9th-inning rally by the Phillies to open the wild card

Saint Louis The longest current streak in the big leagues was achieved by Jean Segura, whose career extended 11 seasons and 1,328 games before he at last made it to the postseason. The second baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies hardly slept the night before his first postseason game. At 7 a.m., he “woke up with adrenaline in my body.” As Friday dragged on, that edge persisted.

I was mentally focused on every play and pitch, Segura alleged. “I only give God praise for everything working in my favour. I came prepared to play a game today, and to be able to be here.”

Segura snuck a grounder past a slightly drawn-in infield in the first game of their best-of-three wild-card series, helping the Phillies to an unlikely 6-3 victory and putting them on the verge of advancing into the National League Division Series with the bases loaded, one out, and the game still tied at one in the top of the ninth inning with the St. Louis Cardinals are rushing to find a replacement for their ailing closer.

With a 2-0 lead going into the bottom of the ninth inning with strong support from Jose Quintana and an exhilarating pinch-hit home run by Juan Yepez, the Cardinals had every reason to think they would win Game 1. Their lights-out closer, Ryan Helsley, was starting for them at home in front of a packed-out Busch Stadium crowd.

When leading by many runs going into the ninth inning, the Cardinals were 93-0 in playoff history. In contrast, the Phillies struggled during the regular season, going 0-54. They ended up scoring six times, which is a playoff record for a team down going into the ninth. Their runs didn’t include any difficult contact.

With the bases loaded, Alec Bohm was intentionally hit, Brandon Marsh hit a fly ball that sailed past Nolan Arenado’s glove, Kyle Schwarber delivered a sacrifice fly, and Bryson Stott scored after Paul Goldschmidt made a diving catch on his grounder but threw it late to first base.

The most runs were scored by Segura, who lunged at a slider that was low and away from Andre Pallante and smashed a four-hopper to the right side that slipped by a sprawled Tommy Edman who was playing slightly in to take into consideration Segura’s speed. The Cardinals received a grounder that might have turned into a game-ending double play but was hit just a tiny bit too far to the right since they had a ground ball pitcher facing a ground ball batter.

That’s just kind of how the inning went, Arenado said, It wasn’t working out for us.

And it all seems to have started with Helsley’s right middle finger, which he jammed in the last game of the regular season while assembling himself for a fielding play. Helsley threw a few pitches off the mound at the Cardinals’ workout on Thursday, and although acknowledging that his finger was a little sore, he assured them that he would be prepared to end games in the postseason.

With one on and one out in the eighth, Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol turned to Helsley and watched as he dispatched Marsh and Schwarber with ease. But Marmol noted that Helsley “started to lose a little bit of feel for his deliveries” shortly after the ninth inning started.

Helsley, who has become one of the most powerful closers in the game this season, started to miss deep beyond the strike zone and ultimately only threw nine of his 23 pitches for strikes in the ninth inning. After J.T. Realmuto singled with one out, Bryce Harper and Nick Castellanos both got walks, the latter on pitches that were either extremely high and inside or extremely low and outside. Pallante and Jack Flaherty were already warming up in the bullpen for the Cardinals at that moment. Bohm would be Helsley’s final at-bat, and Helsley struck him with a 101 ft shoulder.mph fastball in the le