After taking Wednesday off, I’m back with a buncha buncha buncha Bird Bytes …
1. A popular question these days: are the Cardinals a postseason contender? Well, I can’t talk myself into it. Not yet. Not unless or until the Cardinals can shave down the number of runs they’re yielding to opposing hitters. Going into Thursday, the Cardinals were 21-15 despite allowing 4.86 runs per game, a figure that ranks 24th overall and 12th in the National League.
Since the steroid craze calmed through PED testing, offensive levels have dropped in specific areas including slugging percentage. The current overall slug of .386 would rank 30th over the past 31 seasons, and MLB’s Isolated Power number would be 26th.
The point? The Cardinals shouldn’t be getting clobbered for 4.86 runs per game in today’s environment. Since the start of the 2008 season, the 2017 Twins are the only team to get socked for an average of 4.8 runs (or more) during the regular season and still make the playoffs.
In their present state of run prevention, the 2026 Cardinals would have to defy an extremely strong historical trend to make the postseason. So yeah, I think I’m gonna hold off for a while.
2. As JJ Wetherholt goes, so do the Cardinals. I will explain and display some numbers.
– When the leadoff man has reached base two or more times in a game this season the Redbirds have averaged 6.2 runs and won 14 of 19 games.
– When Wetherholt scores one or more runs in a game, the Cards have averaged 5.9 runs while going 15-5.
– When the rookie has knocked in one or more runs in a contest, the Cards are 9-3 and scored an average of 6.3 runs.
– No times on base for JJ in a game: 2-4 record and an average of 2.7 runs.
– When JJ doesn’t score: 6-10 record, with an average of 3.5 runs.
– When Wetherholt doesn’t drive in a run: 10-14 record, 4.1 runs per game.
Only 36 games into his big-league journey, JJ Wetherholt is a valuable and influential talent.
Through Wednesday, JJ ranked an impressive No. 11 in Win Probability Added among the 186 hitters that had stepped in for at least 110 plate appearances.
3. Wetherholt had a quiet homestand, chipping for three hits in 21 at-bats with just one walk … yeah, and so what? Going into Thursday, Wetherholt’s WPA was higher than that of Kyle Schwarber, Shohei Ohtani, Yordan Alvarez, Drake Baldwin, Bobby Witt Jr., Julio Rodriguez, CJ Abrams, Kyle Tucker and many other dignitaries.
4. Could mean something, could mean nothing: since the start of last season the Cardinals are 74-60 (.552) when Pedro Pages starts at catcher, and 13-14 (.481) when Ivan Herrera is starting and wearing the catching gear. Pages is strong defensively and delivers more offense than most observers realize or want to give him credit for. (Can’t go against the media-driven narrative, right?) Which is why I’ll put this out there again since the beginning of last August – among 22 MLB catchers that have at least 115 plate appearances over that time – Pages ranks second in batting average, seventh in onbase percentage, sixth in slugging, and sixth in OPS. But hey, don’t mind me. I am the cranky and determined narrative buster, and the townsfolk do not like to have their narratives busted.
5. Which takes nothing away from Herrera’s special talent as a big-league hitter … and particularly stands out among right-handed batters. I’ve been tracking this over the past two-plus seasons and it’s time for an update.
Here’s where Herrera stands among the 98 right-handed hitters that have amassed at least 850 plate appearances since the start of the 2024 season …
– 8th in batting average, .283
– 3rd in onbase percentage, .379
– 27th with a .445 slug
– 10th in OPS, .824
– 6th in wOBA, .361
– 6th in wRC+, 134
6. With Herrera, the one thing I’d like to see more of is power. He’s slugging “only” .419 this season, and has the necessary bat speed and strength to do harrowing damage to the other side. The specific challenge for Herrera: his barrel percentage is below league average, and he’s in the 12th percentile in the launch-angle sweet spot metric. That means 88 percent of MLB hitters are more capable than Herrera in rocket-launching trajectory. Herrera had an Ideal Contact Rate (ICR) percentage of 42.6 last season; this year the ICR is 41.5 percent.
7. Parsing the starters: this season Andre Pallante, Matthew Liberatore and Dustin May have a combined 8.14 ERA in the first inning. The three have also been blasted for seven home runs that translates into a HR rate of 3.0 per 9 innings. (Yikes!) But Michael McGreevy, Kyle Leahy and Hunter Dobbins have a combined 1.20 ERA and have been touched for one home run in their 15 innings.
8. Chaim Bloom’s preseason trade for reliever George Soriano is paying off. The right-hander has a 3.52 ERA in his 16 appearances but that’s misleading. He had one ugly relief appearance, getting slapped for three earned runs while retiring only one batter. But in his other 15 relief gigs Soriano’s ERA is 1.80. And he’s done well in high-leverage tests. And he’s struck out hitters at a rate of 28% in his last 12 appearances.
9. The Cards helped Soriano improve his changeup, and the project, so far, is a success. Pitching for Miami last season, hitters jumped on Soriano’s changeup for a .294 average and .451 slugging percentage. His strikeout rate on the change was 20 percent last year. But after reworking his changeup for 2026, Soriano has used the pitch to hold hitters to an .091 average and .182 slug – with a dynamic 46% strikeout rate.
