The Cardinals fired former National League manager of the year Mike Shildt over organizational differences Thursday, just one week after St. Louis lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers on a walk-off homer in the wild-card game.

Cardinals president John Mozeliak said the firing was "something that popped up recently," but he refused to expand on what he called "philosophical differences" between Shildt, the coaching staff and the front office.

"All I can say is where we felt the team was going, we were struggling to get on the same page," Mozeliak said. "With him having one year remaining on his contract, we could have gone into 2022 having that over him and we just decided that internally it would be best to separate now and take a fresh look as we head into a new season."