The Cardinals have 81 games down, 81 games to go, and a 43-38 record to show for their exertions.
Given the preseason Eeyore forecasts from baseball writers in The Hundred Acre Wood, the first half of St. Louis’ schedule went about as well as we could have expected.
On March 25, the morning of their season-opening ballgame, FanGraphs listed the Cardinals with an 8.5 percent chance to make the postseason.
Here on Monday, the 29th of June, the Cardinals have a 33.5% crack at becoming a postseason qualifier. Then again, the odds had more twinkle when the Redbirds were nine games over .500 on June 16th, positioned with a 55.6% likelihood of making the postseason. The percentage was sliced down by seven defeats in the Cards’ last 10 games.
You can feel a fretful rumble rollin’ in from yonder hills. Or, as our good friend Will Leitch noted from his post at MLB.com:
“Last year on June 30, the Cardinals were 47-39 and right in the thick of the wild card chase; then it all came crumbling, and they immediately started trading players away before the trade deadline. Is that happening again this year? A miserable week -- in which the hitting has fallen apart as the pitching has faded -- certainly raises some potentially urgent and uncomfortable questions.”
Will – a true man of the people – speaks for the vast congregation of Cardinal fans.
What follows is an around-the-diamond look at your St. Louis Cardinals as they rest up before a three-game series that starts Tuesday in Atlanta. This will begin a 14-game stretch that leads the Redbirds into the 2026 All-Star break.
I have a few things on my mind that developed over the first 81 games.
1. The offense, especially when the Cardinals are playing at Busch Stadium. This may stabilize over time, but the boys in the batter’s box are not welcome at home. But yeah – make it hell, yeah – I’m going to keep talking about this.
Cardinals offense in the 30-team MLB rankings from the start of the season through June 28:
Cards at Home: 27th in slugging, 24th in OPS, 3.7 runs per game, a home run every 35 at-bats. But that home-run rate at home is one every 44 at-bats in May-June combined. And the Cardinals have averaged 3.5 runs per home game since the start of May.
Cards on the Road: 7th in slugging, 5th in OPS, 5.3 runs per game, a home run every 27.4 at-bats.
There are vast differences in this team’s home-road performance in on-base percentage, slugging, isolated power, and home-run rate. That’s especially the case in May and June; based on wRC+ the Cards are 15 percent better offensively on the road than they are at home.
The Statcast metrics show that Busch – at least so far – is a harsh environment for power ball hitting. According to 2026 Statcast and park-factor data, Busch Stadium features a brutal 0.872 home run factor which is well below the 1.000 neutral. Busch is deflating offensive production across the board, particularly in the deep left-center and right-center “death alley” gaps.
As I wrote last week, the death-alley home environs provide security for St. Louis pitchers … which only makes it more difficult for the arms when they go to work on the road. Ask Sonny Gray about that. In his two seasons as a Cardinal, Gray had a 3.40 ERA at Busch Stadium and a 5.07 ERA on the road. And the slugging percentage against Gray was nearly 100 points higher on the road compared to Busch Stadium.
These low-scoring, reduced-power games from the Cardinal hitters at Busch Stadium didn’t just start last week, or even on the previous homestand.
2. Most things considered, the starting pitching is doing fine. Yes, the underlying metrics warn of danger – what else is new? – but except for Matthew Liberatore the team’s starting rotation is hanging tough. That generally applies to the bullpen as well, but the relievers are more inconsistent – in part because the starters went through a couple of bad stretches of too many low-innings starts.
After getting smacked around in March-April the Cardinals rank 12th in the majors with a total 3.95 ERA across May-June. The starting pitchers are 11th in May-June with a 4.02 ERA, and are more impressive with their 3.81 fielding independent ERA that ranks 7th over that time. The relievers are 16th over the last two months with a 3.83 ERA.
That said, here’s a word to remember: beware! The Cards’ raw strikeout rate (19.5%) ranks 28th among the 30 pitching staffs. This is even worse than last season, when the Cardinals ranked 29th at 19.8%. When you strike out fewer than one in five batters you face, you are constantly relying on your defense to limit the damage. The strike-zone contact rate against St. Louis is an MLB-worst 89.7%.
When Cards pitchers throw strikes, opposing batters rarely swing through them. The arms just don’t pitch to contact; they’re fundamentally incapable of getting a whiff when they need one most.
Look at these raw team strikeout totals: Milwaukee 800, St. Louis 606. And here’s a related note about how this matters. This season the Brewers’ pitchers have allowed a .158 average on two-strike counts – which is 40 points less than STL’s batting-average yield of .188. And there is a 48-point difference in two-strike slugging percentage against Milwaukee and St. Louis – advantage Brewers.
