In losing five of six games to the Diamondbacks and Rockies, the Cardinals had the mucus beat out of them.
And while the starting pitchers – with the exception of Michael McGreevy – were heaped with the blame, I don’t want to absolve the team’s offense. There wasn’t much spine or muscle.
The Redbirds scored 17 runs in six games, an average of 3.2 per nine innings. In the five losses, they scrounged for 11 total runs. Combined with the crackup of their starting pitching, the Cardinals were outscored 36 to 11 in their five beatings.
Here’s the thing: this offense has been awful for a while now. This is nothing new; it’s just worse. You knew this already, but let’s take a look.
The Cardinals are 2-10 in their last 12 road games, making dead-end stops at Pittsburgh’s PNC Park, Wrigley Field in Chicago, Chase Field in Phoenix, and Coors Field in Denver.
OK, let’s peel back the 10 stunningly gaunt losses for a closer look.
– In their last 10 road pastings, the Cardinals scored a puny total of 14 runs. Their nap time was interrupted by an average of 1.4 runs over 90 innings of failure.
– In the 10 losses, the Cardinals were shut out five times and scored no more than three runs in nine of the 10 blowouts. In the other game? Four runs.
– In the 10 road-kill accidents, the Cardinals hit three home runs in 324 at-bats. That’s one homer every 108 ABs.
— In the 10 dunkings, the STL hitters batted .207 with a .276 on-base percentage and .299 slug.
– In the 10 smackdowns, the Cardinals scored one total run during the first three innings of the losses. That’s one run in 30 innings. Also: in dropping the 10 road games the Cards managed to plate five total runs in the first five innings of those losses. That’s five runs in 50 innings.
– The Cardinals never had the lead in any of those 10 road losses. They trailed in 81 of the 90 innings and were tied (0-0 score) in nine innings.
The offense hasn’t clicked consistently for a long time. The Cards averaged 4.8 runs per game with a .737 OPS while going 32-24 in the first 56 games. But in their last 47 games, the Redbirds averaged 4.0 runs per game with a .687 OPS while stumbling to a 20-27 record.
The trashing of the St. Louis starting pitching since May 30 is obviously a major factor in the Cardinals’ change in fortunes.
Even though St. Louis has the worst starting-pitching ERA in the majors (5.79) since May 30, I refuse to give free passes to the hitters. They haven’t done nearly enough to compensate for the faulty starting pitching.
Since May 30, the Cardinals rank 12th among the 15 NL teams in winning percentage – ahead of only the Braves, Rockies and Nationals.
There are no innocent bystanders in the St. Louis offense during this period of dwindling success.
In the 47 games since May 30, the Cardinals have been shut out eight times – and have scored no more than one run 12 times. And the hitters have produced either two or three runs (no more) in 10 other games.
This has been an ongoing issue – the hot and cold cycles that take the Cardinals and their fans on a wild ride, with so many ups and downs and extreme turns.
Consider the freezing-or-sizzling tendencies of the STL offense over their first 103 games.
The Cards have scored one or no runs 25 times, which is tied with the Rockies for the most in the NL. When that’s happened the Cardinals (as you’d expect are 1-24.)
The Cards have also scored 5 or more runs in 49 games, which is the fifth-highest total in the majors. And when they put up 5+ runs in a contest, their record is 40-9.
SO WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE OFFENSE?
The inconsistency will be on display over the final 59 regular-season games, but I do believe the St. Louis offense has upside. Why? Well, I’ll go back to May 30, which is when the Cards began to falter.
Since that time, we’ve seen some really terrific performances from individual hitters.
Using wRC+ – which adjusts for ballpark and league effects – we see some positives.
Willson Contreras is 50 percent above league average offensively with an impressive batting line that features a .284 batting average, .371 OBP and .519 slug for an .889 OPS.
Alec Burleson is 36 percent above average at the plate and is hitting for average (.293) and power (.497 slug.)
Nolan Gorman is 32 percent above league average offensively. And though Gorman (currently on the IL) has played in only 35 of the last 47 games, since May 30 he’s slugging .495, is third on the team with 20 RBIs, and is tied for the team lead with eight home runs.
Yohel Pozo is a part-time player – but an important and impressive one. In 54 plate appearances since May 30, the backup catcher is 46 percent above league average offensively and his profile includes a .300 average and .560 slug.
Now, on the other side of this, a bunch of Cardinals need to get cranking. Since May 30, these dudes are below league average offensively per wRC+:
Brendan Donovan, 12 percent below average.
Jordan Walker, 17% below avg.
Nolan Arenado, 21% below avg.
Masyn Winn, 21% below avg.
Lars Nootbaar, 24% below avg.
Victor Scott, 33% below avg.
Pedro Pages, 50% below avg.
There’s plenty of upside to be found on that list of hitters. OK, but about Ivan Herrera? With his exceptional hitting disrupted by injury, Herrera has been exactly league average in wRC+ since May 30. But since returning from a strained hamstring on July 13, Herrera is trying to rev up again. In his first seven games since leaving the IL, Herrera has batted .222 with no extra-base hits and one RBI. This man will hit. It’s just a matter of time.
