a win that had to come.

"Unbelievable," Wong said more than once.

But, and yeah there's a but, and this is important: the Cardinals would board a flight to San Francisco with uncertainty. So they'd laugh, and Wong would recount the story of A.J. Pierzynski telling him in the dugout not to overswing in his final at-bat, and Wong nodding, and then whipping that ball into the bleachers. And they'd be happy for their relevance in this series, for the fact they weren't playing back from two home losses, because that would smell like doom. And they'd promise more of the same, more fight, because that's who they are and that's the flag they fly under. And, well, here's the thing: Yadier Molina was injured Sunday night, and it's an oblique on his left side, and he'd left the game with manager Mike Matheny under one arm and a trainer under the other, and nobody thought that looked very good.

In the sixth inning, tie game, runner at first base, Molina had stood in against Jeremy Affeldt. Sensing something good here, the people had chanted: "Ya-dee! Ya-dee!" This is their guy, their MVP, the one who won't let them lose – his jersey and his name on so many of their backs.

On a one-ball, two-strike fastball, Molina had hit the ball hard, too. And the people cheered the sound. The ball had bounded directly to second baseman Joe Panik, however, and the people had groaned as Panik flipped to Brandon Crawford and Crawford had thrown to Brandon Belt, a double play.

The play at first base had not been close, because Molina had taken one step across the plate, bent at the waist, put his hands on his knees and took a deep breath. He was hurt. Molina had been helped to the dugout, then down the dugout steps and into the clubhouse, where he was diagnosed with a strained left oblique, the kind that tends to stay with a ballplayer for a bit. Also, on a Sunday night in mid-October, it'll take the air out of a place.

If Molina is unable to continue and the Cardinals don't make it out of this series, the image they'll take with them into the offseason would not be of Adams frolicking on the first-base line of the division series, or even Wong floating from base to base in Game 2 of this one, but of Molina in the left-handed batter's box, unable to carry himself any farther.

"Don't count Yadi out," backup catcher Tony Cruz said.

It'd be the 28-year-old Cruz, he of 449 career big-league at-bats and .225 batting average and the veteran Pierzynski who would take Molina's position in the case of the worst.

Meanwhile, the Cardinals tried to take a breath. Late Sunday night Molina was being examined. There was little word beyond that.

"But," Matheny said, "didn't look real good."

Molina had missed a month-and-a-half of the summer with a thumb injury, and the Cardinals won the NL Central. They'd made do. It was what they clung to Sunday night, when they awaited a diagnosis, already having watched their ace – Adam Wainwright – struggle into the fifth inning in Game 1 and their closer – Trevor Rosenthal – fail spectacularly to hold a ninth-inning lead in Game 2.

What they knew, all they knew really, was there would be more games to play, starting Tuesday afternoon in San Francisco. Maybe Molina would return, but that seemed at best uncertain. They'd had themselves a heckuva game, the kind that creates legends in this baseball-drunk town, but appeared to walk away weakened for it. Not that they would grant such a notion, at least not out loud.

"It's not ideal," Carpenter said.

He added that they'd managed without Molina before: "We still found a way to get here."

On that, they'd have to rest their heads. That and the fact the last three innings without him were strange, unpredictable and about as good as it gets.