SAN FRANCISCO — At the same ballpark where more than a decade ago seasons came to a chilly end in late October, the Cardinals were eliminated with a week to go in September.
The Cardinals conjured one more rally to knot the game in late innings and threaten to complete a sweep of the Giants in San Francisco for the first time since 1993. A win would have kept them alive on the periphery of the National League’s wild-card race for at least another day and also give them shot at a winning record in 2025.
Both opportunities disappeared when a ball hit by a former teammate skipped past a diving fielder and out toward the center-field wall.
Andrew Knizner, the Cardinals’ longtime backup catcher, laced a ball to center field in the bottom of the eighth inning. Victor Scott II’s attempt to dive and knock the ball down was unsuccessful and Knizner rounded the bases for an RBI triple and a 4-3 victory late Wednesday night at Oracle Park. Knizner had two RBIs in the win, and both of them broke a tie score.
A day after the Cardinals (78-81) officially and mathematically eliminated them from the playoffs, the Giants (78-81) did the same to the Cardinals.
They have now gone three years without a playoff appearance.
The Cardinals committed three errors in the loss, and two of them in the outfield led directly to Giants runs in the early innings. Jordan Walker dropped a fly ball in right field that turned into a two-base error and led to Knizner’s sacrifice fly in the fourth inning and the 3-2 lead the Cardinals overcame in the eighth inning.
The three errors all came when starter Sonny Gray was in the game, and he was able to minimize the trouble they caused with seven strikeouts. In his final start of the regular season – and potentially final start as a Cardinal if an agreeable trade is presented to him – Gray pitched six innings and limited the Giants to three runs (two earned) on seven hits.
Knizner’s triple came off Riley O’Brien, who lost for the first time this season.
Rally, the refrain
The Cardinals’ rally to tie the game in the eighth inning began like so much of their offseason did during their visit to San Francisco.
Ivan Herrera had a key swing.
With a home run in each of his past three games – including a three-run bolt Tuesday that hoisted the Cardinals back into the game – Herrera did not tie the game with a swing. He did get the game-tying rally going with one. Herrera’s one-out single up the middle was followed by Alec Burleson’s double. The Giants brought in right-hander Jose Butto to face right-handed batter Nolan Arenado and attempt to hold the game with a 3-2 lead.
The Giants infield inched into the grass.
Arenado put a pitch deep out to center.
That sacrifice fly brought Herrera home to level the score, 3-3. Butto walked Lars Nootbaar to load the bases for a matchup with rookie Thomas Saggese. Butto struck out Saggese to send a tie game toward Knizner’s triple.
The 2x 200K Club
It took Gray three pitches to strike out rookie Bryce Eldridge in the fifth inning and complete what he had never done in 13 previous seasons.
Fittingly, he finalized his 200-strikeout season with as sweeper.
Gray’s sixth strikeout of the game – his first game ever at Oracle Park – gave him 200 for the season and back-to-back 200-strikeout seasons for the first time in his career. Gray joined a small group of Cardinals pitchers with one 200 strikeout season last year, his first year with the club. Consecutive 200-K seasons puts Gray alongside the only three Cardinals pitchers to do that since 1920: Bob Gibson, Jose DeLeon, and, most recently, Adam Wainwright.
Gray struck out 203 in 166 1/3 innings in 2024.
Through his six innings Wednesday night, Gray struck out seven to finish with 201 for the season through 180 2/3 innings. That innings total is the fourth-most of his career.
Gray struck out three of the first four Giants he faced.
His fourth came in the third inning to unplug what the Giants generated with a solo homer to tie the game and a one-out double to threaten to untie the game. In the fourth inning, Gray stuck out Rafael Devers to close out that inning. Gray got his seventh strikeout of the game on his final pitch of the game. Leadoff hitter Heliot Ramos was caught looking at an 81-mph curveball for a called strike 3.
Gray got 18 swings and misses in his final regular-season start.
Nine of them came on the curveball.
On his curve and sweeper, Gray got 13 totals swings and misses and the Giants only put those pitches in play a total of five times. Gray got more misses on the curveball (nine) than the Giants made contact (three).
‘Donnie Doubles’ back in action
Fresh off his record-tying four-double game Tuesday night that included the game-tying double in the ninth inning, Brendan Donovan continued the trend in the third inning.
He doubled.
It tied the game.
Donovan’s fifth double of the series caromed off the right-field wall and brought speedster Scott around from first base to tie the game, 1-1. Scott scored easily because the double came with two outs and soared just a few feet away from leaving the ballpark. Donovan and Scott combined on the tying run in the ninth inning Tuesday, and the encore Wednesday set up the Cardinals to take the lead.
Ivan Herrera puled a single to left that scored Donovan for a 2-1 lead.
Splash down for Devers
The Cardinals’ lead vanished into McCovey Cove in the bottom of the same inning it surfaced.
Devers, one of the bigger trade acquisitions of the season, led off the third inning with his 34th home run, his 19th since joining San Francisco, and his first to clear the right-field wall and soar into the cove beyond it. The ball, bobbing away near the Bay, was quickly fished out by a fan awaiting it in the water.
The Giants acquired Devers from Boston after a tumultuous spring for the All-Star that saw him decline to move positions, struggle to start the year at DH, and otherwise give the Red Sox reason to move on from a player who recently was their franchise cornerstone. Chaim Bloom, who is set to take over in the near future as the Cardinals’ president of baseball operations, signed Devers to the 10-year, $313.5-million deal that he brought with him to San Francisco.
Devers’ homer into the cove was the 108th to reach the water in the ballpark’s history.
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Derrick Goold | Post-Dispatch
Lead baseball writer
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