By Rick Hummel, St. Louis Post-Dispatch –
ST. LOUIS — In any comparison of big league catchers, the St. Louis Cardinals’ Yadier Molina, a four-time Gold Glover and four-time All-Star, usually wins. On Friday night at Busch Stadium it was by a landslide.
Molina, who earlier in the day was deemed doubtful for the game, even by himself, because of a sprained right thumb, showed with conviction that he was not adversely affected.
He caught three runners on the bases, had three singles, stole two bases, forcing wild throws by Milwaukee catcher Martin Maldonado on both occasions, and scored two runs as the Cardinals rallied from an early deficit to beat the Milwaukee Brewers 9-3 before a paid house of 41,505 at Busch Stadium.
Maldonado, a young player whom fellow Puerto Rican Molina said he has known for years and who actually is a good defensive catcher, had three of the Brewers’ four errors for the night as the Milwaukee club destructed after the first three innings.
Molina threw out Carlos Gomez trying to steal second in the first, nailed Cesar Izturis at third in the fourth as Izturis tried to advance on a bad bunt and then, later in that inning, erased Brewers starting pitcher Randy Wolf wandering between first and second.
After missing Thursday night’s game in Colorado, Molina was worried he wouldn’t be able to play Friday, or even worse, that there was a break. X-rays taken during the day found nothing amiss, however.
“I woke up this morning and my thumb was feeling better,” Molina said. “And then I got my X-rays and the results came out negative. That was good news.”
Even though he threw out nearly everything that moved, Molina said his thumb still bothered him a bit.
Rookie Joe Kelly, driving in the go-ahead run himself, gained his first victory since June 22 even though he didn’t record his normal quality start of six innings and fewer than three earned runs allowed. That was a standard he had achieved in his previous seven starts, with little or no success.
Kelly (2-4), in fact, had one of his most checkered outings but, working 52/3 innings, held the Brewers to just three runs in the second inning, mostly dancing around the 10 hits and two walks he issued in the game, besides battling a number of long counts because he couldn’t control his fastball.
“The first couple of innings, he was everywhere with the fastball,” said Molina. “But after the third, he settled down with the fastball and he found his breaking ball and started throwing the breaking ball for strikes.”
Manager Mike Matheny said Kelly was “fighting himself a lot at the beginning. He did a nice job of getting himself out of trouble, but it was trouble that he created. His issue was really finding the strike zone. He was using a lot of his secondary pitches, working behind in counts, those kind of things you can’t do. It was a great lesson for him, learning how to pitch when you don’t have your best stuff.”
Kelly admitted he had become irritated by his start. “After the second inning, I said, ‘Man, the pitcher (Wolf) got a hit and got two RBIs. This might be one of those nights.
But he said, “Mentally I had to stay in it. Physically I had to stay in it.”
The Brewers jumped ahead in the second just when Kelly seemed as if he had dodged trouble. A good athlete, Kelly pounced off the mound to field Izturis’ tap with the bases loaded and one out in the second and backhanded a flip to Molina for a forceout.
But Wolf, making his 22nd career start against the Cardinals, lined a two-run single to right that accounted for the game’s first runs. Norichika Aoki then singled to make it 3-0.
Wolf’s two RBIs matched his season total.
But the Cardinals touched Wolf (3-8), who has just one win since April 30, for four runs in the fourth, three of them with two out, the final one driven in by Kelly.
Allen Craig looped a single to center and, with one out, Carlos Beltran doubled off the left arm of diving third baseman Cody Ransom, with the ball rolling into left field. Third-base coach Jose Oquendo waved Craig home when left fielder Ryan Braun had trouble picking up the ball in the corner. But Craig had slowed as he reached third and then had to be stopped by Oquendo.
David Freese, however, picked up Craig and Beltran by bouncing a single up the middle for his 60th and 61stt runs batted in.
“When someone gets that big hit, they take off, like it’s blood in the water,” said Matheny.
Freese went to second on a wild pitch and home on Daniel Descalso’s double to left.
Kelly, who wondered if he was going to hit because Barret Browning was warming up, then poked a single to left on what he called an “eephus (very slow)” curveball from Wolf, and the Cardinals went ahead 4-3.
“I didn’t know what it was,” said Kelly. “It fooled me. It was the slowest pitch I’ve seen.”
Molina swiped third after the Brewers had changed pitchers to rookie Jim Henderson in the sixth. On the play, catcher Maldonado gunned the ball into left field, with Molina scoring ahead of Braun’s terribly wild throw to give the Cardinals a two-run lead.
Taking advantage of the 6-foot-5 Henderson’s slow delivery to the plate, Molina made third easily. “When they go 1.7 (seconds) to the plate, I’m an aggressive runner and I’m going to take a chance,” Molina said.
Molina’s steal as Descalso missed the hit-and-run sign led the Cardinals to three runs in the eighth as rookie Maldonado committed two more throwing errors, completing an unfortunate hat trick of a throwing error to every base.
“He’s one of the best catchers I’ve ever seen (as) a rookie,” said Molina. “He was like me when I came over here. I tried to be so aggressive and tried to show off my arm and those things are going to happen. He’s going to learn.”
The second steal of the night gave Molina a single-season high of 10 in just 11 tries.
“He’s amazing,” said Descalso. “And he’s so smart, he knows when to go. And he’s safe. All the time.”
