MILWAUKEE _ After several days where the Cardinals agitated the news cycle with off-field action _ or lack thereof _ catcher Yadier Molina shared a game worth a 1,000 words.
Molina hit two home runs, guided Luke Weaver through his longest start in the majors, and gave the Cardinals enough of a start to hold on for a 5-4 victory against Milwaukee on Wednesday. Kolten Wong's two-run double at Miller Park provided the needed gap to assure Weaver a win and reward Molina's snapshots.
The second-place Brewers got a two-run homer in the eighth inning to narrow the score and force the Cardinals to go to closer Trevor Rosenthal for a four-out save. The right-hander retired all four batters he faced for his sixth save of the season. Weaver threw a career-best 61/3 innings and struck out eight, and with Rosenthal's clinch was able to pitch the Cardinals back to the brink of .500. The third-place Cardinals (53-54) will try for a sixth time in the past two months to break even on the season and emerge from a losing record.
That has fed some of the frustration swirling around the team.
In the days leading up to and after the trade deadline, Molina used Instagram to defend himself against comments his manager made, to muse about being one of the few players left from the 2011 World Series team, and to reminisce about coach Jose Oquendo, who is no longer with the major league team.
Molina explained his first post on Instagram and said that if he was tired or felt fatigued that he would say so himself, and that he trained to play a "champion" workload.
His other two photos, whether they were pointed nostalgia or just nostalgia, he declined to detail. Team officials said Molina's public statements were not ideal, but left it at that.
Molina had more to say.
Frustrated that he didn't change a recent game at the plate, Molina has seized on the series in Milwaukee. He had an RBI single to produce half of the Cardinals' runs on Tuesday, and the second time he saw the Brewers' starter, lefty Brent Suter, he took advantage Wednesday. Molina got a one-out homer into the Cardinals' right-field bullpen in the fourth inning, and two innings later he drilled a solo homer into the left-field seats. The multi-homer game was his second of the season and the fourth of his career.
Molina contributed to the Cardinals' first run with a double in the second inning, and Wong expanded the lead with his double in the sixth. The veritable gush of runs gave Weaver (1-1) a 5-1 lead going into the bottom of the seventh inning.
While a single pitch led to all the runs against Weaver in his start last week against Arizona, it was walks leading up to that grand slam that revealed how the right-hander had to adjust to the major league level.
Able to challenge and test hitters in Class AAA with strikes, Weaver has repeatedly in big-league starts strayed away from the strike zone. He tests the edges of it, and there are times when he fires a breaking ball purposefully out of the zone and sees a major league hitter ignore it when a Class AAA hitter would flail after it. In his loss to the Diamondbacks, he referred to one of his pitches that came before the grand slam as a "big-league take" by Paul Goldschmidt.
"A guy who is going to throw 100-plus pitches _ one usually isn't actually the one that made the difference," manager Mike Matheny said before Weaver's start Wednesday. "(He's) pitching guys carefully. When you get to the middle of the order like that Arizona team you realize that it could be one pitch. That can't give you the fear of actually hitting the strike zone. I think it's rewiring (his approach), making quality pitches in the strike zone, and getting guys out. Then knowing when to expand.
"That's all in the process of growth," Matheny said. "When he puts it all together he's going to have a real nice career."
He put it together enough to have a real nice night.
The second batter of the game, imported slugger Eric Thames, hit a 93-mph fastball for a solo homer and the first run of the game. Weaver did not shrink from there. He didn't side with finesse. He remained aggressive. The next batter, former MVP Ryan Braun, grounded out. After that, third baseman Travis Shaw went after an elevated fastball that zipped by him at 96-mph. Weaver kept with it. In the second inning, he got a groundout and two more strikeouts.
Thames' homer was one of only two hits against Weaver in the first 51/3 innings. By the end of the fourth inning, Weaver had struck out each of the Brewers' Nos. 2-7 batters at least once each. He struck out Thames in each of his two at-bats after the homer.
When Weaver did invite trouble it was only with a little help. A throwing error in the fifth inning and a walk to the No. 8 hitter put Weaver in a wobbly spot. The Brewers aided him by Suter bunt the baserunners into scoring position. Given the escape hatch, Weaver went back to the strike zone and got a quick groundout.
He did that repeatedly.
In the sixth, the Brewers again got two runners on base due to Weaver's second and final walk, but he came back with a strikeout. Catcher Manny Pina saw five pitches, four of them fastballs. And he missed on a 95-mph one that tickled the lower edge of the strike zone.
