After zooming around, kicking up dirt, playing a hard nine, making mischief and winning more ballgames than they should have, your St. Louis Cardinals were finally grounded last week. Shoved by the Marlins and the Mariners, the Redbirds went down.
After losing five of six games, the Cards took off for Pittsburgh, where they shall try to make a comeback. Right about now, Redbird rooters may be unsure of what to think.
Here’s the upbeat, happy-talk version. Don’t count out these Redbirds!
Think of Fredbird having a cold beverage with Chip Caray and talking lots of sunshine about how the Cardinals are in fantastic shape.
Well. The Cardinals are 14-13, which is hardly cataclysmic. Heck, it isn’t even something to cause a pang of sadness, or sinking feeling.
And I say this as an idiot who is trying to write a damn column in my third-floor home office … high above the street level in a dwelling that’s been in place since 1908. This old place soon might be spinning like the world’s largest gyro slider. (How about that for sneaking in a baseball reference?)
Anyway, yes, 14-13. The same record as the Brewers. A mark that is tied for the 11th best record in the majors. The Lou squad has a .519 winning percentage which tops the Phillies, Mets, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Guardians, Tigers, Mariners, Giants, Royals, Orioles and other postseason applicants.
Let’s face it. Some of y’all peoples thought the Cardinals would be immobilized with a 5-20 record at this moment of the season. (I can just hear you mumbling right about now: Alex Cora and five coaches got fired by the Red Sox, and our manager is still here? Send me your address and I’ll have a box of tissues delivered. I care.)
Hey, even with last week’s unsettling downturn the Cardinals still have a 6.5 percent chance of qualifying for October’s tournament. That sliver of hope comes from the esteemed analyst Clay Davenport. And based on his third-order winning percentage, the Cardinals should be 11-16 right now.
So the fellers are ahead of the game!
Playin’ with house money!
OK, now here’s the reality. Here’s the pragmatic version. Here’s the truth.
Over the first 18 games of the season, the Cardinals got away with a lot of things.
– The habit of playing close games. One-run games. Two-run games. Extra-innings affairs. Tension everywhere. Coin-flip games. Very recently the Cardinals were 5-0 in one-run games, and 10-1 in games determined by an outcome of two runs or fewer. Those trends are usually fragile. Call it the “Pumpkin Effect.” As in turning into a pumpkin over time. Last week the Cardinals lost two one-run games and are 1-4 in their last five two-run standoffs. The randomness that bubbled up over 162 games can be very real.
– A bullpen that seemingly was conceived by Jordan Peele, the acclaimed horror-film director. In their 13 losses the Cards have a bloody bullpen ERA of 6.21 in 50 and ⅔ innings. Peele won an Academy award in 2017 for best original screenplay for his film “Get Out.” The Cardinals are just hoping, hoping, hoping to Get An Out to save a win.
– A team ERA of 4.87 that would be the worst in a full, uninterrupted season by a Cardinals pitching staff during the expansion era, which began in 1961.
– A starting rotation that went into Monday with a 5.05 fielding independent ERA which would be the worst over 66 seasons during the post-expansion era.
– A pitching staff that has the worst strikeout rate (17%) in the majors – and is also last overall in whiff-swing rate. Too many balls in play. And it’s a staff that has yielded the third-highest hard-hit rate in the majors.
– A hideous performance by the St. Louis offense when batting with runners in position. The Cardinals are ranked last in the National League in wRC+ with runners in scoring position – 28 percent below league average offensively – but there’s more. Their .214 batting average, .309 slugging percentage, .617 OPS and 72 wRC+ with runners in scoring position would be the worst by the team since 2002 – when the RISP numbers became part of the official MLB statistical menu.
In losing two close contests to the Mariners over the weekend – both by 3-2 scores – the Cards went 1 for 9 with RISP (combined) in the two games. In their last nine defeats, the Cardinals batted .152 with runners on second and/or third base.
Sure, the Cardinals can improve in some of these areas – but by how much? This is a talent issue. The pitching problems – awful strikeout and swing-miss rates – stem from the longtime neglect of the player development system and front-office failure to keep up with the times. New president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom will change this, but it takes time. These are not problems that he created. These are problems that he inherited.
