The Cardinals were walloped in the final round Monday night, absorbing an excruciating loss after rallying from three runs down in the eighth inning to take a 4-3 lead and hand it over to closer Ryan Helsley for safekeeping. The Redbirds were gearing up to book one of their most satisfying and enjoyable victories of the season.
Only two more outs to go in the top of the ninth. But Toronto’s No. 9 hitter, Jonathan Clase, declined to cooperate. He attacked a flat 97.8 mph four-seam fastball offered by Helsley and drove it 415 feet over the wall in right-center field for a game-tying home run. The blow lowered the noise – and the oxygen level – at Busch Stadium. The Blue Jays went forward in the 10th inning to claim a 5-4 win.
It was Helsley’s fifth blown save of the season in his 18 opportunities to seal a win. For the record, that is already more burned saves than Helsley had all of last season, when he failed to lock down a save only four times in 53 chances.
Helsley is 0 for 3 in save attempts in his last three appearances. To be fair, he had some unfortunate batted-ball luck in the saves that got away in losses to the Royals and Dodgers. And at least the Cardinals recovered from both episodes to win both games, but they couldn’t pull it off Monday for the third consecutive time.
We need to talk about Helsley. I prefer to just play it straight here instead of ducking the issue and chickening out. My deal is to bring the stats and let them speak to you. Stats are not personal attacks.
Before I dive into this, please allow me to declare a few things, and pardon my intentional and somewhat comical grouchiness.
1. I’m not going to write something along the lines of HELSLEY SUCKS! Because he doesn’t. He’s a highly capable reliever who is coping with a significant flaw. Which I will explain here in a bit.
2. I’m not going to do the predictable STL media thing and write a column that basically amounts to a breathless message of good tidings in an unnecessary defense of Helsley. There is nothing to defend here. Helsley is good at his job. He has a crucial, important role, and he’s going through a tough time. And sure, he can bounce back – and doing so will require a fix. It’s an ongoing process.
And if we’re going to gush over Helsley’s excellent work as a dominant closer in 2024 – well, gee, I think it’s OK to write or talk about a decline in performance as well. I’m in favor of telling the truth, based on facts. Medias: Y’all don’t work for the Cardinals. You’re supposed to be working for the fans. So please stop with the sympathetic posturing. Save Tammy Wynette’s iconic “Stand By Your Man” for one of your digital-music playlists. Helsley doesn’t need you to make excuses for him.
3. I’m not going to propose anything insane such as demanding that the Cardinals install a fresh closer and move Helsley in a setup role. Why? Because the Cardinals don’t have a viable alternative closer in the house. Helsley remains the best option.
4. I’m not going to write about how Helsley’s slump will impact the July 31 trade deadline from the STL front office standpoint. Why? Because the deadline is 51 days from now, and a lot can happen between now and then. Just because Helsley has shown unexpected vulnerability, it doesn’t mean he’ll stay that way. This topic will be important once we cruise closer to the All-Star break. For now there are too many moving parts – including Helsley’s right arm.
5. I’m not going to rehash the “they should have traded Helsley!” pronouncements. That was the offseason. This is June. The window for dealing Helsley before spring training has closed. If you want to brag to your friends that you said “trade him” back in December, then congrats are in order. You and about 900,000 other people said the same thing.
Here’s what we should be dwelling on right now: Helsley’s four-seam fastball is getting smoked by opportunistic hitters who seem to know when it’s coming. I’ll explain more as we go along.
And this isn’t a minor development. It’s a substantial change that has rendered Helsley a lot more hittable in 2025. An ineffective four-seam fastball is not ideal for a reliever that zips it on 48.6 percent of his pitches.
This has nothing to do with Helsley’s fastball velocity. His velocity ranks among the top two percent of MLB pitchers this season. But over the last several (or so) years, hitters have adapted to the high-velo heat. They’re more capable of handling it now.
And there’s nothing wrong with Helsley’s slider. It’s still a super pitch for him – as evidenced by the opponents’ .095 batting average, .190 slugging percentage and 43 percent whiff-swing rate when Helsley uses it this year.
OK, now let’s get into the heart of the matter: Helsley’s problematic, surprisingly swattable four-seam fastball – based on the numbers generated against it by opposing hitters. And unless otherwise noted this only pertains to the four-seamer.
THE BASICS
2024: .210 average, .273 slug, .092 Isolated Power number (ISO)
2025: .269 average, .532 slug, .106 ISO.
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HARD-HIT RATE
2024: 50 percent.
2025: 58.5%.
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SWING/MISS
2024: Whiff-swing rate 18.4%.
2025: Whiff-swing 16.2%.
