When the St. Louis Cardinals visit Canada to play the Toronto Blue Jays, they won't be with two of their leaders: Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado. As reported earlier, the two cannot join the team because of Canada's vaccination rules. They chose not to get the COVID-19 vaccine due to personal reasons.

Sure enough, fans went off at the two over the news. A lot questioned their team-first mentality, especially after speaking about how they want to lead the Cardinals to win the division. With St. Louis also in a tight race against the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Central standings, the absence of the two couldn't come at the worst possible time.

Now in an interview with Katie Woo of The Athletic, however, both players opened up about their decision not to get the vaccine.

According to Goldschmidt, it wasn't an easy decision for him. However, he made the choice because he “felt that the risks outweigh the benefits.”

“I talked to as many doctors and medical professionals as I could to try to gather as much info on what they know, what they don’t know and all of that type of stuff,” Paul Goldschmidt shared. “For me, I just determined that the potential risks of taking the vaccine outweigh the potential benefits.”

As for Arenado, he refused to detail his reasoning for refusing the vaccination. However, he did share he was hoping there would be changes in Canada's COVID-19 rules.

“It’s my own personal reasons why. I don’t really want to get into too much detail about it,” Nolan Arenado explained. “It’s unfortunate because I don’t want to miss games, especially when I’m healthy. I was just kind of hopeful that Canada was going to turn.”

It will certainly be a difficult stretch for the Cardinals without two of their best players. Considering the fact that the Blue Jays are equally motivated to win to improve their standings, they could very well take advantage of the opportunity.

Unfortunately, the Cardinals cannot do anything anymore but accept the brutal reality they are facing. If there is some solace, though, they'll only be playing Toronto for two games before returning to the US and facing the Washington Nationals.