Rain Must Fall: Game 4 of the 2015 NLDS
The game that made me consider converting to Calvinism
Each Monday and Friday throughout April, we will review the worst losses the Cardinals experienced from 1996-2016. Up next: Being eliminated by the Cubs in 2015.
Do you ever go back and watch old games?
I do. I’ll stay up late. All the world asleep but me, texting my friends paeans about Albert Pujols swing or lamentations about Pedro Borbon, Jr.
It provides this feeling of omniscience. You are watching fifty thousand people on the edge of their seats, and out of all of them you are the only one that knows how it ends. I like to watch for that moment, when the crowd realizes what they’re watching, where they are brought in on the secret with me. But there is also hopelessness. Time doesn’t change the ending. For as much as you hope this time will be different, it never is.
Like when Stephen Piscotty hits a two run homer in the first inning of Game 4 of the 2015 NLDS. I abdicate my omniscience and allow a small glint of hope to rush over me. Maybe it will be different this time. Maybe this game will restore order and not be the marker that the end of the run was nigh, if not already here.
But then, Jason Hammel, the Cubs pitcher, singles in a run with two outs in the bottom of the second. John Lackey still screams at Tony Cruz for calling for a breaking ball instead of a fastball after Hammel’s RBI single. Javier Baez still erases the one run deficit on the very next fastball Lackey throws, replacing it with a two run Cubs lead.
As I listen to the fans in attendance patronizingly chant “Lack-ey,” it becomes obvious that this won’t be different. That sliver of optimism doesn’t reappear again, not even when the Cardinals fight back to tie the game at four in the top of the sixth. Not even when Cruz rounds third base following Brandon Moss’ pinch hit single. No matter how many times I watch, I know the replay will still confirm that Miguel Montero tagged Cruz before he tagged the plate.
No, any hope has been snuffed by the predetermination of it all. What good does it do to get upset that Anthony Rizzo homers in the bottom of the sixth? There will be no comeback, no reprieve for what is about to happen. So, instead I begin day dreaming, wondering if Calvinists feel less dread than others. It should be liberating, right, to know that the die has already been cast and nothing you can do will change the outcome?
I refocus when Kyle Schwarber leads off the bottom of the seventh. As Siegrist prepares to throw a 1-1 fastball right down the middle of the plate, I close my eyes and one last time hope that something’s changed. That my memory has failed me.
It has not. Schwarber still swings and he still doesn’t miss. The ball climbs and climbs, higher and higher, as the crowd’s reaction transforms from pure excitement to utter incredulity at where the ball ultimately lands – lodged comfortably on the top of the scoreboard 419 feet away from home plate.
Two innings later, Piscotty strikes out to end the game, the fifteenth (15th!!!) Cardinal to suffer such fate on the day. The fans at Wrigley are rocking – due to no merit of their own mind you – reveling in salvation and euphoria.
Next year was going to come eventually. It was always going to happen. But it was still startling. It wasn’t just that the Cubs were good – they’d been good before. It wasn’t just that they were better than the Cardinals – they’d been better than the Cardinals before. It wasn’t necessarily that they beat the Cardinals in the playoffs, it was how they beat them. Beat them so thoroughly that there was no question, no debate. They were better and the way Games 2 through 4 ended, it seemed like they were going to be better for a long, long time.
In just punishment for our sins, we have been deemed the damned.
