What’s happening with the Cardinals?
It’s bad, really bad. It’s a downer. It’s a flashback to the hopeless and frustrating times of 2023. Not that the 2025 Cardinals are as awful as their 2023 ancestors. But it just kinda seems and feels that way over the last five days of gruesome baseball.
Since the two-day “Good Vibrations” festival at Busch Stadium last weekend, when the Cardinals turned up the energy and turned on the charm to beat the Dodgers on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon, the Cardinals have shut down and zoned out.
They’ve lost five games in succession to the Dodgers (1), Blue Jays (3) and Brewers (1). Two of the setbacks were settled by one-run margins, but in the other three losses the Redbirds were feather-plucked by an average of 4.3 runs.
Mathematically speaking, Thursday’s 6-0 blanking by Milwaukee wasn’t the worst loss of this psycho St. Louis season. But we could make the case that none of their defeats and 2025 were this hopeless and depressing. The Cardinals weren’t competitive in this beatdown by the Brewers.
The Cardinals like to call themselves battlers and fighters and all of that … OK … so where were the Battlin’ Redbirds in the opening nine innings of an important four-game set at American Family Field? Oh, the Cardinals had guys wearing the uniform, but that was pretty much it.
A tip of the cap goes to rookie pitcher Andre Granillo, who worked 2 and ⅔ innings of scoreless relief in his major-league debut. Granillo came in for the starter Sonny Gray, who imploded in the 5th inning.
The St. Louis offense – pardon the expression – was vaporized by the Brewers power-forward sized starting pitcher Jacob Misiorowski, who apparently was on loan from the Milwaukee Bucks.
In his first night in the big leagues the 6 foot 7 “Miz” – as his friends and family call him – was a tower of power, no-hitting the Redbirds for five innings until leg cramps caused his withdrawal. Sure, Miz walked four Cardinals.
But I’m thinking that a 23-year old rookie who can throw the rock at speeds of 100 mph – without sweating – will miss the strike zone at times. The big kid threw 41 four-seam fastballs that must have seemed like actual lightning bolts to the overwhelmed STL hitters.
Misiorowski, a native of the Kansas City area, zipped 14 pitches at 100 mph or higher. His 41 four-seam fastballs averaged 99.3 mph. He got 13 swings and misses.
WAIT! There was another swing and miss.
I don’t know about you, but I’m sure glad the Cardinals drafted pitcher Brycen Mautz in the second round of the 2022 MLB Draft with Misiorowski still available. And it’s not like the St. Louis scouts could find “Miz” because after all he was pitching in Switzerland or Beijing or something before the draft. No, actually the young phenom was pitching for a community college (Crowder) located 290 miles from St. Louis in Neosho, Mo.
(OK, that was a cheap shot. The Mautz pick could pay off for St. Louis; the lefty has an 3.18 ERA in 11 starts for Double A Springfield and averages 11 strikeouts per 9 innings. We shall see. I sincerely wish Mautz well. )
Before the game, Sonny Gray vs. Jacob Misiorowski loomed as a likely mismatch. Which it was. Except that the other guy, Miz, routed Gray. We didn’t have to go to the judges scorecards for this one.
In Thursday’s Review, I wisely wrote that it was a good thing for the Cardinals to have Gray going for them to start the first game of a rivalry series. Well. Never mind.
In the first four innings Gray was scratched for one run and three hits by the Brewers. That was OK; no real harm was done. But in the fifth inning the Crew repeatedly punched Gray in the mouth. It’s baseball, not boxing, but I couldn’t think of anything better than “punched Gray in the mouth.”
Six Brewers stepped into the batter's box to face Gray in the bottom of the fifth. They went 5 for 5 with three singles, a walk, a double and a homer. Gray was pulled – Oli Marmol stopped the fight – and went to the showers with his team buried in a five-run deficit.
Maybe I should hold off on putting Misiorowski in the Hall of Fame based on what he did to the Cardinals. (I’m sure he’ll be inducted into the Crowder CC HOF one day.) But let’s keep this in mind: Brewers relievers Nick Mears and Aaron Ashby took over after Miz left early and shut the Cardinals out over the final four innings.
My point? You didn’t have to be peak-form Bob Gibson or Tom Seaver to dominate the St. Louis offense in its current state … which happens to be a state of inertia.
Sonny Gray did an excellent job in his postgame summary.
“I don’t know, I don’t know … it wasn’t good, I wasn’t good, we weren’t good and we’re not playing good,” a flustered Gray told reporters on site. “Just nothing good.”
BIRD BYTES
Gray’s summation was the short story. But the Cardinals’ larger profile is in tatters. Let’s take a closer look at that.
