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. In this edition, I had to go short because of a time-consuming issue that took me away from the laptop, so this column will be limited to a Cardinals recap. I’ll post another column later. Thank you.
Well, that wasn’t much fun. The Cardinals endured a bad loss on Tuesday, falling to the Diamondbacks by a 4-3 score at Busch Stadium. The Cards nearly erased AZ’s 4-0 lead in the bottom of the 9th. It was close but there would be no postgame smiles or a hand-slap line for the Redbirds.
After flapping to a 28-19 (.596) start to the season, your Cardinals are 14-16 (.466) in their last 30 games. I don't know what this tells us other than this: it’s hazardous to depend on one-run wins to sustain a brisk early pace.
For example …
— During their 28-19 start, the Cardinals were 10-3 in one-run outcomes.
— During their 14-16 stall since May 20, the Cards are 4-8 in games determined by a one-run margin.
Want some encouragement? Despite the inconsistency over the last 35 days, the Cardinals are still seven games over .500 (42-35) for a .545 winning percentage that ranks sixth overall and fourth in the National League. And the fellers still have possession of the No. 1 NL wild card ticket, leading Philadelphia by a margin of just one percentage point.
After splitting the first two games of their four-day series, the Diamondbacks and Cardinals will rassle again Wednesday night.
Here’s why the Cardinals lost Tuesday’s game by a run …
1. The Cards’ offense went missing over the first eight innings. While making their first 24 outs of the game, the Redbirds had three hits in 26 at-bats (.115) and couldn’t take advantage of four walks. The hitters were 0 for 4 with two strikeouts when set up by teammates in scoring position. Nelson Velazquez (twice), Jose Fermin and Jimmy Crooks came away empty in some big spots. This wasn’t the only reason why the Cardinals lost … but I believe a win was theirs if they’d just cashed in a couple of those RBI opportunities in a competition that remained scoreless through eight full innings. Having a lead would have given manager Oli Marmol a wider range of bullpen choices.
2. AZ lefty starter Eduardo Rodriguez neutralized the STL’s right-handed hitters. During his 6 and ⅔ innings Rodriguez faced Ivan Herrera, Jordan Walker, Nelson Velazquez, Jose Fermin, Blaze Jordan and Pedro Pages in a combined 16 plate appearances. That group managed two singles and two walks against him. They were hitless in three plate appearances with a runner at second and/or third.
3. Matt Svanson had a nightmarish 9th inning. Being a major-league reliever can be a thankless job. A human extinguisher can come out of the bullpen and pitch fantastically over a sequence of appearances. But let the poor dude come in and get busted in his first bad appearance after pitching so well, and all of the recent positives are immediately erased from our defective memory banks.
This was the case in Tuesday’s loss. It was one of the oddest relief shifts I’ve seen for a while. In pitching to five batters, Svanson gave up four runs (three earned) and threw 36 pitches – an average of 7.2 per hitter. Svanson faced three batters with runners in scoring position and all three got to him – two hits and a walk.
A laboring, tiring Svanson struggled to finish off hitters on two-strike counts; he clearly was gassed. Swanson retired only one D-back before Marmol, mercifully, subbed in Gordon Graceffo, who got the final two outs – but not before walking two hitters. Marmol had limited choices, and I was surprised that he didn’t try to get a second inning out of Max Rajcic.
That said, Marmol had every reason to be confident in Svanson. In his previous eight appearances before Tuesday’s blow-up, Svanson pitched 11 scoreless innings, allowed only six of 39 hitters to reach base (15%) and zipped a strikeout rate of 26 percent. Given that recent record, Marmol’s choice of Svanson was an obvious move and the right move. But the right-handed reliever just didn’t have it, and Marmol stayed with him too long.
4. Svanson was burned by bad luck caused by defensive lapses. Svanson retired the dangerous hitter Corbin Carroll to open the ninth. Gabriel Moreno was next and hit a routine fly ball to right that should have been the second out – except right fielder Jordan Walker lost it in the stadium lights and it dropped for a single. The Diamondbacks had something going – making something out of what should have been nothing. Svanson threw a wild pitch — which should have been blocked by catcher Jimmy Crooks – and the situation avalanched on the second-year reliever. Later on, Graceffo was victimized on a passed ball by Crooks that gave AZ its fourth run. I assumed the reports were true; we were told Crooks was good defensively. Sorry, but I haven’t seen that yet.
5. Jordan Walker: we’re spoiled, but he’s played nine games since his most recent homer. And those nine games Walker is 8 for 35 (.229), and all eight hits were singles. He’s walked a couple of times, with 10 strikeouts. Walker last homered on June 13, and he had a .562 slugging percentage and .915 OPS at the end of the game. After last night, Walker has a .523 slug and .866 OPS on the season.
Speaking of home runs, the Cardinals have gone five straight home games without walloping a homer. Their homerless span at Busch Stadium has extended to 193 plate appearances.
Cardinals Star of the Game: Kyle Leahy, who turned in his second consecutive quality start. Leahy virtually matched what Rodriguez did for the Diamondbacks. (Rodriguez had a game score of 70; Leahy’s game score was 68). Leahy conceded three hits and two walks in his 6 and ⅓ innings. In his last two starts (both at home) Leahy has given up three earned runs in 12 and ⅓ innings (2.18) ERA.
— In eight home starts this season, Leahy has a 3.23 ERA and the OPS against him is .708. In seven road starts, Leahy has a 5.35 ERA and he’s yielded a .909 OPS.
— Leahy has been blasted for nine home runs in 35 and ⅓ road innings. He hasn’t allowed any homers this season in 41 innings at Busch.
— Leahy has turned in consecutive starts of 6.0 and 6.1 innings. That’s a positive step. In the two starts, he’s faced 11 batters in the third time through the lineup and opponents have a .111 batting average (plus two walks) but haven’t scored a run on him. Progress? Yes, but will his performance hold on the road? It might not matter much because 13 of the Cards’ next 19 games will be at Busch.
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.