Just a note in advance: I’m writing this before the start of Wednesday’s Cards-Pirates game in Pittsburgh. Thank you.
I’m going to start with something positive: a tip of the ol’ ballcap to Cardinals starting pitcher Andre Pallante, who did a wonderful job of muting the Pittsburgh offense in Tuesday’s 1-0 loss.
Pallante’s start was even more impressive considering the carnage that occurred before it. Coming into Tuesday, the Pirates had mauled Met and Cardinal pitchers for 37 runs and and 51 hits in four games.
PNC Park was not a safe place for starting pitchers over the four-game slug-a-thon, with the Pirates beating on David Peterson, Paul Blackburn, Frankie Montas and Erick Fedde for a total of 21 runs and 30 hits in 14 and ⅔ innings. That’s a 12.88 ERA.
Pallante was oblivious to the assaults that felled Peterson, Blackburn, Montas and Fedde.
In Pallante’s best start of the season, he took on 23 Pirates hitters over his seven shutout innings and ceded only one hit and two walks. Based on the Bill James Game Score, this was Pallante’s finest start of the season.
I’ve questioned the wisdom of keeping Pallante in the rotation, but he has succeeded in shutting me up. In his last five starts, Pallante has a 2.22 ERA and 3.10 Fielding Independent ERA.
These were working man’s starts, with Pallante grinding out 28 and ⅓ determined innings. Despite a modest 16 percent strikeout rate in the five assignments, the pugnacious Pallante did not capitulate under pressure, yielding only seven earned runs.
Tuesday night, Pirates hitters went 0-8 against Pallante’s slider, 0 for 7 on four-seam fastball, and 0 for 4 when connecting on a sinker. The only hit that blemished his performance came on a knuckle-curve. As is his custom, Pallante induced a total of 13 ground-ball outs.
A hypothetical: if the National League playoffs began later this week, how would the Cardinals set their rotation? This assumes that the choices will be made with the starters they have right now.
I would go – and many of you would go – in this order.
(1) Sonny Gray ... (2) Matthew Liberatore ... (3) Andre Pallante ... (4) Miles Mikolas ... (5) Erick Fedde.
Actually, I would go with Michael McGreevy as the 4th starter in this scenario but unless something changes I wouldn't expect the Cards to do that.
A few quick follow-ups on that …
We don’t know if the Cardinals will make the playoffs. And if the Redbirds do qualify for the postseason, we don’t know if their choices will be limited to their current five-starter group.
In a wild-card or division playoff round, teams can use only 3 starting pitchers. A 4th starter doesn't come into play until there's a best-of-seven format.
McGreevy, the unofficial sixth starter, could be in the mix, especially if the Cards can offload Fedde.
What if prospect Quin Mathews gets rolling at Triple A Memphis after the All-Star break? We’ve seen something similar unfold in the past. More on that in a minute.
There could be (gasp!) injuries. We could see a starter pitch horribly over an extended period of time and crash his way out of postseason consideration.
Fedde could be subtracted, and the Cardinals would like to move him. What about Mikolas? In an organization that doesn’t make crucial personnel choices based on a player’s contract, Mikolas wouldn’t be given a uniform – let alone a baseball to throw in a playoff game.
There’s also a chance of a surprise.
In 2013, the STL rotation had five primary starters in the first two months of the season: Adam Wainwright, Lance Lynn, Shelby Miller, Jaime Garcia and Jake Westbrook. But Garcia and Westbrook lost time to injuries.
After taking a look at John Gast – remember him? – in the rotation and giving a few starts to Tyler Lyons, the Cards promoted Wacha from Triple A Memphis on May 30. After making three starts Wacha was transferred back to Memphis and stayed there until early August.
The Cardinals installed Wacha in their rotation on Aug. 10, and he stayed there all the way until the Cardinals were eliminated by the Red Sox in World Series Game 6.
Wacha was a force late in the season, composing a 2.11 in 14 regular-season starts and a 2.64 ERA in four postseason starts. During the NL playoffs, the tall and poised right-hander with the killer changeup made three starts – one against the Pirates, the other two against Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers – and allowed one run in 21 innings.
I’m not suggesting that Quinn Mathews or any current STL pitching prospect will be the 2025 version of the 2013 rookie Wacha. Not at all. But the point is, a lot can happen between now and the late stages of the season, and there’s always a chance of a surprising development. There's also the possibility of an implosion that will make this discussion obsolete.
But in the unexpected surprises category, Kurt Warner (1999 Rams) and Jordan Binnington (2019 Blues) know all about this.
