Let’s hit some Fungoes …
1. Taking two of three from the Dodgers made for a fun and festive weekend for the Cardinals at Busch Stadium. Two of the three crowds topped 40,000. Saturday’s number of tickets sold (37,465) was very good considering the threatening weather.
2. Busch Stadium was the site of a baseball house party, and there haven’t been many days or nights like that for STL home games.
3. I think I disagree with some of the hyperventilating out there, with folks declaring that the Cardinals have saved the season or summer or the franchise or the U.S. Constitution or something like that. And I have to figure that a good percentage of those in the crowd were there to see Shohei Ohtani, LA’s constellation of stars and the charismatic team funded with a $405 million, 40-man payroll.
4. But yes, certainly the atmosphere was terrific. The underdog Cardinals vs. the best team that money can attempt to buy made for a compelling matchup – and fans of both teams got into it. The St. Louis homecoming of Dodgers second baseman Tommy Edman undoubtedly attracted some Cardinals fans to the ballyard. But even some of the many Cardinals fans who were disgusted by the team’s offseason approach are starting to come around.
4. Manager Oli Marmol: “Gosh, our guys love playing here for that reason – when it’s full, it’s fun. The environment was awesome … like just everybody was into it. (There was a) decent amount of their fans here as well. (The Dodgers are) one of the more respected and well-followed teams.” And Oli is right about that.
5. The Dodgers lead the majors in road attendance this season. Large, sprawling, enthusiastic crowds are routine for the Dodgers, no matter where the game is played. The Dodgers are an event, leading the majors in road attendance (by far) since Ohtani signed with the franchise before the 2024 season.
6. I’ll know baseball in St. Louis is returning to better health in popularity when we see 35,000 or more tickets sold for games against the Blue Jays, Reds, and Nationals. They’ll be the next three teams to visit Busch Stadium, beginning with Toronto’s three-game stay that begins Monday night.
7. The Cardinals still rank 13th in the majors for average tickets sold per home game (30,125.) That average is only 1,476 higher than what the hideous 12-53 Rockies are drawing to Coors Field for home games. But as I mentioned earlier, I think the trend is warming, with more and more fans putting their disdain for ownership-management aside to come to the ballpark and enjoy a spirited team that has an appealing style of play. Saturday’s 2-1 victory may have been low scoring, but the final two innings were tense and riveting and wonderfully thrilling. Thank you, Masyn Winn.
8. In the series, St. Louis pitching held Ohtani and Freddie Freeman to 4 hits in 23 at-bats (.173) and Freeman struck out five times. Ohtani and Freeman were also hitless in their nine combined at bats when hitting with runners in scoring position.
9. In the first two games, both wins for the home team, Redbirds starting pitchers Sonny Gray and Erick Fedde combined for 11 and ⅔ shutout innings. Five relievers combined for 6 and ⅓ innings and were dinged for one run – and it was a fluky run at that.
10. If you would have told me that LA’s powerful lineup would go 1 for 25 with runners in scoring position and score only one run over 18 innings in the first two games – I would have responded with this: “There’s no chance of that happening. None. Nada. Forget it.”
11. And this is why we love baseball. The Dodgers came into Busch ranked first or second in all of the major offensive categories – and had a ridiculous .314 batting average and .586 slugging percentage when batting with runners in scoring position. But in the first two games, which clinched a series victory, the Cardinals came about as close as a team can get to pitching consecutive shutouts against a Dodgers mash unit.
12. Since the start of the 2024 season the Dodgers lead the majors in runs per game, batting average, on-base percentage and OPS and lead the National League in home runs. And this formidable group scratched out one measly run in their first 76 plate appearances over the first two games. Incredible.
13. That said, I’m surprised that so many others were surprised to see the Cardinals win the series. The Los Angeles pitching staff has been despoiled by injuries; 14 hurlers are still on the Injured List. And as I wrote about in Friday’s review, the Dodgers haven’t exactly crushed opponents as of late. Take a look at the STL and LA records from various starting points on the schedule:
* April 11: Cards 31-22, Dodgers 29-23.
* April 30: Cards 24-12, Dodgers 19-17.
* May 1: Cards 22-10, Dodgers 16-17.
That’s right. The Cardinals are 6 and 1/2 games better than LA since the start of May. Hardly the Little Engine That Could. But perception is just about everything these days, and the Cardinals still haven’t won over their skeptics.
14. I understand. This team hasn’t been prominent on the national (October) stage over the last 10 years, and it will take a while for this set of players to earn the kind of long-term prestige that belonged to previous generations of Cardinals from 2000 through 2015. Will the 2025 Cardinals last, or are they a tease? I don’t blame anyone for wondering about that. But I also like watching this team. And I respect the manager, coaches and players for what they’re doing.
Let’s move on …
WHY WAS CLAYTON KERSHAW SO SALTY? Right before the start of Sunday’s day game, the Cardinals’ non-baseball staff trolled Kershaw by running a video of Matt Adams blasting Kershaw and the Dodgers with a late and totally unexpected three-run homer that in Game 4 of the 2014 NLDS that carried the Cardinals to a spot in the NL Championship Series. Up to that point, Kershaw took a 2-0 lead into the seventh inning and seemed to be well on the way to getting the NLDS back to Dodger Stadium for Game 5.
But Adams intervened … dramatically so.
And Kershaw, now 37, was fired up by the replays. After holding the Cardinals to one run in five innings Sunday in a classic Kershaw-style performance, he aired his feelings to the gathered media.
The future Hall of Famer – winner of three Cy Young awards, 213 games and a 10-time All-Star – called the Adams video loop a “little bush league,” and added “but I don’t expect anything less from these guys.”
I don’t even know what that second part means, because I don’t recall the Cardinals ever doing anything in the past that insulted Kershaw in a personal manner.
