ST. LOUIS — That is what you call breaking a Cardinal rule.
It will never be known whether Carlos Beltran would have provided ninth-inning heroics for the Cardinals on Sunday night, because Kolten Wong got picked off first base for the game’s final out to leave the All-Star slugger standing at the plate.
Red Sox reliever Koji Uehara fired to first base and caught the brain-locked Wong.
“He was going home, going home, and I got a little too far off and my back foot slipped out,” Wong said after the Cardinals’ 4-2 loss to the Red Sox in Game 4 of the World Series. “He just made a good throw, I slipped, and that’s it.”
Photo: Gifdsports
Wong entered the game as a pinch runner for Allen Craig, who stroked a pinch-hit single with one out in the inning. Craig, who is battling foot and ankle problems, had a difficult enough time reaching first base on his shot off the right-field fence.
Matt Carpenter was then retired for the second out, bringing up Beltran. But with the count 1-1, Wong got picked off.
“I knew I was dead once I went to plant and push off, and I felt nothing go,” Wong said. “My foot slipped out and I was done.’’
So successive World Series games have ended on an obstruction call and pickoff, respectively.