Next up (or down?) for your St. Louis Cardinals: 17 days, 17 games, 153 scheduled innings, no rest, no peace, no retreat, no surrender.
These Fightin’ Red Feathers won’t quit, but I don’t know about the winning part, which could become a wilting part. It’s bird-hunting season for the Mariners, Pirates, Dodgers, Brewers and Padres.
Those clubs will bring out the big dogs to “flush” the birds into flight and make those Cardinals a target. From what I am told, flushing is a hunting term and has nothing to do with toilets. How would I know that? Do I look or sound like Elmer Fudd?
All I am sure of is this: whatever harm finds its way to the innocent, rebuilding, cute little 14-10 Cardinals, any clipped wings will be blamed on manager Oli Marmol. I know this because I just purchased a home on “X.” I live there now.
Anyway, other than to pause to tell David Nail that I love his new song “Fare Thee Well”, released April 10 … let me stop fooling around and get on with my bidness.
Here’s what our fledglings will be up against during these matches with the Mariners, Pirates, Dodgers, Brewers and Padres …
1) Four of the five teams have winning records. The Mariners, 11-15, had a disappointing launch to the season.
2) The five teams entered Friday with a collective 72-53 record (.576 win%) and a plus 115 run differential.
3) This matters because the Cardinals carved out their 14-10 record and won five series out of eight against opponents that currently and collectively have a .453 winning percentage and a minus 80 run differential. As I said in my Friday video: the Cardinals are moving up in class. This would be like a racehorse at Fairmount Park going to Churchill Downs to compete against more prestigious runners.
4) Seattle aside, here’s where the other four teams rank in winning percentage this season among the 30 MLB clubs: Dodgers and Padres (tied for 2nd), Pirates (9th) and Brewers (11th.)
5) The Cards will be up against some tough pitching. Elite pitching. The Mariners, Pirates, Dodgers and Padres rank among the top nine in all of MLB for best team ERA, and the Brewers are 13th.
6) This is not official, but going by the way each opponent’s starting pitching seems to be lining up the Cardinals will face the likes of George Kirby, Bryan Woo, Emerson Hancock, Paul Skenes, Bubba Chandler, Mitch Keller, Braxton Ashcraft, Roki Sasaki, Emmet Sheehan, Justin Wrobleski, Jacob Misiorowski, Kyle Harrison and Chad Patrick. (I didn’t try to project the Padres’ starters because the series doesn’t begin until May 7.) Again, all of this is subject to change. But of the 12 starting pitchers I cited here, 10 have earned-run averages of 3.27 or better.
7) The five rotations rank anywhere from No. 2 to 15th in starting pitching ERA. And three of the five bullpens are ranked in the top 10. (Mariners, Pirates, Padres.)
8) To put it another way: STL’s next five opponents all rank among the Top 12 in the majors in run prevention including three in the top six.
9) OK, what about offense and MLB rankings for average runs scored per game? The Mariners are 25th. But three of the other four rank in the top eight in runs per game, and the Padres are 16th. San Diego’s offense is improving, however. Since April 4 the Padres are 15-3, are 10th in MLB for most runs scored, and have the NL’s fourth-best offense per wRC+.
10) Over the next five series, Cardinal pitchers will compete against 15 qualifying hitters that currently have an OPS of .800 or higher, 16 that are slugging .439 or stronger, 17 that have inflated an onbase percentage to .350-plus, 12 who are batting at least .280, and 22 hitters that are above league average offensively per wRC+.
KEYS TO SUCCESS – OR SURVIVAL – FOR THE CARDINALS
– If Possible, Pitch Better: Obviously, right? This figures to be a helluva test for a St. Louis pitching staff that has allowed more balls in play than any team in the majors, is 26th with a 5.03 expected ERA, is 30th (last) in strikeout rate, is last in whiff-swing rate, is last in strikeout-walk ratio, is 27th in hard-hit rate against, and has yielded the fifth-highest batting average and sixth-highest on-base percentage. Way too much contact. Way too many balls in play. Way too many base runners.
– Only the bullpen can prevent forest fires: The hot spots are the sixth inning (6.35 ERA) and then the eighth and the ninth when Riley O’Brien, JoJo Romero, and Gordon Graceffo aren’t available. (George Soriano has been very good, except for one poor appearance.) Stat of the day: when working the 8th or 9th innings, Ryne Stanek and Matt Svanson have been hammered for 22 earned runs in 10 combined innings for a nifty ERA of 19.80. If this bullpen implodes too often over the next 17 days, the Cardinals will be smashed to smithereens.