10. From Statcast: last season the Soriano changeup had a Run Value put him tied for 235th among big-league pitchers. This season Soriano’s Run Value on the changeup is tied for 42nd. When he uses the change against left-handed hitters, they’re gone 0 for 8 with five strikeouts.
11. Soriano proves something here: Bloom doesn’t have to go out and get a “name” reliever in a trade. It’s about performance. It ain’t about name recognition. So why give up potentially valuable prospect capital for a “name” reliever when you can acquire someone just as good or better for a lower cost?
12. The Cubs, now 26-12, are absolutely ridiculous. In case you missed some of this, here are some details:
– This season the Cubs have housed 11 pitchers on the Injured List – three starters and eight relievers – and through Wednesday the wounded had collectively missed 277 calendar days this season. Recognizable names include starters Cade Horton, Matthew Boyd and Justin Steele – plus relievers Phil Maton, Jordan Wicks, Hunter Harvey, Daniel Palencia and Shelby Miller.
– Despite having to constantly reorder their bullpen and shuffle the rotation, the Cubs rank ninth in the majors in overall ERA, seventh in starter ERA, and 13th in bullpen ERA. Remarkable.
– The Chicago offense has compensated for any periods of injury-related trauma by frequently going bonkers at the plate. The Cubs are averaging just about 5 and 1/2 runs per game, second best to Atlanta in the NL.
– On Wednesday night the Cubs ambushed the Reds for a third consecutive walk-off win. It extended the Cubs’ winning streak to eight games, and they've won 15 in a row at Wrigley Field. The only longer Wrigley success streak was an 18-game doozy in September, 1935.
-- Then on Thursday afternoon the Cubs slapped the Reds around again, winning 8-3.
– That makes the Cubs 19-3 in their last 22 games.
-- The Cubs are off to an 18-5 start to a season for the first time since 1907. (That according to one media report._
– The Cubs hadn’t enjoyed three straight walkoff-wins since June 18-20, 2009. “Just another night at Wrigley,” Cubs left fielder Ian Happ told reporters after Wednesday’s late-night stunner. “I think that this team has a lot of fight.”
– So do the Rumblin’ Redbirds. But the Cubs have more talent (and depth) than St. Louis. And there’s another large advantage. In the active-cash payroll accounting – which is the total salary being paid to the guys on the current 26-man roster – the Cubs are at $183.7 million. Which is only $137 million more than the lower-payroll Cards.
– Cubs manager Craig Counsell: “You feel like you’ve seen a lot of baseball games in your life. And then you see stuff that you just don’t expect to see. But that’s why we love it, right?”
13. The Cardinals are competing in a loaded NL Central. Through Wednesday the Cubs, Brewers, Reds and Pirates were a combined 68-42 (.618) in games played outside of the division. Which is one more reason, and a big one, why Chaim Bloom would be a knucklehead to offer up a couple of good, future-plan prospects in a reckless, longshot lunge to sneak into a long-shot postseason spot. But he won’t be doing that. Not even considering it. Unless, of course, the Cardinals go berserk in winning over the next 77 games before the trade deadline. Say, 53-24? Perhaps that would entice more fans to come to Busch Stadium.
Even then, I don’t think Bloom will go big in the market in the days before Aug. 3. But I do expect him to do some selling: Riley O’Brien, JoJo Romero, Dustin May, Lars Nootbaar, etc. This is such a long way off, I don’t know why I waste time talking about it.
14. Some of the peoples are hollerin’ for outfielder Joshua Baez to get promoted from Triple A Memphis even though (a) he was just downgraded on Baseball America’s updated Top 100 prospects list, and (b) entered Thursday with a 32.8% strikeout rate on the season, and (c) his strikeout in the previous 22 games was a glaring 39.3%.
15. Not sure why some of the peoples are in favor of the Cardinals ruining another prospect by rushing him to the majors while he’s having some severe contact-related issues at Triple A. Still not sure why some of the peoples are demanding the promotion of strikeout-plagued (34%) catcher Jimmy Crooks when the catchers on the big-league club have combined for a 125 wRC+ that ranks fifth best in the majors and is 25 percent above league average offensively. Crooks has cut down on the whiffs in recent days; that’s progress. Keep going.
16. The peoples should form a little ol’ bandwagon for Blaze Jordan. For some reason the peoples don’t talk much about Jordan, even though this right-handed clubber with the fantastic plate discipline is hitting .322 with a .370 onbase percentage and .602 slug at Memphis. And! The big fella has a 13.3 percent strikeout rate on the season. That’s low, low, low. That’s what you want.
17. Jordan can play first base or third base or DH. Didn’t the Cardinals just put a reserve third baseman on the IL? Yes, they did. (Ramon Urias.) Let’s back up a minute. Does Jordan have a higher slugging percentage than Crooks? Why, yes. He does. Does Jordan have 18 extra-base hits to Crooks’ 11. Yeah, believe it or not this is also true.
18. And don’t get started on Memphis outfielder Bryan Torres and his slash line of .341/.447/.505 that he put together while striking out only 14.7% of the time.
19. The Cardinals have four at San Diego, then a scheduled day off (Monday), then three against the A’s in Sacramento. A 4-3 record over the next seven games is acceptable. A 3-4 mark is workable. Anything 2-5 or worse would be disappointing.
20. A reason for optimism: the Cardinals’ 11-5 road record is No. 2 in the majors, with only the Braves (14-6) doing better.
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 STLSportsCentral, 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.