Game 2 of the National League Championship Series ended with the St. Louis Cardinals faithful at Busch Stadium going crazy in the ninth inning.
It's the shocked silence that fell over the crowd in the sixth, however, that could be a more accurate reflection of the state of the Cardinals going forward. Yadier Molina is hurt, and from the looks of things, he's hurt pretty bad.
For those who missed Sunday's action, the Cardinals' 5-4 victory over the San Francisco Giants was of the walk-off variety. After Trevor Rosenthal blew a 4-3 lead in the top of the ninth, rookie second baseman Kolten Wong led off the bottom of the ninth with a line drive into the right field bleachers.
That was the Cardinals' fourth home run after Matt Carpenter, Oscar Taveras and Matt Adams hit their own solo shots. And following a defeat at the hands of Madison Bumgarner in Game 1, it kept the Cardinals out of a 0-2 series hole with the NLCS shifting to San Francisco for Game 3 on Tuesday.
That's the good news. The bad news is that it shouldn't be taken for granted that Molina is going to be able to play in Game 3.
For that matter, pictures like these raise doubts as to whether he'll be seen again this October:
That Molina exited with a strained left oblique is the diagnosis that was passed along while Game 2 was still in progress. But as Cardinals manager Mike Matheny noted after the game, there are still some things to look at.
Courtesy of Fox Sports MLB:
For what it's worth, B/R injury expert Will Carroll tweeted that Molina wasn't showing the usual signs of an oblique injury. It's possible that the 32-year-old catcher has some other kind of injury.
If it is a strained left oblique, though, then Molina is now dealing with an injury that can sideline a player for weeks—see Mark Ellis, Mike Morse and Brett Lawrie for recent examples. And even if it's not, that Molina could barely even get out of the box says says whatever it is must be pretty bad.
And that leaves us to contemplate just how badly the Cardinals would miss Molina if he's too hurt to play going forward.
Knowing what we know about Molina, yeah, it would be bad.
Molina, as you might have heard, is the rarest of breeds: a catcher who can play exceptional defense and hit. The Cardinals would surely miss both sides of Molina if he were to be sidelined.
That Molina is the best offensive catcher the Cardinals have borders on stating the obvious. Though his .719 OPS this season was modest by his standards, it was still good enough for an average-ish 101 OPS+. With Tony Cruz posting a 49 OPS+ and A.J. Pierzynski posting a 75 OPS+, the drop-off from Molina to either one of them is pretty extreme.
But it's really on defense that the Cardinals would miss Molina the most, and not just because he has no equals when it comes to controlling the running game (see his league-best caught-stealing percentage).
Molina gets rave reviews for how he handles his pitchers, and the splits of Cardinals pitchers say there's something to this:
Outside of Cardinals pitchers having a slightly better walk rate throwing to Pierzynski, it's a clean sweep for Molina in strikeouts per nine, walks per nine, opponent OPS and ERA.
Exactly how much Molina's game-calling differs from that of Cruz and Pierzynski is a tricky question, but there are tangible measures of how much he helps his pitchers.
Beyond being an excellent throwing catcher, Baseball Prospectus has data that shows how effective Molina is at getting extra strikes with his framing and avoiding passed balls and wild pitches:
Molina wasn't Pierzynki's equal at keeping balls in front of him, but he was better than average doing so and certainly stole plenty more strikes than Cruz or Pierzynski.
Lest you think such skills are of minor importance, take a moment to look back at what happened in the top of the ninth inning Sunday night.
After committing a passed ball on a tailing Carlos Martinez fastball in the seventh inning, Cruz opened the door for the tying run to score in the ninth inning when he butchered a two-out, full-count fastball in the dirt to Joe Panik:
That wasn't an easy ball to block, but it's not hard to think that Molina would have been able to block it if he'd been behind the dish. If so, the tying run might have advanced no farther than third.
For that matter, Molina might not have had to block that pitch. Things wouldn't have gotten that far if he'd framed this 0-2 fastball to Panik:
Had Molina framed that pitch and gotten the call, it would have been strike three, and the game would have been over.
What happened instead is Cruz caught that pitch as if he was keeping it from hitting his foot, nixing whatever chance he had of getting a called strike. That helped prolonged the at-bat.
All this points us to the following disconcerting thought: Molina hasn't even been missing for half a game yet, and the Cardinals are already a little lucky the NLCS is all tied up.
As for the prospect of the Cardinals being without Molina for the rest of the NLCS and, potentially, the World Series, here's Jorge L. Ortiz of USA Today with a reminder-slash-warning of what happened the last time the Cardinals were without Molina for a sustained stretch:
Molina missed 40 games between July and August with a thumb injury and St. Louis went 20-20 in his absence. That helped the club tread water in a 162-game season – the Cardinals heated up after his return – but won't cut it in the postseason.
It's hard to disagree with that last sentiment. Losing a solid hitter like Molina at a time when every hit counts is not what the Cardinals need, and losing his excellent receiving skills, blocking skills and throwing arm is something they need even less.
Again, all this doomspeak comes with the caveat that, for now, Molina's status is simply a question mark. Until he's officially sidelined, all should feel free to hope for the best.
But don't forget to plan for the worst. Molina was hurting pretty bad when he exited Sunday's game, and it didn't take long for the Cardinals to start feeling his absence. If his absence continues, the Cardinals likely won't stop feeling it until their season is over.
And that could be soon.
Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted/linked.
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