The critic doesn’t count; however:
Consider the St. Louis Cardinals against the Detroit Tigers.
The game was 3-3 in the bottom of the seventh at Busch Stadium.
Jason Heyward nearly homered down the right field line, just pulling the ball foul. Instead, he doubled down the left field line.
Randal Grichuk hit a double off the top of the wall, but Heyward didn’t score.
How?
Well.
Never mind: Matt Carpenter could always hit a double, too.
He certainly could.
And he faced Tigers pitcher David Price with one out.
But Carpenter just slammed his bat down.
So, Matt Holliday faced reliever Angel Nesbitt with two out, and Heyward still squirming at second.
Holliday slammed his bat down, too.
Next.
In the eighth, after a 1, 2, 3 inning from Kevin Siegrist, the Cardinals tried to loosen the tie again.
Jhonny Peralta walked and advanced to second on a wild pitch.
Pete Kozma, a slightly better bet to score, replaced him.
Mark Reynolds knocked a foul popup down the first base line.
Miguel Cabrera caught it and fired to third.
Kozma tried to advance on the sacrifice.
He didn’t make it.
The next hitter, of course, singled.
Perhaps not. Perhaps not.
In the tenth, Detroit took the lead when J.D. Davis scored on an RBI single by Jose Iglesias.
Iglesias drove in the runner on a two-strike count with two outs.
St. Louis tried to tie it up, at least, in the bottom of the inning.
Holliday led off the 10th with a hit to right.
He hurried to second.
Then he hurried back to the dugout, caught short of the base by the throw from Rajai Davis.
And there wasn’t much left to say about chances after that.
Fans and players had enough.
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