Adams' improbable HR off Kershaw lands Cards in familiar territory
ST. LOUIS — When Matt Adams stepped into the batter's box in the seventh inning with the Cardinals trailing by two runs to Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers, the St. Louis first baseman was not thinking home run.
"I was just looking for a pitch to drive it to the gap to move the guys into scoring position," he said. "That's what this team does. We keep the line moving."
In the Cardinals dugout, they were thinking all sorts of things. Third baseman Matt Carpenter sensed that Kershaw, nearing 100 pitches, was starting to feel the effects of working on short rest.
"His pitch count got up and he was tired," Carpenter said.
After Matt Holliday and Jhonny Peralta singled to give the Cardinals their first scoring chance of the day, manager Mike Matheny was thinking, "Don't try to do too much."
And Adam Wainwright was playing fortune-teller.
"I said if he throws a strike breaking ball right here, he's going to hit a home run," Wainwright said. "And he sure did."
Oh, he sure did. And what a home run it was, its importance matched only by its improbability.
Adams' three-run blast produced all the scoring the Cardinals needed to beat Kershaw and the Dodgers 3-2 to clinch a spot in the NL Championship Series for the fourth straight season. They are the first NL team to accomplish that feat since the Braves went five times from 1995-99 and the first team in either league since 2000 to go that often.
Adams had hit .190 off left-handers during the regular season and had not homered off a lefty in three months, when his two-run shot in the bottom of the ninth gave the Cardinals a 2-0 victory over Justin Wilson and the Pirates. Kershaw had served only one homer to a left-handed hitter (Bryce Harper) all season before Carpenter reached him in Game 1 and Adams finished him in Game 4. Also, Kershaw had allowed only three homers in his entire career off curveballs, including one hit by Cardinals rookie Randal Grichuk in Game 1.
No wonder Adams said he was not looking for a curveball after he had taken a 93-mph fastball for strike one.
"I have it in the back of my mind that he's got a good one but I'm just looking for a pitch up in the zone," Adams said. "Saw it pop out of his hand and knew it was going to be a good one to swing at."
With his picture-perfect short, sweet swing, he did not miss. Off the bat, Adams thought the ball was gone but "then I saw it flatten out so I had to take off running."
He didn't run far before it landed in the Cardinals bullpen, 386 feet from the plate. Actually, Adams skipped around first base and later said, "I don't think I touched the ground the whole way around the bases."
Back in the dugout, no one was more fired up than A.J. Pierzynski, who said Adams looked right at him on the way to first. Pierzynski bounded out of the dugout and stung the hands high-fiving all three Cardinals who scored on the play plus any other teammates nearby.
"I was on the top step because we had tried changing places to try and score some runs," Pierzynski said. "That was the spot I picked and it worked. We hadn't done anything all game and then we go out and hit a three-run homer off that guy. I was super excited."
Kershaw was anything but. He stood on the mound, back to the plate, head down and body slumped over. He is considered a shoo-in to win another Cy Young Award after leading the NL in ERA and going 21-3 but he can't get past the Cardinals. He has lost more games to the Cardinals (0-4) in his past two postseason series than he lost all season. Like last year, this one also ended the Dodgers' season.
As he did in Game 1, Kershaw dominated for six innings before the game crashed on him. He allowed just three baserunners while striking out nine through six innings, not looking at all like a pitcher working on three instead of four days' rest.
As Dodgers manager Don Mattingly pointed out, the Cardinals' hits that preceded the home run could have been outs. "Holliday hits the ball barely out of reach of (second baseman) Dee (Gordon). Peralta hits the ball and it hits off (shortstop) Hanley (Ramirez's) glove."
Matheny thought even Adams' game-winner might go for an out, at least for a second or two.
"I saw (LA right fielder Matt) Kemp tracking it really well," Matheny said. "It looked like he was right on it. I thought, 'This could be caught.' Then when it cleared the fence, I did pretty much what 45,000 other people did."
They did what they have become accustomed to doing in St. Louis every October. They celebrated yet another trip to the NLCS.
CLICK HERE to check out more pictures from the Cardinals' clubhouse celebration.
You can follow Stan McNeal on Twitter at @StanMcNeal or email him at stanmcneal@gmail.com.
