As your St. Louis Cardinals begin a three-city, nine-game, 10-day road tour that starts Friday night in Washington D.C., it’s the perfect time to tackle one of the biggest questions of their 2025 season.
Why did the Redbirds lose 12 of their first 14 road games? Why have they road-tripped themselves into the third-worst record (4-13) in the majors when playing ball away from St. Louis?
From a historical-perspective standpoint, only three major-league baseball teams representing St. Louis have won fewer games than the 2025 Cardinals through the first 17 road games of a season:
1960 Cardinals, 2-15
1926 St. Louis Browns, 2-15
1936 Browns, 2-15
1910 Browns, 3-14
That’s bad, but there’s no reason for me to put together a playlist to have a soundtrack for this column.
Oh, wait. And now I’m distracting myself. What the hell. It’s Friday. Therefore …
“Road Runner,” The Modern Lovers.
“Runnin’ On Empty,” Jackson Browne.
“No Particular Place To Go,” Chuck Berry.
“Road To Nowhere,” Talking Heads.
“Highway To Hell,” AC/DC.
“Roadkill,” Starcrawler.
“Radar Love,” Golden Earring
“Six Days On The Road,” Mudcrutch
“I Can’t Drive 55,” Sammy Hagar
“Rearview Mirror,” Pearl Jam.
And just remember, as Jan & Dean told us: you don’t come back from Deadman’s Curve.
I could go on … but I’ll stop now.
The Cardinals haven’t won a road series this season, but they made a positive turn by sweeping the Reds in a doubleheader on April 30. The Birds had a chance to win that four-game series but lost the fourth game and settled for a split. Hey, at least that was preferable to the series losses at Boston, Pittsburgh, New York (Mets), and Atlanta.
The Cardinals are 15-6 at Busch Stadium this season so the extreme disparity between home/road success is striking. What’s gone wrong for the Cards when they’re leaving on a jet plane?
It’s easily identifiable.
AN ATROCIOUS BULLPEN
Through April 30, the Cardinals’ relievers were repeatedly gouged and bombarded in road games. The numbers are so hideous, they make me wince. But for the record, here’s what I’m talking about…
* The Cards had a bullpen earned-run average of 6.56 in their first 17 road games. That ERA ranked 29th overall and worst in the NL in road games played through the end of April
* In the 17 roadies the St. Louis bullpen had one save and five blown saves. Their relievers were tagged with six losses including three walk-off sudden-death endings by opposing batters. Gruesome!
* From the start of the 7th inning through the end of the game, the St. Louis bullpen crew had a 7.15 road ERA in 39 innings through April 30 and were demolished for a .288 average, .399 onbase percentage and .455 slugging percentage. Ouch.
* And because of the many late-game failures, is it any surprise that this team went 0-5 in one-run games – and lost 10 of 11 contests that were determined by a three-run margin or less? Appalling.
The good news? Since demoting the battered reliever Ryan Fernandez to Triple A Memphis and reordering their relief personnel, the Cardinal bullpen ranks 6th in the majors with a 2.66 ERA. That goes back to April 25 and does include the series at Cincinnati.
During this time the STL relievers have lowered their walk rate, reduced the opponent home-run rate, and gotten more ground-ball outs. Not only that, but the Cardinal cleaners have been credited with four wins (and no losses), and pocketed four saves with only one blown save. And the result is a 5-0 record in one-run games since April 25.
Granted, the Cardinals will take this reshaped bullpen out on the road for a test drive. After sculpting a 1.02 ERA during a 5-1 homestand, the relievers should be more reliable when accosted on the road. That’s what the Cardinals are hoping for, anyway. The outlook is more positive, but the actual results count.
STL STARTING PITCHERS GOT ROCKED TOO OFTEN
We can’t let the rotation members off easy for the team’s 4-13 road start. Through May 1, St. Louis starting pitchers had a 4.69 road ERA that ranked 24th in the majors over the corresponding time.
The STL starters turned in six quality starts in their 17 road assignments, and that wasn’t bad. And Sonny Gray pitched well in his two road-work starts. But Andre Pallante, Miles Mikolas, Erick Fedde and Matthew Liberatore had a combined 5.11 ERA in their 70 and ⅓ innings. And as a group the Cards starters put the team into early deficits with a 5.51 ERA in the first three innings of road games.
It’s time for a reset. And I can’t be too ornery about Liberatore; he had one bad start (at Pittsburgh) and another that was cut short by a lengthy rain delay. Libby has been a terrific starter overall so far, and I expect that to continue whether he’s pitching at home or on the road.
THE ST. LOUIS OFFENSE IS MEDIOCRE ON THE ROAD
At least so far, anyway. The bats came alive in that doubleheader at Cincinnati, so perhaps we’ll see more of that during the Redbirds’ nine-game road trip. But for now, just look at the difference in this team’s home and road splits.
Home numbers on the left … road numbers on the right:
Batting average: .288 – .228
On-base pct: .360 – .304
Slugging pct: .352 – .442
OPS: .802 – .657
The Cards rank No. 1 in the majors in home batting average, are 2nd in OBP, 7th in slugging, and 4th in OPS. The rankings are a lot worse on the road: 20th in batting average, 17th in OBP, 23rd in slugging, 17th in OPS.
Using the wRC+ metric, St. Louis is 28 percent above league average at home, and 16 percent below league average on the road.
I have said it before: this makes no sense, because Busch Stadium (this season) is playing neutral – exactly league average for pitchers and hitters.
The Cardinals do have some hitters that have put up good numbers on the road this season – most notably Brendan Donovan, Masyn Winn, Thomas Saggese, Victor Scott II and Willson Contreras.
Here are the hitters that have struggled the most on the road, and I’ll use the wRC+ metric to keep it simple by showing just how poorly the hitters have done in trying (and failing) to match the league average for road performance offensively …
Jordan Walker: 95% below average
Nolan Gorman: 83% below avg.
Lars Nootbaar: 65% below avg.
Alec Burleson: 40% below avg.
Nolan Arenado: 38% below avg.
Pedro Pages: 29% below avg.
AND FINALLY …
Here’s the most absurd statistic of the Cardinals’ season to date: in 69 plate appearances on the road this season, the Cards’ cast of designated hitters have NO home runs, NO runs batted in, one extra base hit and are 2 for 20 (.100) with runners in scoring position.
How is that even possible?
Welcome back, Ivan Herrera. The Cardinals desperately need your bat in the lineup – and at designated hitter. As we know the DH spot has been a problem and a travesty for the Cardinals all season – ranking 27th in batting average (.197), 24th in OBP (.291), 30th in slugging (.250), 29th in OPS (.541. The DH group has only one home run and four RBIs in 132 at-bats overall … and is 4 for 38 (.105) with runners in scoring position. “Embarrassing” is too polite of a word to describe this.
The Cardinals – starting pitchers, relief pitchers, hitters, and designated hitters – have an opportunity to chase away the Roadhouse Blues over the next nine games.
Good luck, gents!
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!
–Bernie
Bernie Miklasz was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting. You can access all of his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on SportsHubSTL, catch him weekdays on the “Gashouse Gang” or “Redbird Rush Hour” on KMOX (104.1-FM and 1120-AM, and he is a regular guest of “Cardinal Territory” video show hosted by the great Katie Woo of The Athletic.