THE REDBIRD REVIEW
The Cardinals strode into Thursday’s game with the Diamondbacks, hoping to get a win and a 2-2 series split.
I’m thinking that the Cards were also hoping that Busch Stadium would stop suppressing and eating their hitters’ power.
I realize we’re in small-sample territory here, but the numbers are glaring. And kind of stunning.
After losing two straight games to Arizona the Cardinals were undoubtedly in the mood to bust loose. Jack a couple of homers. Maybe go wild and hit three deep shots. Score some runs, and get to remember the satisfaction of touching home plate.
Not that this was an emergency or anything, but heading into Thursday’s series wrap, the Redbirds were 14-17 in their previous 31 games. It could be nothing more than a frustrating stretch of baseball games. Totally.
But if the home field makes a difference, Busch Stadium has been cruel to the St. Louis hitters offense since May 20. You may have noticed – without crunching the stats – how the Cards have been setting off explosives and stacking runs in road games.
And then the men come home … and the bats … turn quiet … the power is unplugged.
This situation was symbolized in a breakthrough moment by Jose Fermin. When he opened the bottom of the 9th inning of Wednesday’s loss, Fermin put an end to the Cards’ streak of 244 consecutive plate appearances without hitting a home run at Busch Stadium. It wasn’t enough to matter in a five-run loss. But at least it was something.
Here’s the deal: in their past 31 games before Thursday’s clash, the Cardinals had 17 home games and 14 on the road. These are the home/road splits…
Runs/game 3.64 (h) … 5.71 (r)
Slugging pct .356 (h) … .462 (r)
Isolated power .106 (h) … .194 (r)
AB/HR ratio 49.7 (h) … 22.9 (r)
wRC+ 100 (h) … 120 (r)
(Translation: the Cardinals were league average offensively at Busch Stadium, and 20 percent above average on offense in their away games.)
Of course, while St. Louis pitchers were nice and comfy at home, they got blistered by the road fireworks. Their home-team opponents turned into human bottle rockets.
In the 31-game sample…
— STL pitchers 3.76 ERA in 17 home games. And a 5.51 ERA when exposed to road conditions. It was specifically worse for Cards starting pitchers: 3.63 ERA at home, and 6.15 on the road.
— The safety and protection provided by Busch Stadium could no longer shelter them. The difference between the home slugging percentage against their pitchers (.382) and the road slugging that smashed them (.503) was 121 points. The Cardinal arms gave up an average of 0.8 home runs per nine innings at Busch; on the road that HR rate was 2.1 per nine.
— In case you’re wondering, the Cardinals went 9-8 at home and 5-9 on the road. The pitching compensated for the shortages of power and plated runs by their Cardinal teammates at Busch Stadium … but could not hold the fort on the road.
Statcast environment tracking shows that a ball struck with identical launch metrics – velocity and launch angle – drops roughly 15% to 20% of its home-run probability when measured at Busch compared to a neutral environment.
I plead guilty to generalizing here; the park factors will change somewhat at Busch when the weather sizzles up. But if the recent trends don’t shift in the heat, this is the potential trouble for the Cardinals:
The STL offense can't rescue the pitching (when necessary) at home because Busch won’t let them. And STL’s pitchers are less likely to win high-scoring shootouts on the road because their “stuff” doesn't play as well in parks with shorter power alleys. The Cards are slapped with a “Pitcher Tax” when leaving St. Louis.
I ain’t exaggerating. The Cardinals’ staff has a 3.97 ERA at home for the season; that ranks in 14th. Their road ERA is 4.67, which ranks 22nd.
When Cards pitchers are the visitors, the slugging percentage against them is 64 points higher than the home-yard rate.
Here’s the most revealing stat of all:
The St. Louis pitchers have the lowest, as in best, home-run yield in the majors when working at Busch … 0.7 HRs per nine innings.
The St. Louis staff has the highest – as in worst! – home-run yield in the majors when serving pitches on the road. They get blasted for 1.6 HRs per nine innings.
I don’t know if this will play out in a similar way for the remainder of the regular season.
But we recently saw Cardinal pitchers get nuked for 30 runs in three games at Kansas City.
Before that, they were knocked around for 7 runs per game at Minnesota. When getting swept in a three-game series at Milwaukee in late May, the Redbirds were hit up for an average of 5.5 runs in the first two games before Dustin May quelled the Crew in the series finale.
Truth of the matter: In their last 17 road games the Cardinals’ chuckers were ripped for a 5.39 ERA, .500 slugging percentage, and 1.9 HRs per nine innings.
When the hitting environment opens up for both teams – that would be on the road – the Cardinals hitters get to muscle up, but the vulnerable STL pitching staff is absorbing heavier punches and losing these runs-scored melees.
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, David Freese, 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, Keith Tkachuk, 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 STLSportsCentral, 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.