No party balloons or cone hats will be distributed in celebration of a mediocre baseball team’s .500 record. I realize this, so I am not going bananas here.
That said…
As their travel squad boarded a chartered flight to Seattle for a three-game series, the Cardinals had won seven of their last 10 games, with five of the victories being staged on comebacks.
That’s not all. The suddenly flyin’ Redbirds have won three consecutive series, beating the Reds, A’s and Giants. That’s worth mentioning because this meandering team hadn’t clicked off three straight series wins since their flashfire heat-up in early May when five opponents – Mets, Pirates, Nationals, Phillies and Royals – were toppled in order.
That was a long time ago. In the large block of schedule that came between May’s five-series win streak and the current three-series rebellion, the Cardinals scrimped together a record of 40-48.
Not that it matters in the season-tallied NL Central standings, but the Cardinals have the best record in the division (7-3) since Aug. 28. Fittingly, the Cardinals somehow managed to win 70 percent of those games played despite being outscored 41-38 by the enemies.
This unexpected late-season bounce has raised the Cardinals up to level ground at 72-72, and they’re gripping a .500 winning percentage for the first time since Aug. 23.
For what it’s worth – basically nothing – these rascals have a 1.1 percent shot of stealing a wild-card playoff spot. But in making mischief, the scrappy Cardinals did further harm to Cincinnati and San Francisco’s flickering playoff hopes.
What the heck? I mean, how are the Cardinals doing this when they should have packed it in already? What – if anything – have we learned?
As STL starting pitcher Sonny Gray told an aggregation of credentialed media after Sunday’s win over the Giants …
“No matter what the outside narrative is, you still have to believe that you can go out there and win as a group,” Gray said. “If you lose that, it gets ugly and it gets ugly quick. I feel like we believe we can win, we’ve shown we can win at high levels.
“We maybe haven’t been able to sustain that at times, but overall, I feel like we’ve done OK, especially when we arguably have four of our best players not playing. We’re still hanging in there. We’re still showing up expecting to win.”
That’s the goofy part of this.
The Cardinals have three starting position players on the Injured List. Nolan Arenado has been down since July 30, Brendan Donovan hasn’t played since Aug. 13, and Alec Burleson’s last game was Aug. 28.
Willson Contreras served the first three games of his reduced four-game suspension in the Giants’ series, and he will have to sit one more game (the first at Seattle) before returning to the lineup.
Next, factor in the trades that removed three of STL’s best relievers from the bullpen in late July. No Ryan Helsley, no Phil Maton and no Steven Matz.
Matz has been outstanding for the Red Sox so far. Helsley (Mets) and Maton (Rangers) have struggled for their new employers. But both, especially Maton, did a good job for the Cardinals this season up until the trade deadline.
So, what I want to figure out is this: how are the Cardinals still hanging around .500?
The Redbirds have gotten there, at least for a while, by defying several performance trends that should have them deeply underwater.
1. A flat offense that doesn’t have enough power, speed or athleticism.
Since May 30, when the Cards offense began to sag and drag, they’re 28th in MLB in runs scored and rank either 14th or 15th in the 15-team National League in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, walks, and Isolated Power.
They’re also 12th among 15 NL teams in stolen bases this season – in large part because of an average team sprint speed that ranks 24th in the majors.
What about situational hitting? Since May 30, when batting with runners in scoring position, the Cardinals rank 11th among NL clubs in batting average and 13th in slugging. Their small-ball skills (as a team) are below average.
The offensive personnel is short of impact hitters and can’t diversify the approach to find other ways to generate more runs.
With this roster, there just isn’t much for manager Oli Marmol to work with.
2. The starting rotation isn't beat – but it is a burden.
For the season the Redbirds’ starters rank 11th in the NL in earned-run average. It’s even worse since the All-Star break, with the Cards rotation getting rocked for a 5.75 ERA that’s 13th among 15 teams. The starting-pitching strikeout rate since the break (16.7%) ranks 14th in the NL.
3. Remember, this is a reset season, a runway season, a transition season, a whatchamacallit season.
Winning wasn’t the top priority. The payroll was slashed by nearly $40 million. Only one established MLB player, Maton, was signed – and he was salaried at a cost of $2 million. This was supposed to be about giving extensive opportunities to young and largely unproven players.
The results of this initiative aren’t conclusive. There have been some successes, some failures, and some that can be termed “not really sure.” The Cardinals have 18 games to go for the Cardinals, so the final report cards can wait a while.
In observance of a cherished Cardinals’ tradition, younger players or pitchers were blocked by underachieving – or straight-up awful – veterans because of the usual payroll politics.
