Your St. Louis Cardinals lost a tough one Tuesday, erasing a 4-0 deficit only to go down 5-4 when the Tigers scored the tie-breaking run off Redbirds reliever Kyle Leahy in the top of the ninth inning.
There’s no such thing as a moral victory or a quality loss in a professional sport. You either win or lose, and that’s the bottom line.
That said, I certainly admired and respected the Cardinals’ comeback in a game I’d written off after Detroit ace Tarik Skubal breezed through the first four innings with a comfortable lead.
Skubal is on the short list of the best starting pitchers in MLB. He won the American League Cy Young award in 2024, and brought his sharp form into 2025. He’s excellent. Since the start of the 2023 season, Skubal has had the top ERA (2.58) and highest strikeout rate (31.5%) among innings-qualified big-league starters.
The Cardinals were overwhelmed by Skubal’s brilliant dominance on Tuesday at Busch Stadium.
In his first four innings the lefty faced 13 batters (one over the minimum) and allowed one hit. He struck out five – or 38.5 percent of the Cardinals who stepped into the batter’s box over those four innings.
Then came the bottom of the fifth.
And if you still had any questions about this team’s hardwired competitiveness and refusal to succumb, the Cardinals provided another display of why they’re such an endearing and enjoyable team to watch.
And the Cardinal fans who have embraced them – rather than shunned them – are happy with what they’re seeing. This is an easy ballclub to root for.
STL’s underdog vibe kicked in, and the Cards basically ambushed Skubal to end what had been a worry-free pitching zone for him. As is their custom, the Cards hitters worked counts, extended at-bats and made an opposing pitcher sweat.
From the start of the fifth inning until he got knocked out of the game in the sixth, Skubal faced 10 Cardinals. Five of the 10 reached base on four hits and a walk. The Cardinals attacked for three runs, including a two-run homer by Nolan Arenado (!) that halved Detroit’s lead to 4-2 in the fifth.
The Cardinals persisted in the bottom of the sixth. Five batters into the inning, Skubal was gone after an RBI single by Ivan Herrera made it 4-3. Masyn Winn tied it 4-4 in the seventh with a sac fly against reliever Tyler Holton.
"They just did a really good job of making him work and making him battle,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch told reporters in his postgame session. They drove his pitch count up a little bit. They frustrated him a little bit just by the quality of their at-bats. And so, when they got a little bit closer, they picked up a little bit of momentum.”
Hinch added: “He's just really good at competing, and (Skubal) had to today. They didn't let him off the hook very often. Even their at-bats where he found some punchouts, they were long.”
THIS WAS NOTHING NEW: The St. Louis hitters have presented some of their best performances this season when going against name-brand starting pitchers. And they’ve fared well against starters who aren’t necessarily stars – but are having good to very good seasons. Take a look at these earned-run averages against St. Louis this season:
Paul Skenes, 5.40
Tarik Skubal, 4.67
Zack Wheeler, 6.00
Aaron Nola, 11.42
Framber Valdez, 15.75
Cole Ragans, 7.20
MacKenzie Gore, 5.40
Mitchell Parker, 9.00
Walker Buehler, 9.00
Tylor Megill, 7.20
David Peterson, 5.06
Ronel Blanco, 5.40
Sure, the Cardinals have been shut down or neutralized in games by some outstanding starting pitchers including Hunter Brown, Jesus Luzardo, Michael Wacha, Brady Singer, Kodai Senga, Christopher Sanchez, Mitch Keller, Andrew Abbott and Spencer Schwellenbach.
But it’s fair to say the Cards have won a solid share of these battles – and they almost always do so by summoning significant resistance with their stubbornly good at-bats. They have wins over other starters that I haven’t mentioned including Pablo Lopez and Joe Ryan in the first series of the season.
ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT: With Tuesday’s loss, the Cardinals (26-22) lost ground in the NL Central and trail the first-place Cubs by two games … the third-place Reds have won five of their last six games to end a poor spell of baseball and get back to .500 at 24-24 … The Cardinals and Phillies are tied for the best record (13-5) in the National League for May … the Cards top the NL with a 15-5 record since April 30 and have the NL’s second-best record (22-12) since April 11 … with a victory over the Tigers on Wednesday afternoon the Cardinals would be 6-0-1 in their last seven series. If the Cards lose to the Tigers today, it would be their first series lost since dropping two of three at Atlanta back in April 21-23 … and a loss Wednesday would give the Cardinals their first home-series lost since the Angels took two of three in the second series of the season … coming into today, the Cardinals are 5-0 in their last five series at Busch Stadium.
IVAN HERRERA: If we had any thought of this man cooling down at the plate and returning to some form of normalcy … Well, forget about it. It looks like we’ll have to wait for a bit until that happens. No, Herrera won’t hit .439 with a .500 on-base percentage, .807 slug and 1.307 for the season. Those are his stats as of Wednesday morning. But instead of Herrera’s numbers dropping, they continue to rise.
In Tuesday’s loss to the Tigers, Herrera had two hits, a walk, an RBI and a run scored. Just another day of bullying pitchers.
In his last three games, this DH destroyer is 6 for 11 with three runs batted in. In his last six games, Herrera is 13 for 23 (.565) with seven RBIs.
