'Only in 2024, man': Arenado stung by bee in glove as Cards fall back to .500

TORONTO -- Sometimes the sting is literal.

Back at .500 and sitting seven games out of a Wild Card spot, the Cardinals were dealt another tough hand on Saturday afternoon, held to just three hits in a 7-2 loss to the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre.

Adding injury to insult, Nolan Arenado starred in one the most bizarre scenes of this unusual Cardinals season. It was the bottom of the eighth, and Arenado was minding his own business at third.

“A bee flew near my ear, I wiped it with my glove and I thought it was gone,” Arenado said. “I put my glove on -- got stung. It was stuck in my glove and it stung me [on] my pinky.”

In a bit of good news, Arenado says he’s fine, nothing that a Benadryl can’t fix. Still, this was a painful first for the 12-year veteran.

Some misfortune is avoidable, some of it is flat-out strange.

“Only in 2024, man,” said Arenado. “This year is -- I don’t know how to describe it. … 2024 has been a trip.”

This wild ride of a season continued with a loss that brought the Cards back to square one, with a 74-74 record and very little time to make up the deficit. No one is waving the white flag yet, but the tone seems to be slowly shifting.

“We’ve got 14 games left,” said Arenado. “You just try to end the year strong and compete. I'm not really looking at the standings, not too worried about it. [We’ll] just try to take care of business, and we'll see where we end up. Obviously, we dug ourselves a hole, and we need [other] teams to play bad for us to get to where we want to go. So at the end of the day, just focus on ourselves, try to end the year strong. That's it.”

Jordan Walker did his part in the third inning, launching a solo homer that left his bat at 104 mph and traveled a Statcast-projected 397 feet to give the Cards an early lead. But that was the one true moment of impact for the offense.

Forget hitting with runners in scoring position; St. Louis managed just three hits in the loss, stifled for seven innings by José Berríos.

A rare error by Masyn Winn in the bottom of the sixth put the game further out of reach.

After giving the Cards five strong innings, Kyle Gibson ran into trouble and loaded the bases with one out. He got the ground ball he needed against Ernie Clement in the next at-bat, but Winn’s throw to home plate came up a bit short, and catcher Pedro Pagés couldn’t handle it. That allowed the first of four unearned runs to score, an awkward blemish in Gibson’s campaign.

“I thought Gibby gave us a shot,” said manager Oliver Marmol. “ … Our best chance to keep [Clement] on the ground for a double play would be Gibby there. He gets the ground ball. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go our way at the plate.”

Gibson exited immediately after that, tabbed for five runs (one earned) on four hits and three walks over 5 1/3 innings as Ryan Fernandez -- so reliable for so much of this season -- struggled to keep the Blue Jays in check for the rest of the sixth.

It’d be futile to project how different the game could have looked had that play at the plate been made, especially since Riley O’Brien allowed two more runs to score in the following frame.

Besides, Winn has been as impressive as they come at shortstop. This was just one of those days.

“Another tough one, to be honest with you,” said Marmol.