Since meeting in the 2013 National League Championship Series, there’s been little love lost between the Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals. The Dodgers entered that postseason series with plenty of momentum, only for it to get cracked on a Joe Kelly fastball to Hanley Ramirez’s ribs.
Ramirez, the Dodgers’ seemingly unstoppable force at the time, was never the same, and neither was the club’s offense. Ramirez and Yasiel Puig were magnets for pitches from the Cardinals staff during a July series the following season, which prompted Clayton Kershaw to plunk Matt Holliday.
Los Angeles and St. Louis met again in October, though in the NL Division Series, and with the Dodgers holding home field advantage. Tempers flared in Game 1 after Adam Wainwright hit Puig with a pitch in the third inning.
Adrian Gonzalez and Yadier Molina needed to be separated as they exchanged words, and both benches emptied. The Cardinals once more went on to eliminate the Dodgers from postseason play.
Los Angeles took two of three from St. Louis over their weekend series, in what was the first meeting between the clubs this season. While tensions didn’t boil over, Molina believed Scott Kazmir was tipping Corey Seager off during the Dodgers’ win on Saturday, according to Jack Baer and Jenifer Langosch of MLB.com:
Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina was irritated in the fifth inning when he was not granted time by home-plate umpire Adam Hamari while Martinez battled against Seager with the bases loaded. The reason? Molina suspected that Kazmir, who was standing on second, was relaying the signs to Seager. Hamari did not grant the request, and Martinez went on to throw a changeup, which Seager lined for an RBI single. Martinez said afterward that the unsuccessful stoppage of play caused him to “lose some concentration.”
This isn’t the first instance in which a club was thought to be stealing signs during a Cardinals-Dodgers game. Given the Cardinals’ success against Clayton Kershaw during the playoffs in 2013 and 2014, there were whispers they committed the same act Molina suspected Kazmir of.
Kershaw and A.J. Ellis, among others, dismissed that notion, and gave the Cardinals their due. St. Louis was also at the center of a scandal when a former scouting director pleaded guilty to hacking a Houston Astros database.
