'We didn't give in': Cards bring heat with late rally, wild walk-off win

ST. LOUIS -- Last fall, when Nolan Arenado first got wind of the Cardinals’ plans to reset the roster and train their focus more on building than contending, the eight-time All-Star made it clear while surveying the MLB landscape that he wanted to play for a club that was both desperate to win every day and relentless regardless of the situation.

As it turns out, such a team full of resolve and grit has materialized with St. Louis -- and the suddenly surging Arenado has become a driving force behind the club’s stirring season.

Just days after reaching the 350-homer plateau, Arenado smashed a game-tying ninth-inning home run and then celebrated in the 11th as unlikely hero Yohel Pozo singled in Jordan Walker for his first walk-off hit in a 6-5 win over the rival Reds on Saturday afternoon at Busch Stadium.

It was the Cardinals’ 19th come-from-behind win of the season and their third time doing so when trailing after seven innings. To win their fifth straight game, the Cards used 12 position players and six relievers, and they scored two runs in the eighth inning, one in the ninth and one in the 11th.

That sort of resolve spoke volumes to Arenado, who continues to be impressed with the pluckiness and grit of a youth-filled St. Louis club.

“It was such a hot day -- the hottest day we played at home in awhile and it was pretty uncomfortable out there, but we stayed with it and we didn’t give in,” said Arenado, who hit a 1-0 cutter from Emilio Pagán over the left-field wall for his 10th home run of the season to knot the game at 5. “It feels like we just do a great job of not giving in. To fight back against those great arms, it was great by us.”

The Cardinals won on a day where they blew an early 2-0 lead and came out on top despite Reds superstar Elly De La Cruz hitting a massive go-ahead two-run home run in the seventh inning. St. Louis got within striking distance by converting four straight two-out hits in the eighth inning to pull within one at 5-4. Then, Arenado continued to be one of the Cards' hottest hitters with the ninth-inning clout, No. 351 in a likely Hall of Fame career.

“He’s feeling it and it’s showing,” manager Oliver Marmol said of Arenado, who is 19-for-56 (.339) with four home runs and 10 RBIs over his last 15 games. “The emotion that he showed coming across the plate there, that’s what he’s all about. It fires everybody up -- you can tell the crowd got into it and our dugout got into it. That’s what he brings and he’s in a really good spot at the moment.”

The Cardinals are certainly in a good spot, having won five games in a row in the early stages of a stretch where they will play 10 times against NL Central rivals over a 13-game period. They won on Saturday because of plays like the one in the third inning where veteran pitcher Sonny Gray backed up third on a De La Cruz triple and threw the speedster out at home after the baseball squirted away.

“I feel like I’ve said it numerous times, but today was hot and we could have laid down and given up, and that’s not what happened,” said Gray, who limited the Reds to one run over five innings. “That’s a huge game to win. You look back and you remember games like that.”

The Cards also won because of calming relief pitching from Phil Maton, who pitched for a third straight game and struck out three Reds with the potential go-ahead run at third in the top of the 11th inning. And in the bottom half, Pozo hit a ball well off the plate to right field for a hit that allowed Walker to hustle home from second and slide in ahead of the tag.

“We’re never out of it and we know that we can string together at-bats against anybody, and that’s what we did,” said Alec Burleson, who hit a two-run homer in the first inning and drove in a third run during a two-run rally in the eighth.

It was the kind of stirring win that showed Arenado the Cardinals have become just the kind of gritty and resilient team he was desperate to play for in 2025.

“We’re going to have to continue to do it as a team, because we’re not built on a few guys; we’re built on everyone having to contribute,” Arenado said. “Our pitchers are doing a great job. Maton did an unbelievable job and [Ryan Helsley] is getting back into form. And, as an offense, we fought back, and it was great to see that.”