The Cardinals had a one-game winning streak working for them as they prepped for more success in Wednesday’s game against the Nationals at Busch Stadium.
Aside from the fact that a one-game winning streak really isn’t a streak at all – we can debate, or you can talk among yourselves – it doesn’t matter now.
The Cardinals and their little one-game triumph was promptly chewed up by the voracious Washingtonians in an 8-2 ripping.
Was anyone surprised by this? Not me, bubba. The Nationals were deliriously motivated to celebrate and honor an important day in Washington D.C. history.
Keep in mind that Wednesday’s rout win occurred on July 9 – and believe me when I say it was no coincidence.
July 9th was the anniversary of the Residence Act of 1790, which officially established Washington, D.C. as the nation's capital.
Simply put: batsmen James Wood, Nathaniel Lowe and Amed Rosario – plus starting pitcher MacKenzie Gore – would not be denied. They would proudly defend The District’s honor. The Redbirds couldn’t match the passionate pride and sense of duty brought into this conflict by the Nationals.
Or something like that.
The Cardinals were also victimized by a poor start from one of their own, Andre Pallante. The Nationals smacked him for eight hits and seven earned runs in six innings. The Nats bugged Pallante for 5 hits in 10 at-bats with runners in scoring position.
Though the Chuckle Hut home-team TV broadcast would have you believe Pallante’s misfortune was based on soft contact and rotten luck – but of course – the Nationals delivered five of their eight hits with an exit velocity of 86.6 miles per hour. And four of the hits – two doubles and two homers – were bombed at exit speeds of 106.9 mph or higher.
And while it would be really simple to blame the home team’s offensive futility on Mackenzie Gore’s flattening of STL’s left-handed batters, there wasn’t much difference. Gore took on 10 left-handed hitters and allowed two hits with two strikeouts. But Cardinal right-handed batters had 13 plate appearances against the lefty and had three hits and five strikeouts.
The number of tickets sold for Wednesday’s game was announced at 20,956. So Busch Stadium was filled with empty red seats. And the small audience probably made the 38-54 Nationals feel right at home on Residence Day.
The Cardinals are drawing crowds that would fit into Energizer Park, the soccer home of St. Louis City SC. And that kind of makes sense because the baseball team and the soccer club have the same problem: can’t score.
Just to cheer you up a little …
The Cardinals will dispatch Miles Mikolas to the mound Thursday night to defend the hill – and the honor – of the 2025 Cardinals. The victor in this showdown will capture the series, and Miles Mikolas will not let his people down.
BIRD BYTES
1) This season, left-handed starters have a 3.56 ERA against the Cardinals. But during the team’s 16-20 slippage since May 30, opposing left-handed starting pitchers have muffled St. Louis hitters with a 2.98 ERA.
2) It gets worse. I want to focus on nine lefty starting pitchers that have combined for 10 starts against St. Louis since May 30. The nine are MacKenzie Gore, Andrew Abbott, Shota Imanaga, Matthew Boyd, Clayton Kershaw, Noah Cameron, Andrew Heaney, Eric Lauer, and Patrick Corbin. In the 10 starts the lefthanders worked a combined 56 innings against the STL lineup and sculpted an 0.96 ERA.
3) Imanaga, Kershaw, Boyd, Abbott, Cameron, Gore and Heaney made seven starts against the Cardinals since May 30, and those lefties were touched for only two earned runs in 39 and ⅔ innings for a microscopic 0.45 ERA.
4) The Cardinals are experiencing the repercussions of president of baseball operations John Mozeliak’s flawed roster composition. The Cardinals are overloaded with left-handed batters, and they’re getting a lot of at-bats against lefty pitchers. That isn’t going too well. Since May 30, STL’s left-swinging bats have a .166 average, .259 on-base percentage and a .246 slugging percentage when competing against left-handed pitchers (Both starters and relievers.)
5) On top of that, the Cardinals have the most plate appearances in the majors in the left-handed hitter vs. left-handed pitching matchups. And the result is a wRC+ that’s 31 percent below league average offensively. These lefty vs. lefty engagements are even worse since May 30; Cards LHB are 51 percent below league average offensively against LH pitchers over that time.
6) Ivan Herrera has been on the IL since June 20 – with his hamstring injury subtracting a vitally important hitter from the St. Louis lineup. Since that date, all opposing left-handed pitchers have a 2.15 ERA against the Cardinals. And with Herrera missing, opposing left-handed starting pitchers have dominated the Redbirds with a 1.43 ERA.
7) How formidable is Herrera against left-handed pitching? I have answers. Because he’s been on the IL two different times this season, Herrera has only 52 plate appearances against lefties. But he’s made the most of it, batting .333 with a .456 on-base percentage, .733 slug and a 1.189 OPS.
