Is this Baseball Heaven? No, it's the playoffs

The longest ninth inning in the lives of most Cardinal fans makes Saturday's Game 2 a must.

On Tuesday night Ryan Helsley pitched an inning, or attempted to, against the glorified minor league team in Pittsburgh.

His fastball broke the bat of Ji Hwan Bae, who lined it back to Helsley. But when the Cardinals’ closer tried to balance himself, his hand brushed hard against the turf. He suffered a jammed finger on his pitching hand. Somehow he wasn’t serious enough to keep manager Oliver Marmol (pictured) from throwing Helsley into the eighth inning of Friday’s Game 1 of the Wild Card series.

Later, after the slow-motion nervous breakdown in the ninth inning that gave Philadelphia six runs and a 6-2 win, it seemed relevant to point out that it was a middle finger.

St. Louis is Baseball Heaven, where the Cardinals either win or bravely throw themselves at the finish line. Baseball is a spiritual thing in St. Louis, and it can be sentimental, too. It’s a place where 40 years olds get proper farewells, not requests to turn in their ID badges. Albert Pujols and Yadier Pujols are both saying goodbye in this postseason, and maybe Adam Wainwright is too. As the Cardinals took a 2-0 lead into the ninth, it was time to daydream of future matchups, jersey retirements, parades by the Gateway Arch….

Instead the Cardinals came unglued, and you almost expected Bob Gibson’s picture to come off the outfield wall and start screaming.

Helsley got the final two outs of the eighth inning and then came out for the ninth, which was not something he was used to. He had earned the closer sword by living at 100 mph, and putting up numbers that just don’t belong together: 64 2/3 innings, 28 hits, a 1.25 ERA, an 0.742 WHIP, and 94 strikeouts. He was also tightrope-walking without a net Friday, because Marmol had already used Jordan Hicks and Giovanny Gallegos. By the way, how’s that finger again?

Helsley struck out Rhys Hopkins before the gremlins invaded. J.T. Realmuto singled. Bryce Harper, who hasn’t been a difficult opponent since his thumb surgery, worked a walk when Helsley misssed on a breaking ball. Then Nick Castellanos almost won the Purple Heart by enduring a couple of up-and-in speedballs, and loading the bases with another walk.

When Helsley drilled Alec Bohm in the shoulder to bring in Realmuto, it dawned on someone that perhaps there was a problem. Trainers rubbed Helsley’s hand, and he tried a warmup pitch. He then came out, at least two batters after he should have, but what were the options now? Marmol went with rookie Andre Pallante instead of Jack Flaherty, the former Cy Young Award contender who has been hurt most of the season.

At that point the rest of the Cardinals conspired to push the game out of reach. Tommy Edman couldn’t handle a grounder by Jean Segura. First baseman Paul Goldschmmidt couldn’t throw out pinch-runner Armundo Sosa at the plate, a classic playoff irony, since the Cardinals had dealt Sosa to the Phillies in the summer. (Points go to Phils’ manager Rob Thomson for inserting Sosa for Bohm.)

With no one else warming up, Pallante blinked like everyone else in Busch when Nolan Arenado, perhaps the best defensive third baseman since Mike Schmidt, muffed a bouncer by Brandon Marsh. A sacrifice fly made it 6-2.

Marmol said he picked Pallante because he sought a double play. He might have gone with Flaherty if he’d preferred a strikeout. But he began pulling the threads when he had replaced starter Jose Quintana, who had been the Cardinals’ best starter and had thrown only 75 pitches when he was lifted with one out in the sixth.

That’s modern baseball, of course, except that four other starting pitchers during Friday’s playoff quadruple-header went at least seven innings. Jordan Hicks, who throws as hard as Helsley, got the second and third outs in the sixth, then left in favor of Gallegos.

Welcome to playoff baseball, Mr. Marmol, where everyone has at least two guesses except you.

He was promoted last winter when the Cardinals fired Mike Schildt, supposedly because Schildt wasn’t comfortable with some of the coaching hires. Last year there was a one-game wild card playoff, and it took Chris Taylor’s ninth inning home run to boost the Dodgers over the Cardinals. St. Louis got to that point with a 17-game win streak, a franchise high.

It was an unforeseen bonus for skeptical Phillies fans, who were just regaining their breath after Philadelphia eliminated Milwaukee in the final week. Here, Thomson lifted Zack Wheeler from an utterly dominant two-hit shutout with one out in the seventh. Then pinch-hitter Juan Yepez swatted a 2-run homer off Zack Alvarado, and Thomson went looking for some Kevlar to use in the postgame interviews.

Instead, Aaron Nola can pitch the Phillies to a series victory Saturday night. That would elevate Thomson’s story, the triumph of the organization man. The Phillies are 55-46 since he took over for Joe Girardi, but he spent most of his career as one of the heartbeats of the Yankee organization, developing players and overseeing spring training. Along the way he became a favorite of George Steinbrenner, which is why, he joked, that these playoffs really don’t bring much pressure.

Road teams were 3-1 on Friday, and they’ll remain road teams for the duration of the series. Helsley visited a hospital for treatment Friday night. The Cardinals are far from done, of course, but another loss will make this the Autumn of the Finger in St. Louis, referring to the one next to the one that wears the ring.