Then again, Kershaw has made five postseason starts against St. Louis in his career. And the final three starts, which took place in 2013 and ‘14, weren’t much fun for the hallowed lefty.
Three starts, 16 and ⅔ innings, 22 hits, four walks, three homers, four doubles and the Adams thunderbolt. Another huge moment was a bases-clearing double by Matt Carpenter in Game 1 of the 2014 NLDS that brought the Cardinals back from a 6-2 deficit and in the lead to stay for a 10-9 win. In the three starts, Kershaw was cudgeled for 18 earned runs and a blistering 9.71 ERA. Maybe those memories still sting Kershaw.
So why did the Cardinals taunt Kershaw before a start that could well be his final appearance at Busch Stadium? I’m not trying to be a grouch here. But I don’t understand the point of the Adams video.
I like the way the Cardinals players go about their business. They compete with confidence, have charisma and play hard. They’re doing a strong job of staying focused and taking care of business between the lines this season.
Their .554 winning percentage – ranked tied for ninth in the majors – has exceeded expectations. I don’t think the players in the St. Louis uniforms required any extracurricular stimulation. But the Cardinals’ non-baseball personnel helped Kershaw by providing some extra motivation.
Hey, at least people like me are talking about it, so maybe STL’s non-baseball personnel wanted to create buzz to go viral on social media. Maybe this was part of the plan to attract younger fans. Hell if I know. But the Adams replay backfired. Better luck next time.
MICHAEL MCGREEVY: Before matching up against STL’s rookie righthander on Sunday, the Dodgers had been held to one run or no runs only seven times this season – and then it happened twice at Busch Stadium in less than 48 hours. The Dodgers were overdue to bust loose, and McGreevy was in the right place – a major-league pitching mound – at an unfortunate time.
McGreevy did allow four earned runs in his six Sunday innings, but I want to put the start into context. McGreevy was facing the best offense in baseball, one that was about to erupt on SOMEONE. And he had only one bad inning. After the Dodgers got to McGreevy for three runs in the second inning, he dug in and gave up one run over his final three innings to preserve the bullpen.
McGreevy maintained poise to regroup and make adjustments and quiet the Dodgers. And the Cardinals were still in the game, having cut the LA lead to 4-2 before failing to deliver hits in a couple of big run-scoring situations.
This season, the Dodgers’ hitters have put a bruising on a lot of good (or “name”) starting pitchers including Tarik Skubal, Justin Steele, Chris Sale, Christopher Sanchez, Eduardo Rodriguez and Sandy Alcantara. So if you put McGreevy’s work against the Dodgers into the proper context, there’s no reason to be down on him.
MY STAT GEEK NUMBERS OF THE DAY: THE CARDINALS VS. LEFTY PITCHERS.
This is a helluva note, and I’m glad I took the time to research it.
The St. Louis hitters are at a disadvantage this season, and here’s the first reason: as a group, left-handed pitchers are having an exceptional 2025 season, one of the very best in MLB history. The second reason: the Cardinals have a lot of left-handed hitters in their cast of position players. And lefty vs. lefty encounters aren’t good for the hitters. More on that in a bit.
Here are the relevant numbers …
– MLB hitters (from both sides of the plate) have a .238 batting average against lefties so far, and that would be the lowest vs. lefties in a season since the so-called Modern Era began in 1901. Yep. I’m not kidding.
– Based on the wRC+ metric – which adjusts for ballpark effects and the run-scoring trends in a particular season – 2025 would be the worst hitting performance against left-handed pitchers since 2002. (There is no data on that before 2002.) The batters collectively are seven percent below league average offensively vs. lefties, which is a significant drop from where they’d been in the past five or six seasons.
– In the 124 seasons starting with 1901, the on-base percentage against lefties this year (.308) would be the fourth-lowest during the 124 seasons.
– This year’s slugging percentage (.382) against the lefties would rank 76th over the 124 seasons.
– The OPS vs. lefties (.692) would rank 96th in the last 124 seasons.
– Lefty pitchers have combined for a 3.60 ERA so far in 2025, and that would be the lowest ERA by LH pitchers in a campaign since 1981.
– These nasty lefties collectively have a strikeout rate that’s 15 percent higher than their walk rate so far in 2025. Here’s what that means: this would be the biggest gap between strikeouts (good!) and walks (bad!) for left-handed pitchers since 1901.
OK, so why is this bad for the 2025 St. Louis Cardinals?
Simple answer: at the start of the new week, the Cardinals rank second among the 30 MLB teams for most plate appearances against left-handed pitchers. (Only the Phillies have more.) And this is an unfavorable matchup for the Cardinals.
STL’s right-handed batters don’t exactly destroy LHP – they have only 10 homers, for example – but as a group they’re seven percent above league average offensively against vs. lefties (per wRC+.)
However, the Cardinals’ left-side bats have hit only .213 and slugged a poor .304 when facing lefties. And per wRC+, their overall performance against the so-called southpaws is 22 percent below league average offensively.
Lars Nootbaar and Brendan Donovan are two percent above league average against LH pitching this season and have produced the only four home runs. The other left-handed bats – Victor Scott II, Alec Burleson, Nolan Gorman and Michael Siani – are collectively way below league average when confronting lefty hurlers.
The Cardinals are going to need more from Jordan Walker, who bats from the right side. And at some point they’ll have to cultivate right-handed hitters that can tee off on left-handed pitchers. The fast-developing outfield prospect Joshua Baez is a candidate, but he just moved up to Double A Springfield. Thomas Saggese, who also swings from the right side, could help with this project. And Luken Baker – remember him – has mashed lefty pitching during his shifts with the Cardinals over the last two seasons. But he’s currently housed at Triple A Memphis.
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 fantastic Katie Woo of The Athletic.