ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Five Gold Glove winners on one MLB team is really, really good. In fact, it's historic. But it wasn't enough in 2021 in the opinion of some St. Louis Cardinals players.
On Sunday night, they became the first in MLB history to have five GG winners on the same team: Paul Goldschmidt at first, Tommy Edman at second, Nolan Arenado at third, Tyler O'Neill in left and Harrison Bader in center.
Catcher Yadier Molina, the owner of nine GGs and four Platinum Gloves (awarded to the best overall defender), was named a finalist, but didn't win. Pittsburgh Pirates catcher Jacob Stallings took it home this year.
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Young Cards ace Jack Flaherty wasn't too pleased to see it and let his frustrations be known on Twitter. First, he said, "lol we should’ve DEFINITELY won all 6"
Then, a few minutes later, he sent another tweet with a more visual representation of his disapproval. A desk-flipping GIF:
As tongue-in-cheek as he may have been. He wasn't the only one to be disappointed. Bader, in talking to media after his first career GG win, said Yadi not winning was the biggest bummer of the night.
"For (Molina) not to win it definitely does sting a little bit. There’s no doubt about it,” Bader said. "I know with absolute certainty that Yadi’s a Gold Glover every single second of every day that there’s a baseball game."
When putting teammate bias aside, it may not be much of an upset at all for Stallings to win. Stallings had 21 defensive runs saved, which were tied for the most by any player at any position in baseball. He also was on the only catcher to not allow a passed ball all season.
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But Molina, with a very much underperforming pitching staff due to injuries, still helped carry St. Louis to the playoffs. And he did stuff like this, so yeah, we can understand why Bader and Flaherty would be disappointed:
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