– Clutch? I don’t know if “clutch” exists. Is it genetic? But the Cardinals, so far, have been horrendous when batting with runners in scoring position. They’re 26th in batting average (.213), 29th in slugging (.302), and 29th in OPS (.615.) To measure it by wRC+, the Redbirds are 28 percent below league average when hitting with runners in position to score. They’re also six percent below league average when hitting any men on base. The Cardinals are wasting a good team on-base percentage (.321) by stranding too many runners who are waiting for a ride home.
– Reignite the Tower of Power: That would be Jordan Walker. He’s quieted down. He’s cooled down. Walker has gone seven straight games without hitting a homer, but that isn’t a big deal. The problem is, over his last six games the big man batted .200 with one RBI and a 43 percent (whoa!) strikeout rate. He has struck out exactly twice in each of his last six games.
– Can the hitters set their alarm to go off earlier in games? This is one of the strangest stats, so far, in the St. Louis season. Here ya go:
+ First four innings of a game: Cardinals have a .211 average, .295 on-base percentage, .295 slug, and are 28 percent below league average offensively per wRC+ Only two teams have scored fewer runs than the Cardinals (34) over the first four innings of games.
Only 34 runs? This is almost incomprehensible. But in their 24 games the Cardinals have failed to score a run in 72 of their 96 innings played across the first four innings. In the first four frames, opposing starting pitchers have spun a 3.13 ERA against the Cardinals and yielded a stingy .212 batting average. Slugging percentage by STL batters: .297. Home runs allowed: 7. Good grief.
+ From the 5th inning on: the Cards are 2nd in the majors in runs scored (78), second in homers (20), 8th in on-base rate (.341), 4th in slugging (.439), 5th in OPS (.780) and 6th with an wRC+ that’s 17 percent above league average offensively. And from the fifth inning on, opposing pitchers have a 5.11 ERA against the birds who are batting.
With the pitching issues being carried forward by the Cardinals, their hitters can’t afford to snooze early in games against the excellent pitching staffs they’ll be seeing in the next 17 games.
– Some other things. Quickies: some offense from center field and left field would be nice, and Nathan Church should be treated as an asset offensively … Nolan Gorman goes on a home-run heater … Masyn Winn continues to surge offensively … the rolling thunder of Ivan Herrera gets louder and louder at the plate … Dustin May adds to his recent run of three consecutive strong starts … consistency from Matthew Liberatore … Alec Burleson keeps cranking; in his last 13 games he has a slash line of .321/.379/.509 with six extra-base hits, and a combined 16 RBIs and runs scored.
Thanks and have a great weekend!
–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 – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015. Before that Bernie spent a year at the Dallas Morning News, covering the Dallas Cowboys during Tom Landry’s final season (1988) plus the sale of the team to Jerry Jones and the hiring of Jimmy Johnson as coach. Bernie has covered several Baseball Hall of Fame managers during his media career including Tony La Russa, Whitey Herzog, Earl Weaver, Joe Torre and (as an interim) Red Schoendienst. In his career as a beatwriter and columnist, Bernie covered Pro Football Hall of Fame coaches Joe Gibbs, Tom Landry, Jimmy Johnson and Dick Vermeil on a daily basis.
Bernie has covered and written about many great St. Louis sports team athletes including Albert Pujols, Kurt Warner, Brett Hull, Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright, Jim Edmonds, Marshall Faulk, Scott Rolen, Mark McGwire, Orlando Pace, Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, Al MacInnis, Brian Sutter, Bernie Federko, Chris Pronger, Dan Dierdorf, Jackie Smith and Aeneas Williams. Bernie covered every baseball Cardinals’ postseason game from 1996 through 2014 and was there to chronicle teams that won four NL pennants and two World Series. He provided extensive coverage on the “Greatest Show” St. Louis Rams and has written extensively on the St. Louis Blues, Saint Louis U, and Mizzou football and basketball. Bernie was/is a longtime voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Pro Football Hall of Fame, Heisman Trophy and the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STL Sports Central, catch him regularly on KMOX (AM or FM) as part of the Gashouse Gang, Sports Rush Hour, Sports Open Line or Sports On a Sunday Morning shows. And you can catch weekly “reunion” segments here at STL Sports Central featuring Bernie and his longtime friend Randy Karraker.