Padres’ Mike Shildt reunites with Cardinals, this time as an opposing manager

SAN DIEGO — From his signing as a skinny Aruban teenager to a free agency that ended with the San Diego Padres easily outbidding his former team, Xander Bogaerts spent 13 years in the Boston Red Sox organization. One of the infielder’s first instructors in professional baseball, current Padres hitting coach Victor Rodriguez, spent 23 seasons working for the Red Sox before Boston dismissed manager John Farrell and informed Farrell’s coaches they were free to seek work elsewhere.

So, perhaps as much as any Padres player, Bogaerts could relate to how Mike Shildt felt as he prepared to manage his first game against a St. Louis Cardinals organization that employed him for 18 years.

“I don’t know if he’ll say it. (But) I know. I know,” Bogaerts said Monday afternoon inside the Padres’ clubhouse. “This one, yeah. I mean, he doesn’t need to say it. But yeah.

“Listen, he’s been there for a long time. Same with Victor. Victor was with the Red Sox for over 20 years. You can imagine when he played them for the first time, he felt some type of way. That happens when you’re lucky enough to be in baseball a long time.”

As Bogaerts spoke, Shildt happened to walk by on his way out of the room. Several minutes later, before his seventh game as Padres manager, Shildt sat in the home dugout at Petco Park surrounded by familiar reporters. In a few hours, he would make the trek to home plate to exchange lineup cards and shake hands with the opposing manager, a routine he had gone through countless times. This time, though, he would line up against an organization he thought he’d never leave.

Shildt did leave St. Louis, of course, and it happened in unceremonious fashion. Less than a week after the Cardinals were eliminated from the 2021 postseason, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak abruptly fired Shildt on a brief phone call, then declined to publicly detail the reasoning behind the move.

They say good things come in 3s.

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More than two years later, Mozeliak still has not spoken in depth about that decision, even though it’s clear the two men parted on less-than-friendly terms.

“I look at it as a baseball game,” Mozeliak said in a radio interview Sunday, when asked about the Cardinals’ upcoming series against Shildt. “I don’t know what else you want me to say. It’s a business, and ultimately I have faith in Oli and what he’s doing. … I don’t think you go into it with some sort of preset agenda because of who’s managing or who you’re competing against.”

Still, there is no denying Shildt’s sentiments behind this series. He’s grateful for a second chance with a new team, but the impact of his old organization will stay with him forever.

“It’s a lot of what my fabric is, just about playing the game the right way,” Shildt said before Monday’s series opener. “I had some people in my life that I can get emotional thinking about and talking about them because they mean the world to me. Any time you have people in your life that care about you and your genuine best interest beyond their own self-interest and career, it’s pretty special.”

As he listed the names — George Kissell, Mark DeJohn, Tony La Russa, Dave McKay and José Oquendo, to name a handful — Shildt’s eyes began to water. His voice wavered as he reflected on an organization that crafted his career, an organization he thought he’d be a part of for the rest of his life.

“There’s emotions,” Shildt said. “I’m not gonna kid you. I’m human. A lot of really good years, a lot of gratitude for my time in St. Louis. A lot of tremendous relationships. A lot of growth took place there, a lot of off-the-field personal, professional growth. I owe a lot to a lot of people in that organization. I can’t say enough about my 18 years there, and I did everything I could to reward the confidence they had in giving me opportunities.”

It’s been two and a half years since Shildt was axed by St. Louis. The decision blindsided both Shildt and the Cardinals fan base; Mozeliak offered no explanation other than vaguely terming “philosophical differences” as the ultimate reason for Shildt’s departure.

Never mind that Shildt’s 2021 Cardinals team had rattled off a franchise-record 17 consecutive wins in September to reach the playoffs, or that Shildt eventually would finish third in National League Manager of the Year voting. Mozeliak had not planned on making a managerial change at the end of the season. In fact, he had been mulling the idea of an extension.

But after holding a series of end-of-season meetings, it became clear that Shildt was not as aligned with the organization as Mozeliak believed. Shildt still was shocked when Mozeliak called and fired him. He cried on a video call with reporters when reflecting on his lengthy career with the organization, quipping “There’s no crying in baseball” before issuing his official departing statements.

Ten days later, St. Louis hired Oli Marmol — Shildt’s former bench coach — to be the next manager. Shildt and Marmol were very close. Shildt had once scouted Marmol for the Cardinals, and when Marmol made the switch from player to coach, Shildt was one of his biggest mentors. To this day, many of Marmol’s preparation tactics are traits he picked up from Shildt.

“Having an actual framework for how you prepare and the order in which you do it, that’s definitely an area that he does a really good job with and instilled a decent amount of it into my day to day,” Marmol said.

“We spent a decent amount of my minor-league experience together, and then all of of my time in the big leagues,” Marmol said. “This is year eight up here, and the majority of it, we were side-by-side there as well.”

In the first of seven scheduled matchups this season, it was Marmol who would come out on top. The Cardinals bested the Padres 6-2, fueled by seven innings of two-run ball from Kyle Gibson, and the first home runs of the season for both Brendan Donovan and Willson Contreras.

San Diego struggled to keep pace throughout the night. While the Cardinals piled up 14 hits, the Padres mustered only five, including a pair of solo shots. Rookie center fielder Jackson Merrill struck one of them for the first home run of his young career.

That merely cut the deficit to 4-1. The Padres never got any closer.

“First home run always feels good, but I’m not really focused on the homer right now,” Merrill said afterward. “I’m focused on the scoreboard at the end of the game.”

Shildt pointed to a similar emphasis when asked how he had felt managing against his former team.

“I mean, it all comes down to results,” Shildt said. “We did a lot of things really well but not enough of them. They played a good ballgame, and we came up short. I’ll just keep it as simple as that.”

Perhaps that’s as simple as it needed to be. The lead-up to Monday brought plenty of mixed feelings, but once the first pitch was thrown, the focus shifted to two managers trying to get the best out of their players and win a ballgame.

(Photo of Mike Shildt on March 28: Denis Poroy / Associated Press)