In his 10 games since returning from a knee ailment, Herrera has hit .472, reached base on 52.4 percent of his plate appearances, and slugged .667.
In his first 10 games back in the lineup, Herrera has at least one hit in every game, multiple hits in five games, driven in at least one run in five games, and has scored a run in seven of the 10 games.
THE BEST IVAN HERRERA STAT OF THE DAY: Because he missed 30 games while on the IL, Herrera has played in only 17 games this season. Still, I wanted to see how his start – compared to other hitters in their first 17 games of a season – stands in St. Louis Cardinals history.
Well, Herrera stands alone.
To have a representative sample size, I limited the pool to Cardinal hitters who had at least 50 plate appearances in his first 17 games of a campaign.
According to the StatHead search engine at Baseball Reference – and I ran the search five times just to be sure – Herrera is the only Cardinal to put together this combination through a hitter’s first 17 games of a season:
* .400 batting average or higher.
* 5 or more home runs
* 20 or more RBIs
* 1.300 OPS or higher.
No Cardinal had ever done this until Ivan Herrera came along, and we’re talking about 125 seasons of major-league baseball.
Not Stan Musial, or Albert Pujols, or Rogers Hornsby, or Enos Slaughter or any other Cooperstown or team Hall of Famer.
Herrera is ridiculous. Enjoy the show, because you’re seeing something that hasn’t happened before in the illustrious history of Cardinals Baseball.
THE SECOND-BEST IVAN HERRERA STAT OF THE DAY: Herrera has a bountiful 21 RBIs this season in only 66 plate appearances. I went back to Baseball Reference to do a search.
Among MLB hitters that had no more than 66 plate appearances through Tuesday, no other dude had more than 13 RBIs – or eight less than Herrera.
I’m not finished.
Through Tuesday, 159 MLB hitters with 100 or more plate appearances had fewer RBIs than Herrera’s haul in his 66 plate appearances. And 69 of those hitters with fewer RBIs than Herrera had at least 150 plate appearances.
I’m still not finished.
THIRD-BEST IVAN HERRERA STAT OF THE DAY: Five MLB hitters with 200-plus plate appearances this season have driven in fewer runs than Herrera’s total in 66 PA. And one of the five is especially prominent on the major-league landscape.
Juan Soto: 20 RBIs in 214 plate appearances.
Ivan Herrera: 21 RBIs in 66 plate appearances.
The Mets are paying Soto $61.88 million this season as part of his record-breaking, 15-year, $765 million free-agent deal.
Herrera? He’s making less than a million at $770,300 for 2025. And no, that doesn’t mean St. Louis ownership is being cheap. This is a standard salary for young players that haven’t logged the service time that results in much larger salaries.
BIRD BYTES
+ Kyle Leahy isn’t perfect, but before the Tigers got to him for the winning run in the 9th, Leahy hadn’t allowed a run in his previous 18 relied appearances. His ERA on the season is 1.29.
+ One thing to watch with Leahy: over his last two appearances vs. Kansas City and Detroit, left-handed batters have gone 4 for 7 against him.
+ No, I did not expect to see the struggling Nolan Arenado bust a two-run homer on Skubal. But I shouldn’t have been surprised. Why? Because even if his overall numbers have declined, Arenado still does a good job against lefty pitchers. And ‘Nado is a much better hitter at home compared to the road. So when there’s a lefty on the mound taking on Arenado at Busch Stadium this season, Arenado has come through with a .318 average, .400 onbase percentage and .545 slug. That was a big home run, and hopefully it will inflate ‘Nado’s confidence.
+ Erick Fedde had a disappointing start against the Tigers, getting clobbered for two home runs and four earned runs in five innings. Before that, Fedde had allowed only three earned runs in 19 and ⅔ innings during his first three starts in May.
+ Cards starters were due for a dud, and their 3.63 starting-pitching ERA still ranks 10th among the 30 teams this season. Going forward, an important factor in the starters’ success will be keeping the ball inside the fence and limiting home runs.
+ Another excellent relief turn by Steven Matz, who gave the Cardinals a chance to come back Tuesday with his 2 and ⅔ innings of scoreless, hitless relief after replacing Fedde. Matz has an overall 1.74 ERA in 31 innings this season which includes a 2.05 ERA in 11 relief gigs.
+ One problem for the STL offense Tuesday: the top four lineup spots – Lars Nootbaar, Masyn Winn, Brendan Donovan and Willson Contreras – combined for 2 hits in 17 at-bats without a walk. Winn, however, did deliver a game-tying sac fly to make it 4-4.
+ I was surprised to see manager Oli Marmol stay with Pedro Pages instead of using Alec Burleson as a pinch hitter in the bottom of the sixth with the bases loaded, two out, and the Cards down by a run. Pages, who bats from the right side, grounded out to end the threat. A right-handed reliever was on the mound for the Tigers, and Burly has been crushing RH pitching. That said, manager Hinch could have brought in a lefty reliever to face Burleson – but in all candor, I don’t know if the Tigers had a lefty ready in the bullpen. I was having technical difficulties and wasn’t able to watch the game at that particular time.
Thanks for reading …
Bernie 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.