8) Among 190 right-handed MLB hitters that have at least 50 plate appearances against lefty pitching this season, Herrera’s wRC+ of 224 – which is 124 percent above league average – ranks fifth overall and is the best in the National League. Again, a tiny sample. But when Herrera is hanging (offensively) against left-handed pitching with the likes of Aaron Judge and Cal Raleigh … that’s special. Herrera should be back soon after the All-Star break. The Cardinals need Their Dude to help revive a sickly offense.
9) The Cardinals have lost 20 games since May 30 and they’ve scored 3 runs or less in 16 of the 20 losses.
10) The St. Louis starting pitching is a hot, Mozeliak-made mess these days. In the team’s 16-20 slump since May 30, Cards starting pitchers rank 28th overall and 13th in the NL with a 5.25 ERA. Their fielding independent ERA (4.27) is more respectable, but let’s not pretend that everything is OK.
11) It isn’t OK. Here are the individual St. Louis starting pitcher earned-run averages since May 30:
Sonny Gray, 2.72
Andre Pallante, 4.89
Matthew Liberatore, 5.21
Michael McGreevy, 5.74
Erick Fedde, 6.54
Miles Mikolas, 7.59
All have made six or seven starts except for McGreevy, who has made three spot starts over that time. Since May 30 Cards starting pitchers have an 18 percent strikeout rate that ranks 26th overall and 13th in the NL. And the STL starter swing-miss rate of 9 percent is 29th overall over the last 36 games. Sad.
12) The Cardinals have scored three runs or fewer 37 times this season, and their record in those games is 7-30. The Redbirds have lost 14 games in a row when scoring no more than three runs.
13) The Cards are 5-27 when scoring no more than two runs in a game this season – and are 1-22 when scoring one run or no runs.
14) In Thursday’s game, it will be important for the Cardinals’ left-handed bats to do considerable damage against right-handed Nationals starter Michael Soroka. This season, LH hitters have attacked Soroka for a .507 slugging percentage, eight homers and an .851 OPS. He’s held right-handed hitters to a .294 slug, two homers and a .507 OPS.
15) The Brewers are reinforcing their status as the second-place team behind the first-place Cubs in the NL Central. And at 53-40 the Brewers go into tonight with a four-game lead over the third place Cardinals (49-44) in the NL Central.
16) The Brewers just completed a three-game sweep of the Dodgers in Milwaukee. The Brewers have MLB’s 24th-ranked payroll at $111.1 million. The Dodgers have MLB’s largest payroll at $339.5. And the Brewers are spending $29.6 million less than the Cardinals on player payroll this season.
17) ESPN’s David Schoenfield gave all 30 teams a first-half grade before the All-Star break. The Cardinals received a “B” grade.
“The Cardinals have been a minor surprise -- perhaps even to the Cardinals themselves,” Schoenfield wrote. “St. Louis was viewing this as a rebuilding year of sorts -- not that the Cardinals ever hit rock bottom and start completely over.
“They had a hot May, winning 12 of 13 at one point, but the offense has been fading of late, with those three straight shutout losses to Pittsburgh and six shutout losses since June 25.
“The starting rotation doesn't generate a lot of swing and miss, with both Erick Fedde and Miles Mikolas seeing their ERAs starting to climb. Brendan Donovan is the team's only All-Star rep, and that kind of sums up this team: solid but without any star power. That might foretell a second-half fade.”
18) In their latest MLB Draft projections, both Keith Law (The Athletic) and Carlos Collazo (Baseball America) have the Cardinals taking high school shortstop Eli Willits with the 5th overall pick in Sunday’s first round.
19) Here’s Collazo: “Weeks ago, I’d heard that the Cardinals are excited about both Eli Willits and (left-handed starting pitcher) Jamie Arnold. I’ve continued to hear more of the same in recent days, and both are available for them in this iteration of the mock. I don’t have a strong read on whether they’d prefer a pitcher or hitter, but I do think Willits checks a ton of the boxes for what I assume the Cardinals and their model really covets—youth and contact skills among them.”
20) And here’s Keith Law: “I think Willits, Jamie Arnold and (right-handed pitcher) Kyson Witherspoon are near the top of their list, but they’re unlikely to take any high school pitcher.
Law suggested the Cards selection could come down to contract negotiations with the three players that are near the top of their list – assuming that high school infielder Ethan Holliday, LSU’s lefty starting pitcher Kade Anderson, Oregon State shortstop Aiva Arquette and Tennessee lefty pitcher Liam Doyle come of the board in the first four picks.
And I’ve heard a couple of draftniks say the Cardinals have interest in UC Santa Barbara right-handed pitcher Tyler Bremmer.
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-AM) 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.