"This Is On Me"--Kolten Wong

(Busch Stadium) As has been the case before this season, the St. Louis Cardinals showed the ability to keep battling in a game, but eventually there were just too many mistakes for them to overcome. Following tonight’s 7-5 loss to Milwaukee in 11 innings, Kolten Wong took the blame.

“I’m not happy with how I played today,” said Wong. “Obviously, been playing well the past couple–I don’t know how long, but it is what it is. It’s one of those bad games you have to understand what you did wrong and then forget about it. I told the teammates as soon as I got in here, hey guys this is on me. I made some mistakes that I shouldn’t be making, but I’m going to turn it around. I’m going to keep going to my process and keep doing what I’ve got to do.”

In particular, Wong was disappointed with not making a play to start the 10th inning, as he was unable to make a catch and then rushed his throw–causing Matt Carpenter to fall away from first to make the stop. Travis Shaw later homered in the inning to give Milwaukee the go ahead runs to stay.

“Line drive was hit at me, I’ve got to make that play,” said Wong. “Anything that hits my glove, I’ve got to catch it. Somehow, caught, the ball got out of my glove. I think panic kind of took over–which I’ve kind of prided myself this year on not panicking. It was one of those, I’ve got to settle down and understand I’ve still got time to make a play. I didn’t.”

It was the second mistake of the game for Wong, who was caught at third base to end the 6th inning on a Matt Adams single to center.

With the location of the ball still deep when he was rounding second, Wong wasn’t just thinking about going to third but coming home to score. So with his head down he was at full speed heading to third and didn’t pick up the stop from third base coach Chris Maloney, who initially was waving him to go, until it was too late. Then he slipped trying to stop and return to the bag.

“Yeah, lose my feet and I didn’t see Hammer until real late,” said Wong. “He was kind of down the line a little bit. I didn’t really see him until the end and when I tried to stop, my feet went out from under me.”

But Wong gained some redemption two innings later as he singled off Jonathan Villar to bring home Stephen Piscotty to tie the game 4-4. He then had the error in the 10th inning.

“I just want to remind all of us, I’ve answered probably 50 questions here in the last three days about how good this he’s been playing,” pointed out Mike Matheny. “This kid’s been playing really good baseball. He’s been running the bases very well. He’s been playing good defense. He’s been a spark for us offensively. It’s one of those days. He’s going to let that go and he’s going to come back and he’s going to be the same sort of player that we’ve been complimenting for days. You’re going to have days like this. You gotta get them out of your head.”

“He pulled me aside right away, that’s something–I really respect that,” shared Wong. “He kind of pulled me aside and told me I’d been playing really well and to forget about this game. Obviously, I’m not going to forget about it, but I know how to manage it better and understand I can’t let that game speed up on me like I did today.”

–Jedd Gyorko had a pair of home runs in the game, the 5th multi-HR game of his career.

photo credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports