Yadier Molina's five-game suspension, whether he deserved it or not for his overreaction to some bad umpiring in last Tuesday's wild loss to the Milwaukee Brewers, finally came home to roost a week later, when Molina's understudy, light-hitting backup Gerald Laird, went 2-4 and drove in a run. That's not the usual way this sort of thing comes home to roost, but Laird's defense showed the Cardinals just how much they missed Molina's; a passed ball allowed the Brewers' third run to cross the plate in the sixth inning while a fifth-inning error nearly cost the Cardinals the game early when he loaded the bases with nobody out.
I can only hope Yadier Molina and anybody else in favor of this kind of ostensibly motivational ejection watched Laird's fumbling with as much interest as I did. If you're the starting catcher on a team that's four games back of the division leaders, you cannot afford to be suspended for five games, no matter how bad the umpiring is; if you're more valuable to your team as a motivational tool than a catcher, you shouldn't be starting in the first place.