Hey, doc, it’s Bernie. How are ya? Listen, I’ve been watching all of these Cardinals games and I have a request. It’s, um, important. Can you please increase the dosage on my prescriptions for Lisinopril and Amlodipine? And is there anything I should be gulping from the beta-blocker line of medications? Thank you.
You see, this is what the Cardinals are doing to me. And I’m not complaining.
The Cardinals did it again Monday night in Pittsburgh. From a St. Louis standpoint, nothing happened for the first eight innings. The Cards were down 2-0 and about to lose their fifth straight game. When Thomas Saggese opened the top of the ninth with a ground-ball out, the Cardinals were two outs away from experiencing another numbing setback. At that moment, according to the play log at FanGraphs, the Cards had a win expectancy of 3.7 percent.
With this team, we have come to learn that we should disregard the expected and do a reverse: expect the unexpected.
By now you certainly know how this conflict was settled:
– Solo home run by Pedro Pages: 2-1 Pirates. STL win expectancy of 9.2 percent.
– Solo homer by JJ Wetherholt for a 2-2 tie and suddenly a STL win expectancy of 43.9%
– Walk by Ivan Herrera. Cards win expectancy, 50%
– Alec Burleson, infield hit. The visiting team now had a 58% win expectancy.
– A fantastic walk by Jordan Walker to load the bases. Cardinal win expectancy now 71.4%.
– Jose Fermin strokes a double into the left field corner to give the Rebirds a 4-2 lead. And just like that the Cards win expectancy 95.3 percent.
Talk about flipping the script. Talk about flipping a game. Talk about a rally, and high drama, and more tension than an episode of The Pitt. In Pitt. Where’s Dr. Robby?
Once again we were talking – chirping – about the cuckoo Cardinals. Don’t these fellers understand they were supposed to lose that game? For the first six innings a procession of Pittsburgh relievers disposed of 20 consecutive St. Louis hitters. No hits, no walk, no hit batters, no reaching first base on an error.
The Cards, all zombie like and frozen in place, looked at 14 called strikes in those first six innings, and this wasn’t a ballgame. It was a George Romero film. (Google it, kids.) Alec Burleson finally ended the Pirates’ perfect-game bid, the no-hit bid, with an infield single. Hey, it was a start.
Finally! The Cards’ 21st hitter in the game was actually parked on first base! Of course, Burly stayed there. Of course, nothing happened.
Until the top of the 9th.
And the attack on the Jolly Roger. Tie down the hatch covers with wooden batten strips to prevent the ship from taking on water!
Too late. The latest comeback by the slow-burn Birds was well underway. And given their quietness in the first eight innings, this was a feverish ambush, and when the Cardinals are ready to rumble, it’s best to get outta the way.
Going into Tuesday’s second round with the Pirates, the Cardinals have won 15 games – and 10 have been launched through a persistent counterattack, which sets up the comeback triumph.
Ten of the 15 wins are comebacks? Yes, that’s about 67 percent. And this is nothing new. Manager Oli Marmol’s teams have a tendency to spring these late surprises in a game.
Since the start of last season an astonishing 52.6 percent of the St. Louis victories were comeback snatches. But this ninth-inning broadside was a corker.
As Marmol told on-site reporters after the successful raid: “Just to be able to steal a game like that. You get no-hit through seven (and) to stay engaged enough to steal that type of game — that’s a big deal, especially coming off the last three against Seattle.”
Three as in getting swept. Losing two games by one run, and the other close-range skirmish by two runs. That’s sort of the Cardinals’ way.
They sure do keep us watching.
When it looks like they’re about to strut their way to the post-game handshake line – just hold on a minute. It ain’t over just yet.
When it looks like they’re close to retreating to a hushed clubhouse to pick at the postgame spread – with regret as condiment – just sit tight, do not turn off the radio or TV, or tablet, or smart phone. Because you never know when these boys have another surprise coming.
I kind of feel sorry for the people who basically deny themselves the pleasure of watching this team compete. First of all, it’s a little dumb. This is a rebuilding season, remember? It isn’t a season for counting wins. It isn’t a season that ends in a parade. Anyone who follows this team knows the obvious situation – which has been discussed five million times – so why be so miserable?
Oh, you can’t enjoy Cardinals baseball unless you have abundant confidence in the team to win 95+ games and make a deep run through October? Gotta have Pujols, Molina and Waino back? Hey, it’s your bandwagon.
These Cardinals may lose 83 games, or 87 games, or whatever. But see they’re not supposed to win. So why the grumbling about everything?
This group is trying hard to provide entertainment. This manager, coaches and players are trying to win games and make you happy.
Memo: they don’t own the franchise, or set the payroll, or control the timetable for a return to success. They’re just competing, playing a TLR-style hard nine, and trying to win to make their fans happy.
The same applies to Marmol. He volunteered some interesting information during his weekly Tuesday guest spot on KMOX. It was “insider” info … because he was the insider.
