There isn’t much to say about the Cardinals’ absenteeism in Monday’s inexorable 7-0 thrashing by the Pittsburgh Pirates. But I’ll take a few whacks at it.
The surprisingly good Bucs took batting practice against Cards starting pitcher Erick Fedde. They continued the beating initiated by the Cubs last week, and Fedde has been assaulted for a 14.54 ERA and four home runs in his last two starts.
Long story short, Fedde’s poor pitching metrics have caught up to him and are taking him down. More on that later in The Review.
If that hospital on the hit MAX series “The Pitt” was a real thing instead of a TV show, the Cardinals would have wheeled Fedde into the emergency entrance.
And when it was the Redbirds’ time to step into the batter’s box, well, they stepped into something else. A big pile of it.
The St. Louis hitters didn’t offer much resistance on a sleepy Monday night at PNC Park. The Cards made Andrew Heaney – the Pittsburgh mediocre left-handed starter – look like Sandy Koufax.
In his previous two starts against the Tigers and Brewers, Heaney had gotten flogged for 14 earned runs in 8 innings. He is one of the most hittable pitchers in these United States. But the Cardinals were virtually defenseless against Heaney, managing only three singles and a walk in 22 plate appearances. He struck out seven.
After compiling a 17.6 percent strikeout rate in his first 16 starts of the 2025 campaign, Heaney struck out 31.8 percent of the Cardinals who cosplayed as major-league hitters.
Over their nine innings, the Cardinals failed to get a base hit with runners in scoring position. Then again, it would be hard to deliver an RBI, considering that the Redbirds never took an at-bat with a runner in scoring position in this one.
In a 162-game season, the scent of a stench bomb will waft over every MLB team on occasion, and that’s what happened to the Cardinals on a malodorous Monday.
Bad games are inevitable, and the Cardinals staggered through one during their final game of June.
Now the hitters will have to wrestle an intimidating bear on Tuesday night.
Skenes doesn’t have a “win” against the Cardinals over his first two major-league seasons, but that’s more about his teammates’ inability to provide decent offense.
Fortunately, Monday’s exhibition required only 2 hours and 12 minutes of wasted time, so the Cardinals should be well rested for the showdown against the grizzly who has a 2.03 ERA in his first 40 big-league starts.
It should be a good, entertaining watch on Tuesday night – unless Andre Pallante does the Fedde.
ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT: despite losing Monday in a game that required a snooze alarm, the Cardinals (47-39) still remain only three games behind the first-place Cubs and trail the second-place Brewers by one game in the NL Central standings … the Cardinals are still clinging to a one-game lead in the food fight for the No. 3 wild-card spot in the National League.
THE FEDDE PROBLEM
Among the 50 MLB starting pitchers that had worked at least 90 innings this season through Monday, Fedde ranked 50th in strikeout rate (14.2%), 50th in expected Fielding Independent ERA (5.17), 50th in strikeout-walk ratio (1.39), 43rd in ERA (4.56), and 45th in Fielding Independent ERA (4.65.)
Fedde is also 39th among the 50 for most innings pitched, and tied for 42nd in quality starts.
In the Statcast metrics, Fedde is in the bottom 3 percent in strikeout rate, the bottom 4 percent in whiff-swing rate.
And also: the bottom 7 percent in expected ERA, and the bottom 27 percent in hard-hit rate.
I don’t know what Fedde’s trade value is at this point. The guess would be: not much.
HOW ABOUT THEM YINZERS? What’s gotten into the Pirates? They’ve won four in a row, savaging the Mets and Cardinals for 37 runs, 12 doubles, six homers, a .364 batting average and a 1.000 OPS. And in the four games the Mets and Cardinals scored only four runs in 36 innings against Pittsburgh’s pitchers. The Pirates are 21-17 since May 20, and have a better record than the Mets, Cardinals, Giants, Padres, Diamondbacks and Braves over that time.
NL CENTRAL, JUNE-ONLY STANDINGS
Brewers 16-9
Reds 15-11
Pirates 14-13
Cardinals 14-14
Cubs 13-13
The Cardinals did well to salvage the month. The Cards were 4-10 in their first 14 games of June, and had a 10-4 record in their final 14 games of the month. But after the Cardinals lost on Monday night, all hope is lost, the season is over, and it’s time to fire everyone, and ownership must sell the franchise. At least that’s what “X” was screaming at me Monday night … then again, I was pretty drowsy at the time – so I may be mistaken.
TROUBLE WITH LEFTIES, PART ONE
It was a tough month for St. Louis hitters in their matchups against left-handed starting pitchers. Lefty starters crafted an impressive 3.38 ERA in their 13 starts vs. the Cards. And when encountering left-handed starters in June, the Cardinals hit only .221 with a .285 on-base percentage and .327 slug for a .612 OPS.
Including relievers, left-handed pitchers had a 3.65 ERA against the Redbirds in June and limited your favorite team to a .220 average and .639 OPS.
Some of the best lefty starters put the clamp down on St. Louis batters in June. In their June starts against the Cardinals, Noah Cameron, Clayton Kershaw, Andrew Abbott, Matthew Boyd, Shota Imanaga, and Andrew Heaney combined for a 0.44 ERA in 40 and ⅓ innings. The Cardinals scored one run against Kershaw, and had one against Abbott. And that’s it. The other four LH starters in that group did not give up a run. No cookies for you.
