The Cardinals are taking it easy on their scheduled off day and should have plenty of pep for their three-game weekend series against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Busch Stadium.
Sure, the Redbirds just lost a home series to the outstanding Detroit Tigers, but that’s hardly the same as, say, getting slapped around by the Colorado Rockies.
Since winning at Kansas City on Friday and Saturday, the Cardinals proceeded to lose three of their next four games. Baseball happens, and this is no big deal unless this little interruption of their winning ways leads to a sizable stretch of losing.
The monumental Los Angeles Dodgers recently lost four straight games in their home ballpark. This uncharacteristic slip from excellence included three consecutive defeats to the crummy Anaheim Angels, who came into Chavez Ravine with an 18-25 record. Baseball happens.
The Cardinals are good. The Tigers are better. Just because the Tigers have a superior team and seized the series-deciding game on Wednesday, it doesn’t mean the Cardinals are a pushover or about to lose nine in a row.
The Cards lost the series because they had one of their worst performances of the season in the 5-1 loss to the Tigers in the series finale. That wasn’t nearly as bad as the Dodgers getting whacked 11-1 by the West Sacramento A’s on May 13. Baseball happens.
Being an underdog at the start of the season, and then losing 15 of their first 25 games, the Cardinals had to make their move. And they did, winning 17 of their next 25 games. It was an impressive turnaround, but surprise-team underdogs can’t trip without skeptics taking notes.
I had some time late last night and early Thursday morning to think about some Cards-related matters. I’ll tie that to a question that frequently comes my way: what is your biggest concern over the Cardinals?
To be honest, the answer can change from week to week. It’s not realistic to expect every area of the team to have great form all season. I don’t expect to see any extensive weakness from this team’s defense, but we can expect to see some grounders booted and fly balls that cause outfielders to wander off track. Baseball happens.
Earlier in the season the bullpen was a firetrap, but the danger level passed, and a reorganized set of relievers have done well over the last three weeks. The St. Louis starting pitchers were flogged for an 8.56 ERA in a gruesome 1-5 stretch against the Angels and Boston Red Sox. The wounds closed, and the Cards starters have a 3.13 ERA that ranks fifth-best in the majors over the team’s last 41 games.
OK, so what about the St. Louis offense? Good question. I wouldn’t say I’m alarmed or concerned. But it’s a curious offense that can be really awesome or really awful – and these fluctuations are wild and unpredictable.
The Cardinals are crazily inconsistent offensively.
Here’s what the heck I’m talking about:
* Fifty games into the season, the Cardinals have scored 5+ runs 24 times. Only five MLB offenses have done that more frequently.
* The Cardinals have rioted for 10+ runs in a game six times, which is tied for the fourth-highest total in the majors.
* And yet: the same group of hitters have scored only one run – or none at all – in 11 games. Two have been shutouts.
*And here’s the kicker: no major-league offense has been held to exactly one run in a game more times than St. Louis. The Cards have pecked their way to just one meager run in a game 11 times already.
* Add in the two shutouts, and the Redbirds have scored no more than a single lousy run in 26 percent of their games played in 2025.. Their record in those vanishing-offense games is 1-12. The only win was the memorable 1-0 defense-and-pitching gem this past Saturday at Kansas City.
* Let’s narrow this down a bit: the Cardinals are 13-6 in May. Good record, right? Well, imagine what that record would look like if the Birds had scored more than one run in five of their six losses. That’s right. I’ll repeat: this club has lost only six games in May, and they didn’t generate more than a single run in five of those losses.
Look, I think it’s a lot of fun when the Cardinals go bonkers and bomb the opponents for 10 runs or more in a game. It makes for easy watching – and easy winning.
But is there a middle ground here? How about scoring five or six runs in a game more often? The pitching and defense will often take care of the rest. When the Cardinals score exactly five in a game this season, they’re 5-0. When they plate exactly six runs in a game, they’re 5-1.
So yeah, sure, I’d like to see the Redbirds offense exchange this basket of zero or one-run games for an assortment of five-run, or six-run, goodies.
The Cardinals are trying to catch the first-place Cubs in the NL Central. That Team Up North has a real bullpen problem; their relievers rank 26th among the 30 emergency crews in Win Probability Added. But the Chicago offense isn’t an all-or-nothing operation.
The Cubs have been shutout twice this season – same as the Cardinals. But while the Cardinals have been held to one run in 11 games, that’s happened to the Cubs only five times.
The Cubs have scored 10+ runs more times than the Cardinals (10-6). But the Chicago offense is better at avoiding those outputs of no-run or one-run games.
And that certainly can make a difference in the standings. No big-league team plays finer defense than St. Louis. And the Cardinals, at least to this point, have a pitching staff that gives them an edge over their rivals.
Of course this can change. But using my preferred metric – one that tells me if an area of a team helps you win games or costs you wins – here’s what it looked like as of Thursday morning:
Overall pitching Win Probability Added: Cardinals 9th, Cubs 22nd.
Starting pitching, WPA: Cards 11th, Cubs 15th.
Bullpen WPA: Cards 10th, Cubs 26th.
The Cardinals can certainly help themselves by having a more consistent offense that spreads out the runs instead of getting molten-lava hot in one game -- and then turning into an ice sculpture in the next contest.
Of course, that’s easy for us to say. Baseball happens, and sometimes there’s no rational explanation for the peculiarities.
Thanks for reading …
–Bernie
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.