Levine: Cubs-Cards Scrap Takes Form Of Hard Slides In Final Matchup
By Bruce Levine--
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The beanball war of the two prior two games subsided for the Cubs and Cardinals on Sunday.
That didn't mean the two clubs were at peace with each other, though, as St. Louis left town with a 5-4 win.
Hard slides into Cubs position players Addison Russell and Tommy LaStella replaced the inside pitch for retaliation of what occurred the previous days. Both middle infielders were taken out on force plays by aggressive Cardinal base runners.
Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina, who suffered a thumb injury on a hard slide by at the plate by Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo in the eighth inning, took out Russell with an overzealous slide of his own at second base in the second inning. Molina apologized to Russell.
"He said, 'I am sorry, my bad,'" Russell said. "He said he was looking down and the bag was on him. I think it was a clean play, anyway. I didn't get hurt. He didn't get hurt. No hard feelings."
On Friday, Rizzo was hit twice. Sandwiched between those, Cardinals outfielder Matt Holliday left the game when he was hit in the head with a pitch. Cardinals right-hander Matt Belisle was ejected for hitting Rizzo in the seventh inning, and manager Mike Matheny was booted with him.
Cubs left-hander Jon Lester, who took the loss Sunday, noted that the weekend full of hard, in-your-face baseball is what the game is all about.
"The inside pitches are what they are," Lester said after seeing his record drop to 10-11. "Their guys pitched in, we pitch in. You have to. You have to pitch in."
On Saturday, the classic rivalry reached a fever pitch. Cubs right-hander Hector Rondon was ejected for hitting Cardinals pinch-hitter Greg Garcia in the ninth inning. Cubs manager Joe Maddon was ejected too. Three St Louis players were hit in that game.
"I love hard baseball," Lester insisted. "I didn't see anything in this series (that was bad). The hard slide breaking up double plays, guys going hard into second, I don't see any problems with that. That is the way baseball should be played. That is the way it's been played for the last 100 years."
An inside pitch in the seventh inning Sunday from starter Carlos Martinez nicked Cubs pinch-hitter Starlin Castro. An appeal of the pitch by Maddon resulted in a reversal of the call and Castro getting first base after he initially wasn't ruled to have been hit.
The Cardinals won the third game of the series in large part because outfielder Jason Heyward threw Rizzo out at the plate to preserve St. Louis' lead in the eighth inning on the aforementioned play in which Molina was banged up. That helped give the Cardinals a commanding six-game lead over the Cubs in the NL Central. Both teams have 13 games remaining on the schedule, with no head-to-head matchups. St. Louis won the season series 11-8.
The Cubs will now have to focus on the Pirates, who they trail by two games for the first wild-card entry into the playoffs. Chicago has three games remaining with Pittsburgh next weekend at Wrigley Field. The Cubs have the tiebreaker over Pittsburgh in the event the two teams end up with the same record.
Russell and his teammates feel they have earned a new baseball maturity in the past week while beating the Cardinals four times in six games.
"They are the head guys in our league now," Russell said of the Cardinals. "I think we can play with them. We challenged them as well. It was a great game all around. We are going to have to use the bats a little more, to be more successful."
Bruce Levine covers the Cubs and White Sox for 670 The Score and CBSChicago.com. Follow him on Twitter @MLBBruceLevine.