TROUBLE WITH LEFTIES, PART TWO
Ivan Herrera had only 20 plate appearances vs. lefties in June because his month was cut short by a strained hamstring. And Jordan Walker had only eight plate appearances all month against lefties before going on the IL with appendicitis. Those ailments to two right-handed at-bats out of the Cards’ hitting supply to be used against lefties. I say that while also recognizing that Walker is batting .203 with a .271 slug against lefty slingers this season.
Other Cardinals simply failed. When facing all lefty pitching in June – starters or relievers – a group of nine Redbirds didn’t bring a lot to the skirmish.
Lars Nootbaar, Brendan Donovan, Nolan Gorman, Pedro Pages, Walker, Thomas Saggese, Garrett Hampson, Ryan Vilade and Jose Barrero combined for 19 hits in 154 at-bats for a .123 average. And the nine hitters, combined, struck out 50 times.
TROUBLE WITH LEFTIES, PART THREE
Some of those guys I mentioned weren’t expected to do much vs. left-handed pitching. But how about Nootbaar and Donovan? In going up to take on lefty pitchers in June, Nootbaar and Donovan combined for 7 hits in 64 at-bats for a .109 batting average. Even worse, the two veteran left-handed batters struck out a combined 23 times in their matchups against LHP.
For the month, STL’s left handed batters skimped to a .179 average and a .568 OPS versus the southpaws. Right-swinging Cardinals were better against the lefts in June – but a .248 average and .383 slugging percentage doesn’t light my fire.
NOTE ON B. DONOVAN
Like most observers, I admire Donovan for his talent, work ethic, and all-around presence as an emerging team leader. I’m glad he’s a Cardinal. But before anyone starts writing or yapping about how it would be a crime against humanity if Donovan isn’t selected to the 2025 NL All-Star team, I would suggest calming down just a bit. There’s no reason to contact The Hague – and I ain’t talking about Joe Hague, either.
Donovan, who bats left, started off well against left-handed pitching this season. Per wRC+, Donovan was nine percent above league average offensively vs. lefties in the first month, then six percent below average in May.
That’s fine. But Donnie’s offensive performance collapsed against lefties in June. He went 5 for 37 (.135) with three walks and a 26 percent strikeout rate. He had one extra-base hit, got on base only 23 percent of the time, slugged .162 and posted a .395 OPS.
Per wRC+. Donovan’s offensive value vs. LHP in June was – this is not a mistake – 81 percent below league average.
And when Donovan batted leadoff and took on a lefty pitcher in June, he went 1 for 20 with three walks.
For the season, no matter where he hits in the lineup, Donovan has a .208 average and .600 OPS vs. those tricky lefties – and is 29 percent below league average against them offensively per wRC+.
That said, Donovan is blasting right-handed pitching this season for a robust slash line of .342 / .412 / .480 – and his offensive performance against righties is 51 percent above league average.
THE SCHEDULE FACTOR
With the Cardinals in postseason contention, the difficulty of the remaining schedule will matter. The Cardinals have done very well this season – a 12-4 record – against opponents that reside in the bottom seven of the MLB in winning percentage.
Those teams are the Rockies (.226), White Sox (.233), A’s (.402), Nationals (.417), Pirates (.419), Orioles (.440) and Marlins (.451.) Of course, the trends can change. As I already noted in this column, the Pirates are doing better now. And hey, the Marlins are going wild, with a 12-4 streak in their last 16 games … including their current seven-game winning streak compiled against the Braves and wild-card contenders Giants and Diamondbacks.
But for now, I’ll keep the Marlins in the bottom seven … because factually, they’re in the bottom seven.
OK, so here’s what I did. I looked at each NL postseason contender and counted the number of remaining games against bottom-seven MLB teams. And at least for now, the Cardinals will have more opportunities to stack wins against bottom-seven occupants. Here’s the list with each contender’s number of games against the sad seven.
I’ll list them by division:
NL Central
Cardinals, 25
Cubs, 18
Brewers, 18
Reds, 14
NL East
Braves, 26
Phillies, 16
Mets, 13
NL West
Padres, 19
Giants, 18
Dodgers, 16
Diamondbacks, 13
Comments: I don’t think the Dodgers have much to worry about. But the Dodgers will have a lot of clout in determining the wild-card fate of their fellow NL West brothers.
The Giants have 10 games left against LA, and the Padres and Diamondbacks will each play the Dodgers six times.
Technically the Cardinals have a more challenging remaining schedule than the Cubs (via Tankathon.) But the Brewers have the toughest remaining schedule.
Here are the current remaining-schedule difficulty rankings for the NL contenders, listed by the toughest to the easiest.
Brewers, 1st (toughest)
Reds, 5th
Mets, 6th
Braves, 14th
Giants, 15th
Phillies, 16th
D-backs, 18th
Cardinals, 22nd
Dodgers, 26th
Cubs, 27th (easiest)
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. 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-AM0 and he is a regular guest on the “Cardinal Territory” video show hosted by Katie Woo of The Athletic. Bernie does a weekly “Seeing Red” podcast with Will Leitch on the Cardinals.