Before the game turned familiarly on the Cardinals, the season did excruciatingly.
A bat fractured Willson Contreras’s left arm in the second inning when J.D. Martinez’s swing and the Cardinals catcher’s forearm collided near the plate. Contreras was reaching in for a slider when Martinez’s bat dropped hard and fast into the middle of his arm and swept up toward the left wrist and mitt.
Contreras’ anguished scream could be heard in the upper deck at Busch Stadium.
One of the Cardinals’ leading offensive players and in many ways their most consistent and most valuable player for the first 35 games of the season, Contreras will miss a lengthy period of time and possibly the remainder of the season due to the fracture. The Cardinals took scans of the injury at the ballpark, though the extent of the damage and specifics of the bones broken were not immediately known. The team said surgery is possible.
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It had been Contreras, of course, who helped the Cardinals take a lead.
It was several innings after his injury that it vanished, too.
Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas faced six Mets batters in the fifth inning and did not get an out. The Mets’ six-run chomp overtook the Cardinals’ early lead and gave them room to survive some late-game threats from the Cardinals on the way to a 7-5 victory at Busch Stadium. Alec Burleson and Lars Nootbaar launched homers in the closing innings to tighten the score. Nootbaar’s came in the ninth and sparked what became a second chance for Paul Goldschmidt. The Cardinals had the tying run on base for him with one out in the ninth when he struck out.
Former Cardinal Adam Ottavino struck out two batters to freeze those baserunners there and close out the game for his first save of the season.
The Cardinals lost their fourth consecutive game, assured they would lose both series in this home stand, and now look at a long stretch without a player who has become more than just a part of the battery – but a furnace of energy, passion, and production.
Contreras writhes in pain
Six batters into the game, Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas had retired four and faced his former college roommate, the Mets new designated hitter J.D. Martinez. Maritnez fouled off a 2-0 fastball, and Mikolas came back to the inside part of the plate with a 2-1 slider.
That was the pitch that brought Martinez’s bat down on Contreras’ arm.
Contreras wheeled immediately away from the plate in clear agony. He eventually sat down near the on-deck circle, where he pinched his eyes shut, stretched out his legs, and the Cardinals’ head athletic trainer braced Contreras’ left arm between his two hands. Contreras has previously injured his left hand and wrist when hit by a pitch that left a deep, lingering bone bruise that bothered him through the season’s first month.
As Contreras has worked to become a better receiver at catcher and steal the low strikes for the Cardinals, he and the club moved him closer to the plate before the 2023 season. This was part of the work he did in his first spring training with the Cardinals, in 2023. This past offseason, while working with his younger brother, Brewers’ catcher William Contreras, the older Contreras adjusted how he held his mitt so that he could better frame pitches. He also did more work from a one-knee down stance.
Throughout the majors, catchers are closing that gap with the plate in an attempt to improve pitch-framing metrics, and there has been a spike in catcher interference calls as a result. In 2022 there were 74 catcher interference calls, according to MLB. In August 2023, there were already 76 catcher interference calls to reset the record, and that number swelled to more than 90. During a game between the younger Contreras’ Brewers and the Dodgers, he was a part of two catcher interference calls with the same batter: Martinez.
Adding error to injury, Martinez received first base on the catcher’s interference and stood there as Contreras winced in pain near the on-deck circle. The inning ended without the Mets taking advantage.
Ivan Herrera replaced Contreras at catcher and had two singles.
At Class AAA Memphis’ game, prospect Pedro Pages was removed for a pinch-hitter as he’ll likely return to ºüÀêÊÓƵ ahead of Wednesday’s game to be the backup catcher. Pages has twice been with the Cardinals already this season and earned trust from the pitching staff with his work during the spring.
Donovan, Cardinals strike fast
Four pitches into the game, Brendan Donovan had his fourth home run and the Cardinals had something they’ve so rarely had in the past week — an early and substantial lead.
A club that has scored three or fewer runs in nearly a third of their games had three runs from their first three batters of the game and a quick 3-0 lead on the Mets and starter Jose Butto. Donovan opened the scoring with his second career leadoff homer. He drilled the fourth pitch he saw into the right-field seats, and the Cardinals pressed on from there. Contreras got immediately involved with his second double in as many games against the Mets.
The team-leader with six home runs, Contreras was in the middle of the Cardinals’ three-run burst to briefly tie Monday night’s game. He provided the only run in Sunday’s loss to the Sox, and while the rest of the lineup has had its fits and starts or just slumps, Contreras has been a steadying presence. He stung a line drive that was hit so hard that it remained elevated, glanced of the left fielder’s glove, and still had the pace to carry to the wall.
The bolt left Contreras bat at 113.1 mph.
That was one of the hardest hits of the season so far for the Cardinals.
Ruled a double, Contreras’ laser moved two runners into scoring position, and both would come around the score. Nolan Arenado’s sacrifice fly scored Lars Nootbaar and Burleson’s first RBI of the game came on a single to score Contreras for a 3-0 lead.
Mets key on Mikolas, obliterate Cards’ lead
Within the first three batters of the fifth inning, that lead had vanished.
Within the first six, it had been overtaken.
And still Mikolas did not have an out.
After being lulled into scoreless innings by the right-hander during four scoreless innings, the Mets keyed on Mikolas quickly in the fifth inning and whipsawed through six consecutive hits before the Cardinals removed their starter from the trouble. Two singles that did not travel farther than the reach of an infielder were followed by three extra-base hits in the next four batters. In its third look at Mikolas, his curveball, and his sequence of pitches, the top of the Mets’ lineup went 4 for 4 with two doubles, a homer, and five RBIs.
A day after winning a game with a solo homer against the Cardinals, Mets leadoff hitter Brandon Nimmo tied the game with a three-run homer that traveled 440 feet.
Alonso’s two-run double chased Mikolas from the game and broke the 3-3 tie to put the Mets ahead. Including Martinez’s RBI single later in the inning off reliever Kyle Leahy, the Mets sent 11 batters to the plate in the decisive fifth inning. Former batting champ Jeff McNeil started the inning with a single and continued it with a single before Leahy could escape.
Golden chance, squandered
In the seventh, Herrrea singled to load the bases and bring the game around to the hitters usually at the top and front and center of the Cardinals’ lineup. With the bases loaded, one out, and a three-run deficit the Cardinals gave Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt each a crack at bringing them back into the game.
Burleson had homered in the sixth to cut into the Mets’ lead.
The tying run was in scoring position for both of the players who finished top three in voting for the 2022 National League MVP. Arenado popped up to an infielder. Goldschmidt, the winner of that MVP and now stuck in a profound funk to start the season, struck out to end the best opportunity the Cardinals had until the game found him again in the ninth.