Cards win Game 1, almost yakk it away on bad baserunning

I loved seeing Marcell Ozuna drive home the tie-breaking runs with his two-run double in the top of the ninth yesterday, and I loved even more Kolten Wong getting some fielding redemption with his own follow-up two-run double.

BUT?

It should have been a three-run, bases-clearing double, but wasn't due to questionable baserunning management.

Remember that there two outs when Wong hit his double. Carlos Martinez was the next batter, and remember that manager Mike Shildt decided to let him bat.

Assuming that decision had already been made at the time Wong came up, it's incumbent on Shildt to let third base coach Ron Warner know that, especially as this is new coaching territory for Warner.

You HAVE TO send Yadier Molina home from first on Wong's double, IMO. That ball bounced around a lot in the right field foul territory and he had a good chance to score, and you can't depend on your pitcher picking him up with two outs. That also meant that the play was fully in front of Warner and unless he thinks Yadi is totally dead to rights coming home, you send him. Given that Shildt was third-base coach two years ago, he should know this himself. (If he doesn't, that itself is disconcerting.)

Sure, the Cardinals had a four-run lead when Ozuna crossed the plate.

But, remember that Martinez coughed back three of those runs and looked VERY shaky in the bottom the ninth, especially when Freddie Freeman took him halfway to the moon.

Given the plethora of bad baserunning player decisions (looking at you, Matt Carpenter, among others) and bad baserunning management and coaching in the Mike Matheny era, I still cringe when I see these things.

And, if Yadi HAD been thrown out, and Martinez not batted, had he needed to be pulled, that gives you a double-substitution possibility, to boot.