Scanning the notebook in my mind, and clearing out some head space …
1. I don’t understand the contrast between the way the Cardinals responded with urgency after their offense shut down in May, and how they’re staying cool, staying the course, and reacting with little or no real urgency to the serious downturn of their starting rotation.
2. The Cards were 14th among 15 NL teams in runs for May, and ranked 12th in slugging and 13th in homers. Late in the month, Chaim Bloom took action to get better results with a sequence of moves that included promoting Nelson Velazquez, Bryan Torres and Jimmy Crooks from Memphis. Bloom promoted Blaze Jordan from Triple A and demoted Yohel Pozo, Nolan Gorman, Victor Scott and Thomas Saggese. Lars Nootbaar and Nathan Church returned from the Injured list. Starting catcher Pedro Pages was moved into a limited role. Jose Fermin was given more responsibility and playing time as a utility piece.
3. Did this combination of personnel moves work? Well, you tell me. As I’ve written plenty of times, Bloom’s roster restructuring created a more capable and versatile bench, gave manager Oli Marmol more flexibility to play matchups, and turned the pitiful 5-6-7-8-9 lineup spots into a fertile source of offense.
4. Through their first 18 games in June the Cardinals rank 3rd in the NL in runs, 2nd in batting average, second in on-base percentage, 3rd in OPS, 4th in slugging, 4th in doubles, and 7th in homers. Their team wRC+ is 30 percent above league average offensively, which ranks second to Milwaukee in the NL. Yes, the changes are working.
5. OK, so where is the same urgency now that we’re seeing the starting pitching getting clobbered? Beginning with the second game of a May 23 doubleheader at Cincinnati, St. Louis starting pitchers have a 4.45 ERA in 25 games. The team’s record in the 25 games is 12-13. Nine of the 25 starts lasted fewer than five innings. A 10th lasted exactly five innings. Ten of 25 starts went 6+ innings.
6. In May, Cards starting pitching ranked 9th in the majors with a 3.43 ERA. So far in June, the team’s starting pitchers have a 4.76 ERA that ranks 21st overall and 10th in the NL. In May, the STL starters had the seventh-lowest home run yield in the majors at 0.92 per nine innings. In June, that HR rate is up to 1.43 homers per nine, an increase of 55.4%.
7. The performance continues to worsen. In the 10 games since June 11, Cards starting pitchers have a 6.08 ERA and didn’t go longer than 5.0 innings in half of their stats. And in the thrashing by the Royals, Matthew Liberatore, Michael McGreevy and Dustin May pitched a combined 8 and ⅔ innings – less than three innings per start – and were obliterated for a 16.62 ERA.
8. And then there’s Matthew Liberatore, who went into the season as the team’s No. 1 starter. In his last 27 regular-season starts since July 11 of last season, Liberatore’s 5.19 ERA ranks 65th among 72 MLB starting pitchers with at least 25 starts over that time. And his expected ERA, 6.30, is 71st out of 72 starters. His home-run yield of 1.85 homers per nine innings is 69th among the 72 starters. And in Libby’s last 27 starts opponents have battered him for a .297 average, .353 on-base percentage and a .507 slug. What’s going on here?
9. The Cardinals have three starters at Triple A Memphis they can call for help: Hunter Dobbins, Brycen Mautz and Quinn Mathews. If none of the three can do better than Liberatore over a 27-start period, then they should probably think about a career change.
10. Dobbins was drafted by Bloom in Boston then acquired by Chaim from the Red Sox in the deal for Willson Contreras. Mautz was the Cards’ Minor League Pitcher of the Year in 2025. Mathews was Baseball America’s overall Minor League Pitcher of the Year in 2024. (As in, the best minor league pitcher among all teams.) And yet: crickets. Bloom did a terrific job of promoting from within to inflate a gasping offense. OK, so why is no action being taken to go within the system to fortify the rotation?
11. If the Cardinals can demote Gorman and help him regroup by putting him in their hitting lab down in Jupiter, then why wouldn’t they try to do something similar with Liberatore? Having Libby go into the pitching lab – away from competition – to find ways to help him improve isn’t a punishment.
12. It would be a smart and compassionate move. It would show Liberatore how much they care about him – and believe in him. Putting him out there to take more beatings on a major-league mound in a misguided showing of loyalty isn’t helping him. Why is this so difficult to understand?
13. If Bloom cared enough about the offense to shake things up – and do it to benefit the entire team – then why is the rotation off-limits? No disrespect intended to any of these guys, but I must have missed the Cy Young awards and All-Star selections this group has collected.
14. When Bloom and Marmol concluded that Gorman needed to be rescued – and it was time to get him away from the competition and into the lab for a rebuild – they followed that move by promoting Blaze Jordan to fill Gorman’s third-base spot in St. Louis. But here’s the thing: the Cardinals weren’t entirely sold on Jordan. They liked him, but didn’t like his defense at third base. They were in no rush to promote him. They rejected the idea for a time. They just weren’t sure.
15. But when backup third baseman Ramon Urias suffered another elbow injury – and would miss another month or so – the Cards turned to Blaze Jordan out of desperation. What the heck. We don’t have a lot of options here, so let’s give Blaze another opportunity. Let’s see how he does.
