Cardinals C Molina out of lineup for Game 4 of NLDS

Yadier Molina was a late scratch from Tuesday’s NLDS Game 4 lineup, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. Russell suffered a hamstring injury during the Cubs’ 8-6 victory in Game 3 of the best-of-five series on Monday night.

Molina sprained his left thumb when Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo slid into his glove during a game September 20, and did not play again in the regular season. Though Molina had hoped to be ready for Tuesday’s elimination game, the Cardinals pulled him about two hours before game time and put Tony Cruz in the lineup in his place.

Molina, who was 0 for 2 in the game, was pinch hit for by Brandon Moss in the top of the sixth inning with the Cubs leading 5-4.

Manager Mike Matheny said Molina is having no problems catching and could do that without a problem if Cruz got hurt. The catcher is playing with an injured left thumb, and has been wearing a customized splint while catching along with another device for hitting.

“Don’t know yet”, Matheny said last night. If something happened in this game and we needed a catcher to come in, it would be Yadi, and we’d be all right with that. “… At this point doctors are comfortable he can tolerate it, it’s just really hard for him to swing the bat”. He also didn’t rule out Molina for a potential Game 5.

Javier Baez was penciled in at shortstop to replace Russell for Game 4.