It wasn’t quite the Road Trip From Hell, but the Cardinals went 1-5 on the firewalk through Boston and Pittsburgh.
And the problems go beyond what we watched — mostly with a combination of angst and disgust — on the team’s first out-of-state travels.
After sweeping the Twins for a 3-0 start in baseball’s new year, the Cardinals have dropped three consecutive series while going 2-7.
In a sign of the times, the Cardinals scored 53 runs in their last nine games, the third most in the majors since March 31. Normally, that run production would lead to success — but not this time. Not when the shaky STL pitching staff was clubbed for 68 runs, the most allowed by a team since March 31.
Over the last nine games, the starting pitching was roughed up. The bullpen got beat up. Two talented hitters — Ivan Herrera and Nolan Gorman — went on the IL. An important bat is freezing, barely above subzero.
The Cardinals keep wandering into late trouble; four of their seven losses during this nine-game recession came in extra innings. Their total of four extra-inning battles is the most in the majors, but the Cardinals don’t have a win to show for it.
Because of this heavy extra-innings involvement, the Cardinals have played an average of 9.4 innings over the last nine games. That’s too many overtime shifts.
Perhaps the Cardinals will benefit from Thursday’s scheduled off day. Rest up and reset. (There’s that word again.) This includes an offense that has slowed down a bit, scoring four runs or fewer in three of the last five competitions.
Early-season worries? Yes, there are a few.
LIST OF CONCERNS
1. The pitching is fraying. During their 2-7 skid, the Cardinals rank 29th in the majors with a team 6.27 ERA, and only the A’s have been worse since March 31. Over this time, the Cards’ rotation ranks 28th with a 6.45 ERA and has averaged fewer than five innings per start.
2. The extra work is exposing a vulnerable bullpen. During the team’s 2-7 tumble, the Cards’ bullpen has a 6.08 ERA that ranks 29th, just above the Rockies. The busy STL relievers have covered nearly the same number of innings (4.4 per game) as the starting pitchers (4.9). I have a lot more thoughts and information on this, which I’ll share later today in my “Bernie Show” video at SportsHubSTL.com.
3. Willson Contreras is lost. He was one of the best right-handed hitters in the majors in his first two seasons as a Cardinal. But in the third season of a five-year contract, Contreras is cratering. He has 5 hits in 49 at-bats (.102), and his power (.143 slug) is faint. Contreras hasn’t barreled a single pitch in the first 12 games of the season. His average exit velocity (87.5 miles per hour) is down four mph from last season. His hard-hit rate (36.8%) is down from the 46.8 percent he posted during his first two seasons in St. Louis.
One potential warning sign — bat speed — isn’t a problem. Contreras ranks among the top seven percent of MLB hitters in that metric, so he’s still physically capable of hitting well and doing damage.
For Contreras, the problem is horrendous plate discipline. He’s chased 41.9 percent of the pitches thrown outside of the strike zone. He has a low percentage (68%) of swinging at strikes. On top of that, his contact rate on strikes — 75 percent — would be the lowest of his career.
How messed up is WC’s strike-zone judgment? He’s put the ball in play 29 times on pitches in the strike zone. And he’s put the ball in play 20 times on balls out of the zone. On those out-of-zone pitches, Contreras is 2 for 20 (.100) with 12 strikeouts and has a 57 percent swing-and-miss rate.
Contreras is so discombobulated, he’s 0 for 18 with six strikeouts on “meatball” pitches that are down the middle, over the heart of the plate.
Contreras is making it easy for the pitchers by getting himself out due to poor plate discipline. Even when he gets the most hittable of strikes, Contreras is so out of sorts he doesn’t know what to do with them.
Manager Oli Marmol can help the situation by easing Contreras out of the No. 2 lineup slot and letting him regroup at a lower spot in the batting order.
Paul Goldschmidt offers a good example. Last season, when Goldy batted 2-3-4 in the lineup, he hit .218 with a .641 OPS. When Marmol used Goldschmidt in the 5-6-7 spots last season, the results were much better: a .329 average and .942 OPS.
4. Nolan Arenado’s strange road/home batting splits. First off, some positive news. Arenado’s average bat speed so far is 72.6 mph. That’s better than 2023 (71.4 mph) and 2022 (70.7 mph). But for some reason, Arenado’s home/road splits continue to be puzzling.
After a great six-game homestand at Busch Stadium to open the season, Arenado drew some walks but went 4 for 19 (.211) on the first road trip. He had one extra-base hit (a double), slugged .263 and did not drive in a run. That’s a small sample, right? Agreed. But the sample fits into a larger trend.