That’s why – with rookie Michael McGreevy ready for the bigs – management stuck with Erick Fedde long enough for this team to have a 5-15 record in his 20 starts this season.
4. This whatchamacallit season also featured an unusual arrangement.
Outgoing president of baseball operations John Mozeliak stayed in the job all season. Incoming president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom was on the scene, rebuilding the player-development structure but also keeping tabs on the major-league roster to make evaluations.
Both men handled this setup with good manners and class, but it’s still been kind of odd, kind of uncomfortable – with plenty of gray area drifting around. In a way, Marmol had two bosses to deal with. Good luck with that. The bosses got along fine, but probably didn’t agree with each other on every aspect of Cardinals baseball.
Marmol was the manager in the middle. I think Marmol did a great job of handling a potentially awkward environment – not that any of his haters would give him credit for anything.
5. For the second consecutive season, the Cardinals’ run differential is terrible. And they’re overcoming that again.
In 2024, the Cardinals were outscored by 47 runs for the season. That ranked 20th in the majors.
Through Sunday’s win over the Giants, the Cards have been outscored by 40 runs this season. This also ranks 20th in MLB.
Based on those run-differential deficits, the Cardinals should have finished with a 76-86 record last season. And based on the negative run differential so far in 2025, their record should be 68-76.
So let’s put it all together and see what we have here:
* With run differential as our guide, the Cardinals should be 18 games under .500 since the start of 2024.
* Instead, the Cardinals are four games over .500 since the beginning of last season.
* Per run differential, the expected Marmol winning percentage over the last two seasons should be .471.
* But going into the Seattle series, Marmol’s actual winning percentage since the start of last season is .507.
* That .507 winning percentage is not only No. 1 among teams that have a negative run differential over the last two seasons … but that winning percentage is better over the last two seasons than several teams that have a positive run differential over that time: Braves, Giants, Rangers and Reds.
That’s difficult to pull off … especially with a problematic starting rotation that ranks 11th among NL teams in ERA and 11th in strikeout rate over the last two seasons. Plus, an offense that ranks 11th in runs scored and 11th in OPS over the last two years. And it’s also more challenging to deal with during this whatchamacallit ‘25 season.
So for the love of Al Hrabosky, how in the heck is Marmol doing this?
It comes down to one outstanding quality…
BULLPEN MANAGEMENT
Marmol and pitching coach Dusty Blake do an outstanding job of guiding the St. Louis bullpen. Over the last two seasons, despite the usual shuffling, the Cardinals rank No. 3 in the majors with a 3.61 bullpen ERA and are second in fielding independent ERA of 3.70.
The Marmol bullpen is well organized and Cardinal relievers know their roles. They are committed to fulfilling two priorities: limiting home runs, and limiting walks – and they’ve excelled in both areas.
Since the start of 2024, the St. Louis bullpen is second in the majors to the Brewers in Win Probability Added.
Here are some related nuggets of info, dating back to the start of the 2024 campaign:
+ Mostly because of their firm bullpen strength, the Cardinals are 52-40 over the last two seasons in games decided by a one-run margin.
+ Over the last two seasons the Cardinals have the best bullpen ERA (3.38) by a National League team, and second overall, in the 7th, 8th and 9th innings of games.
+ Because of that, the Cardinals also have a fantastic late-innings run differential of plus 89 over the last two seasons. Yes, even with their largely unmenacing offense.
+ Over the last two seasons the Cardinals are 110-16 (.873) when leading a game through six innings. That’s seventh best in the NL.
+ And the Cards are 122-7 (.946) when leading a game after seven innings. That’s second best in the NL.
+ And the Cardinals are 136-4 (.971) when leading a game after eight innings. That’s No. 1 in the NL.
I don’t think it’s possible to run a bullpen much better than this over a chaotic two-year stretch of baseball.
And even after trading away Helsley, Maton and Matz, the Cardinals still rank third in the NL with a 3.60 bullpen ERA.
Since the Cards made those deals, the remodeled bullpen is 11-2 when leading after six innings, 12-1 when leading through seven innings, and 14-1 when taking a lead into the ninth inning.
The spanish word for Marmol is marble.
Marble is widely used to create beautiful sculptures.
I suppose it can be used to sculpt a magnificent bullpen.
Like all managers, Marmol has flaws. But running a bullpen isn't one of them. He's excellent at it.
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 – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015.
You can access 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, and Bernie does a weekly “Seeing Red” podcast on the Cardinals with his longtime pal Will Leitch. Bernie joins Katie Woo on the “Cardinal Territory” video-podcast each week, and you can catch a weekly “reunion” segment here at STL Sports with Bernie’s appearance on the Randy Karraker Show every Friday morning at 10:30 am.