As of now – July 2 – the Cardinals top-three starters are Gray, Liberatore and Pallante. But Pallante is no sure thing. Unless, of course, he can continue to deliver several more sequences of starts that resemble what we’ve seen from him in his last five outings.
STATE OF THE OFFENSE
Sigh.
Scratching my head.
In a word: crazier than ever, with preposterously wild and extreme fluctuations, and fully unpredictable. The Cardinals offense reflects the startling and sudden shifts in weather we’ve experienced in the Midwest.
The Cardinals went into Wednesday ranked 9th in the majors in runs per game. But is that how we leave it?
They’re doing great, so shaddup, Bernie!
Naw, I’m gonna keep typing. I covered this in Wednesday’s Bernie Show video, but I want to share the information here as well.
This is an extreme offense. It’s crazy how the Cardinals hitters can go from being great – to suddenly turn futile, with no real midway stopping-off point – in a matter of a few days.
+ In their last 11 wins through Tuesday, going back to June 14, the Cardinals averaged 7.45 runs, slugged .510, and hit 1.45 home runs per game. They scored at least five runs in every game, and plated seven or more runs in seven games.
+ UPDATED: in their last 10 losses, including another ridiculous shut-out blanking Wednesday in Pittsburgh, the Cardinals scored four runs – total – in the 10 defeats. They were shutout SIX times, scored only one run in another game, and scratched for two runs in three other games. Yep. Ten losses, four runs. You can't make this junk up.
+ This is pretty much the same offense, the same group of hitters, performing along those absurdly extreme borders. And too many times this season we’ve seen the Cardinals go through too many “All or Nothing” cycles.
+ Another example of the extreme nature of the St. Louis offense. Going into Wednesday, the Cardinals had scored 5+ runs in 43 games. And among the other major-league teams, only the Dodgers and Diamondbacks have done that more often than St. Louis. Great!
+ Yes. But. The Cardinals have been shutout eight times now – the 10th highest total in the majors. They have scored no more than one run in a game 22 times – and only the White Sox, Rockies, Rangers and Royals have been held down more times than the Cardinals. Not so great!
+ In their 47 wins through Tuesday, the Cardinals averaged 6.34 runs per game, had an 825 OPS, and hit 1.45 home runs per game.
+ UPDATED: In their 41 losses through Wednesday, the Cards averaged 2.3 runs per game, and hit 0.52 home runs per game.
The Cardinal offense is a tsunami or a drought – maybe on back to back days. Or they could be two tsunamis and two droughts in the same week.
The Cardinals are 97 degrees outside – hot, hot, hot! – and then they’re a thunderstorm that kills the electricity. Or they turn to solid ice in the heat of the summer. It's ridiculous.
RANDOM BUT RELATED NOTES
The 2004 Cardinals were shut out only four times during their 162-game regular-season schedule.
The 2025 Cardinals have just been shut out five times in the last week.
The 2004 Cardinals were held to one run or less in only 16 of 162 regular-season games, or 9.87 percent.
The 2025 Cardinals have starved for one or no runs in 22 of their first 88 games
THE CARDINALS NEED MORE FROM
* Lars Nootbaar. Through Tuesday he’d batted .202 with a .290 on-base percentage and .340 slug and .630 OPS. Among major-league hitters that had 210 plate appearances over that time, Nootbaar ranked 95th among 97 in batting average, 89th among 97 in OBP, 91st among 97 in slugging, and 93rd among 97 in OPS.
* Willson Contreras. He’s having a good season. But he should be having a better season. Through Tuesday, his slugging percentage (.420) and OPS+ (112) would be his lowest in a full season since 2018. And through Tuesday Contreras had homered one time in his last 11 games. And that solo homer also accounted for his one RBI over that time. Hopefully, Contreras can rebound and go at full strength after getting drilled on the hand by Paul Skenes on Tuesday.
* Alec Burleson. In his previous nine games coming into Wednesday, Burly went 5 for 36 (.139) with a .496 OPS.
* Brendan Donovan. Since his four-hit game against the White Sox on June 17, Donovan entered Wednesday with 7 hits in 49 at-bats (.143) with a .524 OPS. And he had a .259 on-base percentage as the leadoff man in the lineup.
* Thomas Saggese. Since being promoted from Triple A Memphis on June 20, the rookie infielder had 2 hits in 21 at-bats going into Wednesday’s series finale at PNC Park.
(Please keep in mind that I wrote these notes on the individual STL hitters before Wednesday’s game.)
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.