Since the start of last season, Arenado has a .313 average, .447 slugging percentage and .822 OPS at Busch Stadium. But on the road, he’s hit .238 with a .353 slug and .643 OPS.
Using wRC+, Arenado is 33 percent above league average offensively at home, and 22% below league average on the road. Busch isn’t much of a playground for hitters, so this doesn’t make sense.
Consider this:
– Over the last two seasons, among MLB hitters that have at least 330 plate appearances on the road, Arenado ranks 64th among 68 in slugging, and 66th among 68 in OPS.
– Over the same time frame, among hitters that have at least 330 plate appearances at home, Arenado ranks 6th among 62 in batting average and 22nd in OPS. And his home slugging percentage (.447) puts Nado in the top half of MLB hitters.
5. The Cardinals lack a knockout punch. This is hardly anything new, but their pitchers come up short in notching strikeouts and getting opposing hitters to swing and whiff. Through 12 games, the staff’s strikeout rate of 19.6 percent ranks 25th among the 30 teams. The swing-and-miss rate (10.7%) is 19th. This isn’t a power-pitching staff, and because of that, opponents have a 77.5 percent contact rate (22nd) overall and a glaring 87.5% contact rate on strikes. This is a fancy way of saying the St. Louis pitchers are too hittable.
6. Miles Mikolas isn’t getting better. He continues to deteriorate. Mikolas has made 12 starts since last Aug. 4, and we can make the case that he’s the worst starting pitcher in baseball.
Among 97 MLB starters that have pitched at least 50 innings since Aug. 4 of last year, Mikolas ranks 97th (last) with a 6.99 ERA, and last with a swinging-strike rate of just 6.4 percent. His strikeout rate (17.4%) is 89th among the 96 starters on this list.
Citing the Win Probability Added (WPA) metric, only one major-league starter (Joey Estes of the A’s) has a more negative rating than Mikolas. In his last 12 starts, Mikolas has been shelled for a .315 average, .340 on-base percentage and .498 slugging percentage.
7. Alec Burleson is being too aggressive at the plate. Again. Burly is excellent at making contact. He doesn’t strike out much, and his swing-and-miss rate is low. If Burleson could just train his mind to stop chasing so much junk out of the strike zone, he’d be a fantastic hitter.
But for the second straight season, Burly just can’t focus on being more selective and wait for strikes that he can punish. So far, he’s swung at 41 percent of the pitches that arrive outside of the strike zone. And it’s the No. 1 reason why he has a .350 slug, .660 OPS and is 12 percent below league average offensively.
This season, he’s batting .321 with a .429 slugging percentage and 52 percent hard-hit rate when connecting on strikes. When he connects on pitches out of the zone, he’s 2 for 12 (.167) with two singles. And he hasn’t hit a single pitch hard.
Here’s the deal with Burly since the start of last season:
On pitches in the strike zone: .303 average, .505 slug, 46.5% hard-hit rate, 8.5% strikeout rate.
On pitches out of the zone: .182 average, .206 slug, 27% hard-hit rate, and a 21% strikeout rate.
8. Is Nootbaar cooling down? After a scintillating start to the season, Noot went 3 for 24 (.125) on the road trip and had a poor .222 on-base percentage. I’m confident that Nootbaar will be fine, but this just shows the importance of having a skilled leadoff man. When Nootbaar fails to reach base more than once in a game this season, the Cardinals are 0-4. And he’s gone 1 for 19 with three walks in the four losses.
I’ll sign off now. It’s been an early-season grind for the Redbirds. They’ve endured four rain delays, had to play a day-night doubleheader and pushed through four extra-innings games. This is no excuse — but it also didn’t help. I’ll be curious to see how the Cardinals will play when the schedule normalizes.
9. The schedule? Starting Friday, when the Phillies set up at Busch Stadium for three games, the Cardinals will play 10 of their next 16 games against opponents that currently have a winning record. And for what it’s worth, the Cardinals have a .459 winning percentage over the last two-plus seasons against teams with winning records. Then again, the Cardinals haven’t had the same team in place since the start of 2023, so that .459 winning percentage could be irrelevant.
Thanks for reading…
—Bernie
Bernie was a 2023 inductee into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame and has won multiple national awards for column writing. You can access all of his writing and videos here on SportsHubSTL, catch him weekdays on the “Gashouse Gang” on KMOX (1120-AM, 104.1-FM) and watch him discuss baseball with Katie Woo of The Athletic twice a week on the “Cardinal Territory” YouTube channel.