The Cardinals are a highly competitive team. They’re capable of stringing together some winning streaks. They play hard, have fun. It’s an easy team to like. This season never was – or will be – about doing everything possible to win.
To do that, they’d need a much better roster than what they have now. This is a rebuilding season. And it’s an extremely important season because it will have a major impact in shaping the roster beyond 2026 – and so many players and pitchers have a lot at stake. So win or lose, these games are meaningful and have value.
There is no team that can overcome all of the issues that can pull the Cardinals down at any time. We just saw an example of that in the form of this 1-5 slide against the Marlins and Mariners. The Cardinals have done a good job of fighting off the inevitable – and the predictable. But it’s ridiculous and unfair to expect these players to do this consistently. Not with some of the weakest starting-and-relief pitching and timely hitting we’ve seen by a Cardinals team since MLB implemented a 162-game schedule in 1961.
I think a reality check is healthy. And the Cardinals just got one. They’ll try and battle their way through it. They always do. I like this team for a lot of reasons – including their refusal to give in to the flaws, the expectations, the obstacles.
BIRD BYTES
1. Matthew Liberatore: He cost the Cardinals a win in Saturday’s 11-9 loss to the Mariners by getting blasted for three homers and five earned runs in 3 and ⅓ innings. His aborted-start failure burned out a worn St. Louis bullpen and that was a factor in Sunday’s loss as well.
– More on Liberatore: among 75 MLB starters that had a qualifying number of innings (around 28) through Sunday, here’s where you’ll find Libby in the rankings …
– Liberatore’s rate of 2.37 home runs allowed per 9 innings is the worst among the 75 innings-qualified NL starters and the second worst in the majors.
– His 4.75 ERA is 61st among the 75 starters.
– His fielding independent ERA (6.39) is the worst among the 75 innings-qualified MLB starters so far.
– Liberatore’s 14.1 percent strikeout rate is the worst in the NL and second overall among the 75 innings-qualified starters.
2. Is Nathan Church on a heater, or what? In his last 15 games, going back to April 7, the outfielder Church ranks 5th in the majors in slugging percentage (.756), 6th in OPS (1.160), 10th in batting average (.366) and has swatted five homers with 11 RBIs.
– Church’s slugging percentage since April 7 is higher than that of Yordan Alvarez, Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani. (Among many others.) And during this stretch Church is 112 percent above league average offensively per wRC; that ranks 7th among MLB hitters since April 7.
– Since April 7, Church leads the Cardinals in batting average, slugging, OPS, wRC+, Isolated Power, and is tied for first with 11 RBIs and five home runs.
– The hot streak has elevated Church’s entire season. After a slow start – before his confidence kicked in – Church’s slugging percentage is up to .505 on the campaign, and he has an OPS of .818 and a wRC+ that’s 25 percent above league average offensively.
Among St. Louis hitters that have at least 70 plate appearances this season, Church ranks third to Jordan Walker and Ivan Herrera in wRC+ and OPS and is second in slugging and batting average (.269).
3. Hunter Dobbins … then what? Dobbins will start Thursday in Pittsburgh against Pirates ace Paul Skenes. But did Cardinals president of baseball ops Chaim Bloom really trade Willson Contreras to Boston to acquire Dobbins – only to have the right-hander serve as a 6th starter? Or a spot starter?
Bloom coveted Dobbins and got him. And yet, there’s a chance Dobbins won’t crack a bad St. Louis rotation? Does that make sense?
I agree with something my “Seeing Red” podcast partner Will Leitch said about this situation. If the Cardinals don’t want to expose Andre Pallante to waivers and possibly lose him by trying to move him to Triple A Memphis, then the next move (for a five-man rotation) that makes the most sense is to relocate Kyle Leahy back to the bullpen – where the Cardinals need a lot of help. Leahy was a tremendous, multi-inning reliever for the 2025 Cardinals.
Pallante is limited, yes. But through Monday he had the second-best ERA (4.26) in the rotation behind Michael McGreevy (2.97.) And Pallante’s average of 7.11 strikeouts per 9 innings ranks second to Dustin May among Cards starters. Sure there are some other metric-based measurements that don’t reflect well on Pallante. But I would be surprised to see Bloom willing to take the chance of losing Pallante – who is on the 40-man roster and out of minor-league options.
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 – 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.