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ADVANCED METRICS
2024: 4-seam fastball value, +3, top 36%
2025: 4-seam fastball value, minus 4, bottom 18%
2024: Overall Pitching Run Value: +16, top 12%
2025: Overall Pitching Run Value: 0, bottom 53%
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THE COUNT FACTOR
Let’s explore another issue. When hitters are ahead in the count, how much does Helsley go with the four-seam fastball in an attempt to take away a hitter’s advantage?
There isn’t much difference between 2024 and 2025 in how often Helsley throws the four-seam fastball when he’s behind in the count to left-handed hitters.
But there is a big difference in 2025 when he uses the four-seam when behind in the count to right-handed batters.
In 2024, he used the four-seam 56 percent of the time when behind in the count to RH batters.
In 2025, Helsley has ramped up the four-seam fastball to 80 percent of his pitches thrown to right-handed hitters when he’s behind in the count. That’s a usage increase of 24 percent over 2024.
Are the hitters onto this? Do they know what to expect when they’re ahead in the count? Do they assume Helsley will come at that with the four-seam fireball?
I think so – because the righty batters know that Helsley will feed them that fastball 80 percent of the time when he’s behind in the count.
It’s a sliver of a sample, but right-handed batters have hit Helsley’s four seamer when ahead in the count to the tune of a .545 average and .727 slug. His whiff-swing rate in these situations is only 3.6 percent.
Last season when behind in the count to RH batters, Helsley didn’t go with the four-seam fastball nearly as often as he has in 2025. And last season RH batters hit .214 with no extra-base hits and a 19 whiff-swing rate on the four-seam when they’re ahead in the count.
Helsley appears to have fallen into a predictable pattern this season in going with the four-seamer when behind in the count to right-handed batters. And they’re pouncing on that pitch. Perhaps they are aware of his tendencies? Probably so. A change in sequencing might be in order.
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HITTERS ARE CRUSHING STRIKES
This season when opponents swing and connect with Helsley’s four-seam fastball in the strike zone and hit it into fair territory, they’re 18 for 40 (.450) with two doubles, a homer and a 61 percent hard-hit rate.
Opponents have done even more damage when Helsley spots the four-seam in the heart of the strike zone: 10 for 25 (.400) with .682 slug and a 68 percent hard-hit rate.
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LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
When speaking about Helsley’s four-seam fastball with Cards manager Oli Marmol Tuesday on KMOX, he mentioned something important: Helsley needs to be sharper in locating the pitch. And the metrics at FanGraphs support this. This season Helsley’s Location+ rating is eight percent below league average, and that percentage is down for the second consecutive season. The location issue is hardly a calamity – but it just reaffirms that his four-seamer is a little off in 2025.
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BOTTOM-LINE TRENDS
First of all, I hope those of you who stayed with me in this column to the end – I appreciate you, and I hope you’ve learned a little from it. It’s a lot easier to just type in HELSLEY SUCKS! I wanted to put some numbers on it, and I know that too many numbers can be boring in this house-fly attention span these days. So again, thank you for sticking with it.
Here’s the bottom line … Helsley’s trends are moving in the wrong direction. I took the relevant categories and listed his stats per season (all pitches) from 2022 through 2025. That’s four seasons of data, and here are the trends, starting with 2022 and working to the right to 2025.
Strikeout rate: 39.3%, then 35.6%, then 29.7% last season, and 25.9% this season. That’s a significant drop from as recently as two seasons ago.
Walk rate: I’ll shorten this one. Last season Helsley had a walk rate of 8.6%, and he’s up to 11% this season. His control is problematic.
First-pitch strike percentage: keep in mind that it’s important for Helsley to get ahead in the count. Last season he had a first-strike rate of 66 percent, and that’s dropped to 61 percent in 2025.
Opponent overall contact rate on strikes: After averaging 78 percent from 2022 through 2024, hitters are connecting on Helsley’s strikes at a glaring rate of 88 percent in 2025.
Opponent hard-hit rate, all pitches: 39% in 2022, then 39.5%, and a decrease to 35% in 2024 – and that hard-hit rate has jumped to 48 percent this season. That’s a lot.
Home-run percentage, all pitches: What percentage of opponent plate appearances end in a homer? The rate was 2.5% in 2022, dropped to 0.7% in ‘23, ticked up to 1.1% last year, and is 2.8 percent this year.
The batting line against Helsley from 2022 through 2024, all pitches: .172 average, .248 onbase percentage, .258 slugging percentage and a .505 slug.
The batting line against Helsley in 2025, all pitches: .269 average, .352 onbase pct, .398 slug and .750 OPS.
No need for me to elaborate on that. As I mentioned earlier, the numbers always talk to us and explain what’s going on. It will be up to incoming president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom to interpret his own set of advanced numbers on Helsley as he considers offering the closer a contract beyond 2025.
Thanks for reading …
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 STLSportsCentral, 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.