Paul Goldschmidt stood this past October in the dugout at Busch Stadium, watching the zeroes collect on the scoreboard and unable to stop the minutes rapidly vanishing from the Cardinals’ season. He was a month away from the coronation of his season as the most valuable in the National League and that affirmation of the best individual season of his career, and yet as the Phillies drained the last out from the ’22 Cardinals, Goldschmidt felt a far different sensation.
That had to be the worst way for a season to end.
“That hurt; I’m not going to lie,” Goldschmidt said this past month while sitting outside the Cardinals’ spring training clubhouse.