Hello, and welcome to my new feature here at STL Sports Central: Breakfast with Bernie, which I’ll write early in the morning on most weekdays. And if I’m a little late it’ll be “Brunch with Bernie.” I’ll serve up observations, opinions, notes, facts, stats, praise, cheap shots, randomness, and some weirdness as I have my first cuppa or two or three of the day. At times we’ll go “buffet” style for morning grazing, and later in the day I’ll author a new column. On most days, I’ll lead off with a Cards recap. There will be plenty of baseball info served here, with emphasis on the Cardinals.
With the Cardinals beginning an important 21-game stretch of schedule packed with 15 home dates, it behooved them to get off to a good start.
Well, the Redbirds behooved their way to a 3-2 victory over old friend Nolan Arenado and the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The win was witnessed by a modest audience of 22,050. Not that All-Star voting is based on hand-distributed paper ballots at the ballpark – the way it used to be – but I’m not sure why so many folks appear to be surprised to see Cardinal players lagging behind in the 2026 digital-vote counting. A new era of Cardinals baseball does present some … challenges.
With Monday’s success, the Cardinals shook off a three-game losing streak to post two consecutive wins. Their season record is 42-34. Their .553 winning percentage is sixth best in the majors and fourth finest in the National League. According to FanGraphs playoff odds, the Cardinals have a 51.2 percent probability of making the playoffs.
Here’s how the Cardinals raised their record in one-run games to 14-10 on the season…
1. Andre the Giant: Cards starter Andre Pallante was impressive over six innings in limiting the Dbacks to six hits and a run. Depending on how you prefer to chop it up, Pallante is 7-2 with a 3.30 ERA in his last 10 starts … or 6-1 with a 2.98 ERA in his eight most recent assignments. Either way: very good, and also validated by the positive “expected” ERA metrics.
The two most prominent keys to Pallante’s 2026 turnaround? His dynamic slider and an improved four-seam fastball. This season the run value on Pallante’s slider is a +9, which makes it the sixth-best slider among MLB starting pitchers per Statcast.
This season opponents have a .188 batting average and .292 slugging percentage when trying to do something with Pallante’s spinning slider.
Though Pallante isn’t known as a big strikeout guy, he has a 31.4% strikeout rate and 32% whiff-swing rate on the slider this year. As for his four-seam fastball value – aided by increased velocity – the pitch puts Pallante in the 66th percentile among pitchers. That stands out because his fastball value was in the bottom 11 percent of the majors in 2025.
2. A normal night for the bullpen. After the beatdown absorbed by St. Louis pitchers at Kansas City, “normal” is good. Ryne Stanek, JoJo Romero, George Soriano and Riley O’Brien combined for three innings in support of Pallante. Stanek was smashed for a long solo home run that cut STL’s lead to a run, but that was the only bad moment.
And of course, the highly aroused X mob went into convulsions over the home run. Their Stanek obsession is a peculiar fetish; these people want him to fail so they can rush onto the X platform theater and perform like they’re manic tough guys cast for a Tarantino film.
Even with Stanek’s mistake, the bullpen came through. And the Cardinals needed that. After JJ Wetherholt’s two-out single in the bottom of the 4th, the Cards failed to get a hit in their final 14 plate appearances. (Though did reach base on a walk and a hit batter.)
3. Special mention, Riley O’Brien: As we know, O’Brien has taken a lot of punches since his season shifted into sudden and lasting ineffectiveness on April 25. He disposed of the Dbacks in an incident-free 1-2-3 ninth for his 19th save of the year. This was O’Brien’s first “clean” ninth-inning save since May 7. But in the 14 ensuing performances before Monday, a vulnerable O’Brien had been caned for a 6.91 ERA in 14 and ⅓ innings. During that turbulent stretch, 40 percent of his batters faced reach base. That’s why the clean ninth against Arizona is so notable. Will it lead to increased stability for O’Brien? The Cardinals sure hope so.
4. Time for Church: The rookie center fielder had a busy, productive night: two hits, an RBI, a run scored and a stolen base. In his 13 games since returning from the IL, Church is hitting .361 with a .439 on-base rate and .500 slugging percentage. He has a 12.2% walk rate over the 13 games, a factor that’s led to Church scoring eight runs. And four of his 13 hits have gone for extra bases.
5. Tip of the ol’ ballcap to Burleson and Wetherholt: JJ had two hits in Monday’s win. Those hits (and walks) just keep on coming; over his last 18 games the rookie second baseman has a .380 average, .443 on-base rate and a .521 slug. Per wRC+ he’s 76 percent above league average offensively since May 30.
And how about Burly? His streak of getting on base stretched to 21 games on Monday, and Burleson marked the occasion with his 56th RBI of the season – the fourth most in the National League. During his 21-game on-base streak, Burly has batted .318 with a .624 OPS and 1.002 OPS. The run includes six homers, six doubles and 21 RBIs.
Note: no “buffet” today. I needed time to work on a “bonus” column on Keith Tkachuk, which should be posted later this morning…
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.