JORDAN WALKER, INTRIGUING
Walker intrigues me. After recovering from appendicitis and spending a little extra rehab time in the minors to tune up after a three-week absence, Walker is hitting .333 with a .360 OBP and .500 slug in his first six games. Walker’s batting stance was altered since we last saw him play for the Cardinals.
It’s a dramatic change, and Walker looks good. He’s more upright. An adjustment with his (left) foot placement has created an open-stance. Is a turning point in progress? Too soon to know, but the early trend is encouraging.
Walker had a great week at the plate in late May before going on the IL with wrist inflammation. He missed 16 days. Then it was his appendicitis-related absence from June 23 through July 18.
But even with the two IL interruptions that interfered with his trajectory, I stitched together his numbers in the 25 games he’s been able to play since May 16. In 75 at-bats over that time, Walker has a .293 average, .440 slug, eight extra-base hits and 12 RBIs.
Walker can boost this offense, and I’m curious to see what he can do from this point on.
CARDINALS: FLY OR FAIL
The Padres are in town for four games in a long weekend series that begins Thursday night. After the dreadful showing at Arizona-Colorado, the Redbirds must make their move if they believe they can grab the No. 3 wild-card passport into a playoff spot. Obviously, the decisions made before the trade deadline will have an impact.
We’ll have to wait and see if John Mozeliak will sell, sell, sell … or not. The next seven games that lead to the trading deadline are crucial.
The Padres (55-47) are scuffling on offense, averaging 3.7 runs per game with a .362 slugging percentage and .675 OPS since the start of June. During this time they are 23-23 – including a 10-10 mark in their last 20 games. Starting pitchers Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove have returned from the IL.
The Padres hold the No. 3 wildcard position right now, leading the Giants by 1 and ½ games, the Reds by 2 and ½, and the Cardinals by 3 and ½. Given their hardship in the starting rotation and lineup, the Cards are fortunate to be only 3 and ½ games in arrears to the Padres.
That’s why this four-game set is important. But even if, say, the Cardinals take three of four from San Diego, it won’t mean much if they flop against the Marlins, who follow the Padres into Busch Stadium for a three-game series that ends July 30.
The Marlins were 16 games under .500 on June 11. But since that low point, Miami is 23-12 in the last 35 games for a .657 winning percentage that’s second best in the NL to the Brewers since June 13.
The Cardinals must defend the castle. The Redbirds have recently lost their edge at Busch Stadium. They are 7-10 in their last 17 home games and have gone 2-2 with a split in their last five series at Busch.
Before the start of play Thursday in MLB, here are the playoff probabilities for the Cardinals and the teams that are relevant in the wild-card race. I will include the Mets, who lead the Phillies by a half-game in the NL East. And then there are the Cubs and Brewers, with the Crew zooming into first place with a one-game lead over Chicago in the NL Central. So I’ll include both of those teams in the wild-card picture.
Anyway …
Playoff Odds, from FanGraphs:
Cubs, 95.5 percent
Brewers, 94.7%
Phillies, 92.9%
Mets, 91.4%
Padres, 47.7%
Giants, 38%
Cardinals, 16.9%
Reds, 11%
Diamondbacks, 10.8%
HELLO, MIKE SHILDT
A welcome back to St. Louis greeting goes out to the former Cardinals manager who was abruptly sacked by Mozeliak in the aftermath of the Cards’ loss to the Dodgers in the 2021 NL wild-card game.
Shildt has done well as Padres manager. Since he was appointed to the job before the 2024 season, Shildt has guided San Diego to a .561 winning percentage that ranks 6th in the majors. He got the 93-win Padres into the 2024 playoffs, where they lost a heart-breaking series to the eventual World Series champion Dodgers.
The Cardinals have a .508 winning percentage since Oli Marmol was promoted to manager before the 2022 season. That win percentage ranks 15th in the majors over that time, but that’s more about the roster mismanagement, the wasted payroll dollars on bad decisions, and the sad player-development decay under Mozeliak and chairman Bill DeWitt Jr.
Shildt’s MLB managerial career is impressive. I didn’t realize this until I checked on it Thursday, but here’s an interesting nugget on Shildt since he took over for the fired Mike Matheny before the 2018 All-Star break.
Shildt has received Manager of the Year votes in every season he’s managed so far:
2018 Cardinals: 4th in the voting.
2019 Cardinals: was voted NL manager of the year.
2020 Cardinals: 6th in the voting.
2021 Cardinals: 3rd in the voting.
2024 Padres: 2nd in the voting.
Not including Shildt’s half-season as Cards manager in 2018, Shildt has led the Cardinals and Padres to the playoffs in every year he’s been the manager.
The Cardinals made the playoffs under Shildt in 2019, 2020, and 2021. After joining the Padres as a coach and special assistant in 2022, Shildt got the Padres into the playoffs in his first season (2024) as manager.
With this sequence of team success and award recognition, there’s no question about it: Shildt is one of the best managers in the majors.
(I think Shildt welcomes the chance to shove Mozeliak’s team into a deeper deficit in the wild-card race.)
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.