16. And to this point, the decision is looking good. Jordan has a .286 average, .791 OPS, has driven in a few big runs, and is playing surprisingly effective defense. As the Diamondbacks and Cardinals open a four-game series Monday at Busch Stadium, here’s one of my fun facts of the season to date:
Defensive runs saved at 3B: Blaze Jordan 3, Nolan Arenado 3.
Outs above average: Jordan 2, Arenado 1.
17. Will that last? I doubt it. But the Blaze Jordan saga shows you that a team doesn’t really know what it has in a young and largely unheralded prospect type of player until they give the kid a chance – especially at a time of need. And so why are the Cardinals reluctant to apply the same principle to three young starting pitchers in their system – Dobbins, Mautz and Mathews? Truth is, all three of those fellows were above Blaze Jordan in the unofficial organizational prospect ratings. But Jordan got a chance to play, stay, and make a difference. The three pitchers? They’re waiting. The apparent double standards are fascinating.
THE RILEY O’BRIEN FILE
— Riley O’Brien in 19 relief appearances since April 25 … 19 innings, 7.11 ERA, 39 runners on base, .303 average, .827 OPS, 19 percent strikeout rate, 11.6% walk rate, 27% whiff-swing rate, 43.3% hard-hit rate.
— Riley O’Brien in 13 appearances before April 25 … 13 and ⅓ innings, 0.00 ERA, .136 batting average, .315 OPS, seven baserunners allowed, 33.3% strikeout rate, no walks, 31% hard-hit rate, 30.5% whiff-swing rate.
— And yet, national baseball pundits continue to list O’Brien as one of the most potentially valuable trade assets before the Aug. 3 deadline – which just proves how poorly they pay attention to what’s really happening in St. Louis. They just don’t care about what’s going on with the Cardinals, despite the Redbirds ranking 6th among the 30 MLB teams in win percentage as the new week began Monday. It’s funny … and embarrassing.
— Dudes and dudettes: let me help y’all. Since the 25th of April, 136 relievers have pitched at least 19 innings. Here’s where O’Brien ranks among the 136 in various categories:
No 132 in ERA, 7.11
No. 99 in strikeout rate
No. 111 in walk rate
No. 113 in strikeout-walk ratio
No. 136 in OBP allowed (.419)
No. 97 in slugging against (.408)
Third most hit batters, 5
Minus 0.3 WAR, bottom 10.
NOBODY CARES, CONFIRMED
Latest ranking among Cardinals in the updated NL All-Star voting:
Outfield: Jordan Walker — 8th
1st Base: Alec Burleson — 5th
DH: Ivan Herrera — 5th
2nd Base: JJ Wetherholt — 8th
I care. You care. But baseball fans around the nation that have no rooting interest or affiliation to the Cardinals? They don’t care. And they don’t pay attention.
THE JOSHUA BAEZ FILE
— Bye-bye Baez hit his 25th home run on Sunday. In his last 23 games for Triple A Memphis, the young slugger extraordinaire has 14 homers, 35 RBIs, a .347 batting average, .878 slugging pct, 1.263 OPS, 506 wOBA, and a .531 ISO. Good news: his strikeout rate over that time is a much improved 22.9 percent, and his contact rate on strikes is 84.3% over the 23 games. That’s a dramatic improvement from where Baez was over his first two months of the season.
— In his last 11 games, Baez has eight home runs in 49 at-bats with an .822 slugging percentage. His hard-hit rate over the 11 games is 65 percent, and his launch angle is just about perfect.
— Just for kicks … if we combined the Triple A and MLB leader board, this would be the top four home-run hitters on such a board:
Kyle Schwarber, 29
Yordan Alvarez, 25
Joshua Baez, 25
Byron Buxton, 24
And what about slugging percentage – minimum 250 plate appearances?
Alvarez, .642
Baez, .626
Schwarber, .603
THE JJ WETHERHOLT FILE
— After a big Sunday in Kansas City, Wetherholt ranks 7th overall and 3rd in the National League among position players with 3.4 fWAR. Here are his projections for a final fWAR at the end of the season, and I used three different games-played totals for him to give you a range of projections:
145 games, 6.94 fWAR
150 games, 7.18 fWAR
155 games, 7.42 fWAR
I don’t know if JJ will get it done, but if he can reach 7.0 fWAR, it would be the 42nd time a Cardinal position player did that in a season in franchise history. Some of the names in the 7.0 fWAR Club include Rogers Hornsby, Stan Musial, Albert Pujols, Johnny Mize, Frankie Frisch, Ken Boyer, Joe Medwick, Willie McGee, Mark McGwire, Keith Hernandez, Scott Rolen, Yadier Molina, Jim Edmonds, Nolan Arenado, Dick Groat, and Matt Carpenter. Many of those gentlemen reached 7.0 fWAR in multiple seasons.
But the only Cardinals rookie to do it was Pujols, who had 7.2 fWAR in 2001. As it stands now, Wetherholt’s 3.4 fWAR would be tied for 10th best in a rookie season by a Cardinal. But JJ has a lot of games to go in 2026, and if he gets his fWAR to at least 4.4, that would put him at No. 5 in a rookie season by a Cardinal. If Wetherholt can push that fWAR to 5.4, he’d bump Hornsby (1916) out of fourth place.
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.