1. The Cardinals have been skunked for five straight losses as part of their 4-9 dive since May 30. St. Louis is 10-13 since May 18. Trend. They’re riding a downbound train. (Thanks, Boss.)
2. In their last 17 games, St. Louis starting pitchers have a 5.64 ERA that ranks 28th in the majors and 14th in the NL since May 25. In the 17 games opposing batsmen have cracked the Cards starters for a .313 average and .484 slugging percentage – a mugging that includes 25 doubles, four triples and 11 homers. This blow-up includes an opponent batting average of .273 with a .471 slug when hitting with runners in scoring position. Fourteen of the 33 RISP hits have featured 14 extra-base hits.
3. Since signing with the Cardinals, Gray has a 5.65 ERA in five starts against Milwaukee and has been clubbed for a .491 slugging percentage. Included in the debris is Gray’s 7.16 ERA in three starts in the Crew’s home ballpark. The home-cooking Brewers have smashed Gray for a .606 slugging percentage in the three starts at American Family Field; 10 of their 19 hits have been a double, triple or homer. No. 1 starter, eh?
4. During their 4-9 slide since May 30, the Cardinals offense has averaged only 3.6 runs per game and ranks 27th among the 30 teams in batting average (.226), slugging percentage (.364) and OPS (.636). The Redbirds also have a putrid .299 onbase percentage over that time.
5. Lars Nootbaar went 0 for 3 with a walk in Thursday’s shutout loss to Milwaukee. In 85 plate appearances since May 20th, Nootbaar has a .160 batting average, and his onbase percentage is a broken .259. He’s also slugged .227 during this stretch. I’ll put that in context: retired Cards pitcher Adam Wainwright slugged .293 during his lengthy big-league career.
6. All hitters slump. Some of the slumps are extreme. Through Thursday’s stink bomb in Milwaukee, Nootbaar has 1 hit in his last 27 at-bats with 13 strikeouts. The Cards have lost five in a row and Nootbaar is 0 for 18 with 19 strikeouts in his four games. He was rested in the other game.
7. During STL’s freefall that has nine losses in the last 13 games, Nootbaar has a .128 batting average and 33 percent strikeout rate.
8. When Nootbaar fails to get onbase in a game this season, the Cardinals are 5-9 and have averaged 1.92 runs in the nine losses. When Nootbaar reaches base exactly one time in a game, the Cards are 7-10 and averaged 2.2 runs in the losses.
9. The Cardinals are 64-71 against Milwaukee since the start of the 2017 season. That’s when Milwaukee began a climb that has produced more regular-season wins, more postseason wins, more division titles and more times making the playoffs than either the Cards or Cubs.
10. With Thursday’s triumph, the Brewers are 12-5 in their last 17 games, and 16-8 in their last 24. They’ve moved ahead of the Cardinals and into second place behind the Cubs in the NL Central standings. The Brewers are making their upward move despite trading elite closer Devin Williams to the Yankees and having a rotation that’s had a blitz of injuries.
10a. To update a note I had yesterday, the Brewers have had seven starting pitchers on the IL this season. This has caused a lot of scrambling, with manager Pat Murphy using as many guys as he can to start games including several relievers in the “opener” format. Despite having starts from 13 different pitchers, the Brewers rank 2nd in the NL (and 5th overall) with a 3.36 starting-pitching ERA. The Cardinals haven’t had a major-league starter on the IL this season but rank 10th in the NL for starter ERA.
THE CLOSING ARGUMENT
Aaron Civale was pitching fine for the Brewers in 2025, rebounding from a terrible first start to pitch to a 3.32 ERA in his last four starts with the team. The Brewers wanted to clear a spot for the rookie starter Misiorowski in their rotation, and Civale was demoted to the bullpen before being traded to the White Sox.
The Cardinals’ starting pitching has been awful in recent weeks, with multiple starters getting beaten up. But even though the Cardinals are proud to tout their “Runway” season of opportunity for young hitters and pitchers, the Cards stubbornly refuse to make room in their rotation for rookie Michael McGreevy.
And that, my friends, is another example of why the Brewers are a helluva lot smarter than the Cardinals. Which is why they’ve won more regular-season and playoff games than the Cards over the last eight-plus seasons.
The Brewers have used three rookie starters this season in Misiorowski, Logan Henderson and Chad Patrick. The three have combined for a 2.61 ERA in nine starts. And Patrick – acquired from Oakland by Milwaukee’s astute front office before the 2024 season – has a 3.25 ERA in 15 games for the Brewers.
Milwaukee’s position players age 25 or younger have more WAR so far this season than the STL collection of position players in the same age group. The Brewers also have the most WAR in the majors this season from rookie pitchers.
There is a runway.
It’s in Milwaukee.
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.