THE REDBIRD REVIEW
I think it’s OK to be a little greedy about your St. Louis Cardinals, which is why Thursday’s 5-4 loss to the moribund Mets was so disappointing.
The Cards were in position to win and complete a three-game sweep at Citi Field. But after striking for heavy damage in the first two innings, the Cardinals morphed into Mets.
Actual birds sleep in tree cavities, dense shrubbery, or on branches partially covered by leaves.
The baseball Cardinals? On Thursday they just napped out in the open while standing in the batter’s boxes on each side of home plate.
I’m sure the Mets appreciated this. The Mets are New York’s other MLB team, the overdosed on money team, the worst team that a bazillionaire’s hedge-fund money can buy … and sort of a knockoff version of the Yankees. As a team the Mets are the equivalent of a tired Billy Joel impersonator.
The Mets are actually the preferred team of comedians. Their fan base comes with chuckles provided by the likes of Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Jimmy Kimmel, Sebastian Maniscalco, Kevin James, Ray Romano, John Oliver, Jason Sudeikis, Bill Maher, Ben Stiller, the late Jerry Stiller, the late Biz Markie, Jim Breuer (who?) and Chris Christie. The comedians love the Mets. Makes sense, right?
Wait, Bernie. Chris Christie isn’t a comedian. He’s a politician.
My response: Exactly!
Anyway, The Metropolitans actually opted in for this one. They were actually awake for the third game of this set with the Cardinals, and that was a big change from the first 48 hours at Citi Field.
After being sacked out and in full repose like strung-out dudes sleeping under bridges in those old New York detective TV shows starring Jerry Orbach – stand back people, because the Mets inexplicably rallied. For what specific reason, I don’t know.
As for the visiting team from the humble Midwest, I guess I can understand why it may be a little tiring to score 16 runs in 18 innings of victorious baseball and have to make a quick-turnaround return to Queens in the Thursday morning daylight.
The game was shaping up as a spirited skirmish early on. The energy was there.
The Cards went deep for a 1-0 lead on a solo HR by Alec Burleson in the top of the first.
The Mets jumped St. Louis starter Hunter Dobbins to fly two homers on hittable secondary pitches to score three runs in the bottom half of the first.
The Cardinals made a claim on another comeback in the top o’ the second on a Lars Nootbaar solo homer, a Masyn Winn double, and a two-run clout by the rookie catcher Jimmy Crooks.
After their first seven plate appearances of the game, the Cardinals had two home runs, a double, and four runs on the board. Looking good! Cards 4, Mets 3.
More Redbird runs to come!
False.
That was it. Dobbins required 88 pitches to get only 13 outs, and he was spent after 4 and ⅓ innings. The bullpen couldn’t hold the Mets off.
Justin Bruihl’s short-term, solid-lefty-reliever card expired, and the Mets got him for the tying run in the 5th. The reliable JoJo Romero had the misfortune of pitching to Juan Soto on a day that Soto actually felt contractually obligated to give a damn – and Soto lofted a solo homer in the 7th for the winner.
Am I Being Too Hard On The Cardinals?
Yes. Absolutely. But it’s because I think highly of them. It’s because I care. It’s because I wanted to see them string their winning streak to seven games and fulfill the quest to push their record to 10 games over .500.
Drats. They couldn’t get it done. But the Cardinals won the series, and that’s the No. 1 priority. Put a check mark next to this Mets series as listed on the schedule.
With a 37-29 record in the cargo, the Redbirds departed on their flight to Minneapolis for the next stop. The Cardinals will flush Thursday’s loss in Flushing Meadows. Next on the docket is a three-game weekend series vs. the Twins.
Why the Cardinals lost Thursday’s game to the Mets:
1. It was a day game. Earlier in the Review I joked about the Cardinals napping in the batter’s box after reporting to the ballpark in the morning daylight hours for Thursday’s day game. Maybe I was onto something. With the loss the Cardinals are 12-17 in day games this season for a terrible .429 winning percentage. In night games the Cards are 25-13 for a .658 win%. This is not a team that’s big on partying, so I don’t know why they’re so ineffective in the daytime. Unless there’s some crazy vampire BS going on here.
2. Hunter Dobbins wasn’t good. He’ll do better going forward but this wasn’t much of a start: 4 and ⅓ innings, seven hits, two homers and three earned runs. But I have two compliments: (a) after getting mashed for the three runs in the first, Dobbins kept NY scoreless until departing the start with one out in the 5th inning. And (b) he struck out five without a walk.
The Dobbins' game score was 42 which is eight percent below league average. The “stuff” ratings for Dobbins in this game showed that his slider, splitter and sweeper were above average overall. But a couple of bad pitches – a sweeper to Bo Bichette and splitter to Jared Young – disappeared over the wall for home runs. In both cases Dobbins simply landed the pitches in a hot zone in the strike zone.
3. The Cardinals went into the sleep mode offensively. Not literally, of course. But in terms of bottom-line performance, the snooze button was in play. After Crooks banged his second MLB home run to put the Cardinals up 4-3, here’s what the Redbirds did after that:
– Three hits in 25 at-bats with two walks and seven strikeouts. The fade included an 0 for 4 failure with runners in scoring position.
– The Cardinals lapsed into futility late in the game. After Jordan Walker singled in the fifth, from that point on the STL hitters were 0 for 13 with one walk for the rest of the way.
– Let’s put it this way: no one who pitched for the Mets in this game reminded anyone of Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman.
NOTABLE
* Before Thursday the Cardinals were 4-1 this season when hitting exactly three home runs in a game. Make it 4-2. The Cards had a longball-or-nothing offense in the series finale.
* Burleson hit a home run in all three games of this Mets series. Thursday’s HR was Burly’s 11th of the season and stretched his hitting streak to 11 games.
* Over the last 11 games Burleson is 16 for 45 (.356) with four home runs and 13 RBIs. For the season his slugging percentage is .486 which would be a new career high if it holds up.
* It was another bleak day at the yard for Nolan Gorman, who was hitless in three-at bats with two strikeouts. In his last 17 games Gorman is 3 for 50 for an .060 batting average and has a horrific strikeout rate of 49 percent over that time. For the season Gorman’s batting average is down to .194 and his slugging percentage has cratered to .318. How much longer will this go on?
* In his first game (Thursday) for Triple A Memphis, Victor Scott II went 2 for 4 with two RBIs, a double, a triple, a walk and a run scored.
* Memphis swept Norfolk in a doubleheader Thursday. Outfielder Josh Baez went 1 for 8 with an RBI and four strikeouts in the two games. Blaze Jordan went 3 for 7 in the two games with a home run, a double a walk and two RBIs.
* The most exciting news coming out of the doubleheader was lefty pitching prospect Quinn Mathews throwing six shutout innings in Game 1. He was dinged for three hits, walked one, and struck out six hitters. In his last three starts Mathews has been touched for one earned run in 16 innings.
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.