The St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates seem to think that it is still spring training.
During Wednesday’s game between the two NL Central teams, they combined for the most embarrassing sequence of the 2025 season thus far. With the score knotted at 0-0 in the eighth inning, Cardinals first baseman Willson Contreras stepped up to the plate with runners at first and second and two outs.
Contreras hit a towering infield fly that look certain to end the inning on the spot. But disaster struck for the Pirates as first baseman Endy Rodriguez failed to communicate with catcher Joey Bart and ended up running smack into him, allowing the ball to drop in the infield.
Fortunately for Pittsburgh though, they were let off the hook by an even dumber play by Cardinals lead runner Thomas Saggese. While watching the play unfold, Saggese wasn’t running particularly hard as he made it past third base and towards the plate, slowing down as Rodriguez and Bart collided. Saggese then slowly and very awkwardly manuevered around the pile-up, which allowed Pirates third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes to pick up the loose ball and tag Saggese out at home.
Here is the video of the slapstick-comedy play (in which Rodriguez and Bart were both ultimately OK).
Though Saggese obviously wasn’t expecting a Three Stooges routine to unfold (and also had a big hurdle blocking his running lane), he still likely would have scored there had he been hustling all the way from second base. As for the Pirates, Rodriguez is primarily a catcher who is only now starting to see time at first base this season. He still clearly has a lot to learn at his new position.
The game would end up going into extra innings, but Pittsburgh earned their redemption as Bart hit a walk-off single in the bottom of the 13th to give the Pirates the 2-1 win. That said, plays like this have become par for the course in Pittsburgh as the Pirates have even been finding ways to mess up home-run trots this season.