One reason Marmol pulled starting pitcher Matthew Liberatore from Saturday’s game after 3 and ⅓ poor innings was his desire to – for lack of a better term – thank the fans for turning out to give Cardinals larger crowds and a louder atmosphere during the weekend series against the visiting Mariners.
Rather than try to squeeze another inning or so from the laboring left-hander, Marmol wanted to be more aggressive to give his team (and the fans) a better chance to win the game on a day led by homer-blasting, run-stacking offense from both teams.
“There's actually a lot that went into that one, and I think about it in a couple of different ways,” Marmol said. “With a young pitcher like Libby, you want him to be able to work through some stuff. I think it's important for him to learn how to work through different situations, especially when you don't have your best stuff, like how do you navigate those games.
“But with how he felt with his body not being timed up, he's not getting pitches to where he wants to. It's just not one of those days for him. I'm not sure how much growth opportunity there really was there (Saturday.)
“And when you have an outburst, the way we did against an ace like [Seattle pitcher Bryan] Woo, that's a big deal. And I'm sitting there, and what I will say, Bernie, and Chaim [Bloom] has said this several times, and I've said it … you can't just ask fans to come back to the stadium. You earn that.
“And when you look at Friday, you look at Saturday, and you look at Sunday, Busch Stadium felt different. It was a pretty cool environment. And people showed up.
“And you're sitting there on Saturday, your offense is doing what they're doing, they're hitting homers all over the place, the crowd is excited, and I felt like there was enough opportunity to just reward that and not let a starter just continue to wear it.
“You take your shot, and you empty out your bullpen … and you try to win that game and give the people that paid money to be there something to get excited about again.”
Marmol’s heart was in the right place, but the St. Louis bullpen couldn’t hold and the Mariners came back late for an 11-9 win.
“I think we took the appropriate shot,” Marmol said. “People showed up, and they're showing up again. And it's been fun to see … like, give them something to get excited about. So we empty out, we take our shot, it doesn't work. But I'll tell you right now … I would do it all over again.”
The Cardinals’ roster isn’t bulging with elite talent. But the players are bringing the energy and a crazy flair for seizing opportunities on days when nothing is working right. And they play a lot of tight games that build tension and apprehension. What’s next? How will this end?
The Cardinals are 5-2 in one-run games, 13-5 in two-run decisions. The average margin of victory in their 15 wins is only 2.1 runs. This team goes down to the wire – a lot – and takes us with them.
From the start of the 6th inning to the end of the contest, the Cardinals lead the majors in homers (22) and are second in slugging percentage, fifth in OPS, 10th in runs and 12th in doubles. They recharge during games, even if it means shaking off bad developments and disappointments.
These Cardinals will have a difficult time in trying to overcome multiple flaws. Most notably starting pitching, relief pitching, and freezing bats when hitting with runners in scoring position. But giving into those challenges – and the adversity – isn’t an option.
“I think St. Louis likes watching a team that plays the game the right way, that plays the game hard, that never gives in,” Marmol said on KMOX. “And those are the things we can control and we'll hold ourselves, hold myself, accountable – and then let everything else play out. But I think it's hard not to like this group.
“It's hard to watch them and not get excited about their style of play. So those are the things we can control at the moment and the things I'm excited about, our staff's excited about doing every day.”
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. Before that Bernie spent a year at the Dallas Morning News, covering the Dallas Cowboys during Tom Landry’s final season (1988) plus the sale of the team to Jerry Jones and the hiring of Jimmy Johnson as coach. Bernie has covered several Baseball Hall of Fame managers during his media career including Tony La Russa, Whitey Herzog, Earl Weaver, Joe Torre and (as an interim) Red Schoendienst. In his career as a beatwriter and columnist, Bernie covered Pro Football Hall of Fame coaches Joe Gibbs, Tom Landry, Jimmy Johnson and Dick Vermeil on a daily basis.
Bernie has covered and written about many great St. Louis sports team athletes including Albert Pujols, Kurt Warner, Brett Hull, Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright, Jim Edmonds, Marshall Faulk, Scott Rolen, Mark McGwire, Orlando Pace, Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, Al MacInnis, Brian Sutter, Bernie Federko, Chris Pronger, Dan Dierdorf, Jackie Smith and Aeneas Williams. Bernie covered every baseball Cardinals’ postseason game from 1996 through 2014 and was there to chronicle teams that won four NL pennants and two World Series. He provided extensive coverage on the “Greatest Show” St. Louis Rams and has written extensively on the St. Louis Blues, Saint Louis U, and Mizzou football and basketball. Bernie was/is a longtime voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Pro Football Hall of Fame, Heisman Trophy and the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STL Sports Central, catch him regularly on KMOX (AM or FM) as part of the Gashouse Gang, Sports Rush Hour, Sports Open Line or Sports On a Sunday Morning shows. And you can catch weekly “reunion” segments here at STL Sports Central featuring Bernie and his longtime friend Randy Karraker.