ST. LOUIS – Jean Segura’s career spanned 11 seasons and 1,328 games before finally reaching the postseason, the longest active streak in the major leagues. On the morning of his first playoff game, the Philadelphia Phillies second baseman barely slept. He woke up at 7am “with adrenaline pumping”. Friday lasted, and that lead never went away.
“I was mentally focused on every game, every pitch,” Segura said. “I’m prepared today to play a game and be able to be here – just thank God it was all on my side.”
With the Phillies going one run, bases loaded, one up in ninth place and the St. Louis Cardinals struggling to close in on their wounded replacements, Segura sneaked a grounder past a slightly pocketed infield, overshot two runs and propelled the Phillies to an unlikely 6-3 win in the opening game of their best-of-three wildcard series, putting them close to promotion to the National League Division Series.
The Cardinals, aided by a stellar performance from Jose Quintana and an electrifying pinch-hit homer from Juan Yepez, led 2-0 into the final inning and had every reason to believe they were headed for a Game 1 win. They were at home, in front of a packed Busch Stadium in a frenzy, and their lights out man, Ryan Helsley, was on the hill.
2 relatives
What followed was strained gullibility.
The Cardinals were 93-0 in postseason history as they led by several runs when entering the ninth inning. The Phillies, on the other hand, were 0-54 in the same situation in the regular season. They ended up scoring six goals — the most by a team that finished behind ninth in postseason history. None of their runs came off with hard contact. Alec Bohm was knocked down with loaded bases, Brandon Marsh hit a chopper that ricocheted past Nolan Arenado’s glove, Kyle Schwarber produced a sacrifice fly and Bryson Stott brought in a run after Paul Goldschmidt made a diving play on his grounder, but too late threw home.
The biggest runs came off the bat from Segura, who lunged for a slider low and away from Andre Pallante and hit a four-hopper down the right that snuck through a sweeping Tommy Edman, who easily played at Segura’s pace. The Cardinals had a ground ball pitcher versus a ground ball hitter and got a grounder that could have produced a double play late in the game – but he was hit just a little too far to the right.
“That’s just how the inning went,” Arenado said. “It didn’t go our way.”
And it all appeared to stem from Helsley’s right middle finger, the one he pinched while rallying for a field game in the penultimate game of the regular season. Helsley threw a few pitches off the mound during Thursday’s practice, and while he admitted his finger felt a little stiff, he told the Cardinals he would be ready to finish games in the postseason.
Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol turned on Helsley with an on and an out in the eighth and watched as he quickly finished off Marsh and Schwarber. However, shortly after the start of the ninth inning, Marmol said Helsley “started losing feel of his pitches a little bit.”
Helsley, who emerged as one of the most dominant closers in the sport this season, began missing well outside the strike zone, eventually throwing just nine of his 23 pitches for strikes in the ninth. JT Realmuto contributed a single-out single, then Bryce Harper and Nick Castellanos pulled back-to-back walks, the latter on seats that were either way up and in or way down and out. By this time, Cardinals Pallante and Jack Flaherty had been warming up in the bullpen. Bohm would be Helsley’s last batter – and Helsley hit him in the left shoulder with a 101 mph fastball.
After throwing a warm-up pitch far out, Helsley exited Busch Stadium and left Busch Stadium for imaging on his troublesome finger.
He could be lost for the series.
“We’ve had guys coming up all year,” Marmol said. “If he goes down, someone else has to step up and do that job, so that’s part of it. No one will feel sorry for us, I tell you.”
Friday’s Top of the Ninth was the only baseball half-inning this season in which a team conceded at least six earned runs of three hits or fewer, with no extra base hits, according to ESPN Stats & Information Research. There have now been five games in postseason history in which a team leading by two runs or more after the eighth inning lost by two runs or more — and the Cardinals were involved in three of those. It was the first time the Phillies had hit six or more runs in a postseason inning.
You picked the perfect time.
“It was special,” said Zack Wheeler, who pitched 6⅓ innings against the Cardinals and left three batters before Jose Alvarado handed the two-run homer to Yepez.
“That was probably the most exciting inning I’ve ever been in,” Realmuto said of ninth place. “And it didn’t even take a big home run. The momentum was there for us and several guys jumped in when needed.”