Cards starting pitchers rank among the top five in the majors in ground-ball rate (45%). The Brewer starters have the lowest ground-ball rate at 36.4%. But Milwaukee’s strikeout power makes a big difference, and that’s a significant reason for the Brewers’ best-in-show ERA (3.16) for starting pitchers.
Instead of going on the attack, Cards starting pitchers are on the defensive … literally. Because ground balls are often their only escape from trouble. Milwaukee’s starters just go on the attack and stay on it … strikeouts, a lot of pop ups and weak fly balls. The home-run count against Milwaukee starters (77) is the second-lowest in the majors.
The Cardinals can brag about one thing: their starting pitchers actually have more quality starts (31) than the Brewers (27.) That’s why I offer praise to the Cards starters as a group. They’re doing as well as can be expected given their limited firepower in strikeouts. But when batted, airborne baseballs begin flying in the hotter-weather temperatures, strikeouts will be even more effective as a weapon. The Cardinal pitchers are much more vulnerable.
3. The Cardinals defense remains effective, but … there’s a little slippage. The Redbirds rank 11th in defensive runs saved, and are 5th in outs above average. The Cards led the majors in outs above average in 2025. But I don’t want to nitpick. This is a very good defense which can help the pitchers prevent runs. But it’s important for the fielders to sharpen up, just a little, over the final 81 games.
4. The Cardinals are terrific at running the bases as a team. In their first 81 games, their Statcast team Base Running Value was tied for third best in MLB. And the Redbirds were 7th overall in runs via extra-bases taken. Their stolen-base success is in good shape; the Cardinals are tied for first in the majors in runs created through stolen bases.
5. Back to hitting. Are the Cardinals getting enough voltage and impact from their left-handed batters? LHB have taken 52% of the team’s plate appearances this season, the third highest volume in the majors. (And the usage is increasing and growing higher.) But the performance of that LHB group – while good – ranks 11th in wRC+ at six percent above league average offensively.
At 6% above league average, the LH sticks are doing fine. They get on base at a respectable rate and are taking better at-bats since Lars Nootbaar came off the IL to join the band. However, for a team dedicating over half of its lineup to lefties, you need a top-five return on the investment.
This is where Busch Stadium comes into play again. Cards LHB rank 6th in MLB (42.5%) in hard-hit rate. They’re squaring up driving pitches with authority. Despite the elite hard contact, the Redbirds’ LHB ranks a disappointing 19th in MLB with a .395 slugging percentage.
These left-side hitters probably deserve better results – especially Alec Burleson. Based on quality of contact his expected slugging percentage is .615. That’s 139 points higher than his actual slugging rate of .476. It’s the Busch Stadium “Tax” on hitters.
The Cards’ RH batters are doing well, even at Busch, because one area of the park that’s more open to damage is the pull-side power down the left field line.
However …
6. Jordan Walker has been “spun” into trouble. In short, MLB pitchers have punched back after Walker’s batterings over the first two-months. After Walker punished them with that elite 49.3% Ideal Contact Rate in the season's first two months, a diet of spin and finesse is challenging him to adjust, with pitchers feeding him a heavy diet of sweepers, sliders, and chase-inducing garbage off the outer half of the plate.
Walker’s chase rate has spiked to 35.5%, which drops him into the bottom 19th percentile of the league. He has aggressively expanded his zone, and pitchers are taking advantage of Walker’s efforts to “force” power rather than hitting the ball where it’s pitched.
Walker’s whiff-swing rate is increasing, and he’s swinging over those low-and-away pitches again. The big man struck out 7 times in his last 18 at-bats in five games against the Marlins and Diamondbacks. And over his last 29 games, the ground-ball rate has gone from 39% to 47%.
In 123 plate appearances since May 25, Walker has three home runs, a poor .293 OBP, a .390 slug and a .683 OPS. Add it all up and he’s 13 percent below league average offensively over this time per wRC+.
7. It’s important for the Cardinals to reverse recent trends. They’re 25-25 since the end of April. They’re four games under .500 (15-19) since May 20. They’ve lost seven of the last 10 games. After winning 10 of their first 13 games that were determined by a run, the Cards are 5-8 in their last 13 one-run outcomes. That’s a big change. Their offense is dangerous on the road and meek at home.
8. So what will Cards president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom do before the Aug. 3 trade deadline? If they can start winning again, the Cardinals can at least put some pressure on Bloom to rethink his trade-deadline strategy. But even then, I don’t believe Bloom will deviate from his firm plan. I’m about 90% convinced Bloom will trade three prime Cardinals – outfielder Lars Nootbaar, starting pitcher Dustin May and reliever JoJo Romero if the appropriate offers come in on them. Who knows; closer Riley O’Brien could be moved as well.
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.