A good day to you all. Welcome to Breakfast with Bernie, which is something I do each weekday morning here at STL Sports Central.
I’m Bernie Miklasz, and you didn’t know this – but as a side hustle I serve as the speechwriter and jokewriter for Mizzou football coach Eli Drinkwitz.
This was one of my best lines written for Coach Drink when he spoke at SEC Media Days on Monday and discussed the return of running back Ahmad Hardy, who got shot in the left thigh on May 10 of this year.
“I'm not sure that his riding horses was part of the recovery protocol,” Drinkwitz said. “But hell, John Wayne rode after he had been shot. He turned out all right. Ahmad Hardy is trying the same approach.”
In a related note, I apologize for not having the time to be at Wrigley Field to join basketball coach Dennis Gates and university president Dr. Mun Choi for the Monday-night festivities that included Coach Gates singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame during the seventh-inning stretch.
I do understand why the Mizzou delegation traveled to the North Side of Chicago considering that no MLB franchises exist in Missouri and both Kansas City and St. Louis are hopeful of getting an MLB expansion franchise one day.
Unfortunately, I didn’t hear or see the singing performance, but I’m thinking that Coach Gates got off to a strong start – then kind of struggled and faded out as he neared the end of the song.
I’ll move on now …
Let’s get started …
— John Mozeliak 1, Cardinals 0.
— The very friendly and reliably accommodating media people can repeatedly use the term “All-Star” as cover for Riley O’Brien, but here are the forensics on his last 28 appearances as Cards closer:
4 blown saves, 0-4 record
5.60 ERA
Expected 6.58 ERA based on metrics.
Poor 20% strikeout rate
Inflated 11.5 percent walk rate
8 hit batters
Very high 1.57 walks-hits per inning
92.6% contact rate (ouch!) on strikes
Strikes thrown rate of 38%
Ranks 122nd in Win Probability Added
148th in swinging-strike rate (9.6%)
— Nothing to see here. O’Brien is an All-Star and therefore has complete immunity. Or as an MLB.com author noted in a story after O’Brien ralphed on a ninth-inning save opportunity in Monday’s embarrassing 3-2 loss to the Angels: “O’Brien had been solid for the Cardinals all year, earning his first nod to the All-Star Game, but his command slipped Monday night.” Well, it’s nice to know that O’Brien’s problems didn’t surface until Monday’s loss.
— According to ESPN, the pitiful Angels were 0-48 this season when trailing going into the ninth inning. Not anymore. The Halos broke an overall streak of 106 consecutive losses when losing through eight innings.
— Can’t heap all the blame on O’Brien. As The Old-Timey sportswriter would surely surmise, the St. Louis offense “was running on half a lantern.”
— Yeah, and the Cards were “one nod away from curling up in the bat rack.” The Birds scored their two runs in the second inning and got nice and groggy the rest of the way, going 1-for-21 with eight strikeouts. The fellas managed to set up only three plate appearances with runners in scoring position from the third inning on – and were hitless in the three at-bats.
— Good on Kyle Leahy, who continues to improve. He did his part Monday to beat the Angels, yielding only one run and three hits in six innings. An important aspect of Leahy’s performance? No walks. And while the right-hander did get struck for a solo home run, it was no big deal.
— In his last 13 starts since May 4, Leahy ranks 7th among NL starters with a 2.73 ERA. The only NL starters who can top that during the specified time frame are Jacob Misiorowski, Zack Wheeler, Eduardo Rodriguez, Foster Griffin, Christopher Sanchez, and Max Meyer.
— Leahy has been even better since June 17, punching in a 1.44 ERA over six starts. During that time Leahy ranks 4th among NL starters behind Griffin, Jesus Luzardo and Eury Perez. In this stretch of pitching, Leahy is tied with Robbie Ray for the lowest home-run yield by an NL starter at 0.29 per nine innings.
— Leahy has the best ERA among Cardinal starters since May 4, and also the top ERA among Cards starters since June 17.
— The Cardinals are 7-10 in July and the offense is a large culprit in the downturn. Through the first 17 games the Redbirds rank between 26th and 28th in the majors in batting average, on-base rate, slugging percentage and OPS. Based on wRC+, the STL offense is 18 percent below league average offensively in July. Technically speaking the Cardinals are averaging 4.6 runs per game this month but that’s very misleading. The offense scored 35 of their 79 July runs in three games – meaning they’ve averaged 3.1 runs in the other 14 games.
— To reinforce the point on a lineup that backfires more than it accelerates: since June 17 the Cardinals rank 13th in the NL and 25th overall with an 11-17 record (.393.) In winning only 11 of 28 games, the STL scored four or fewer runs 19 times, which is nearly 70 percent of those 28 games. They’ve also managed no more than three runs in 15 of the 28 games – and lost 11 of the 15.
— Friends, I do realize the Cardinals are in a three-way tie for the No. 3 wild-card spot. And that’s part of a six-team glob that has a shot at it. But does this mean the Cardinals should be viewed as a legit contender? Or are they just hanging around because none of the other wild-card hopefuls are surging. (The Marlins were … until they weren’t … having lost seven consecutive games.)
— For perspective, here’s how the six wild-card aspirants measure up over the last month or so:
Marlins, 16-11
Pirates, 15-12
Dbacks, 14-13
Nationals, 12-15
Padres, 12-16
Cards, 11-17
And since July 5
Pirates, 7-4
Dbacks, 7-5
Padres, 6-6
Nationals, 5-6
Marlins, 4-7
Cards, 4-9
If we take it back to May 20, the Padres are the only team on the list of six that has a worse record than the Cardinals.
Marlins, 30-22
Pirates, 28-25
Nationals, 27-25
Dbacks, 27-26
Cardinals, 23-29
Padres, 20-32
— John Mozeliak speaks: In an interview with reporters before Monday’s game, the former head of St. Louis baseball operations said he was drawing from his experience during his early years in St. Louis to chart a course for the Angels’ recovery. Mozeliak was hired as an interim GM to come up with a plan to restore a crumbling, messy franchise that’s been hopelessly dysfunctional for far too long.
The Halos own MLB’s worst record this season and have qualified for a playoff spot only one time since the start of the 2010 season. Though it wasn’t quite that bad in St. Louis at the time, when Cards GM Walt Jocketty hired Mozeziak as an assistant GM in 1995, the franchise hadn’t made the playoffs since 1987 and were one game over .500 – 696-695 – from 1988 through 1995.
Bill DeWitt Jr., Jocketty, Mozeliak and Tony La Russa did a heck of a job to get the Cardinals flying again. The Redbirds made the playoffs in 1996, 2000, 2001 and 2002. That was followed by two pennants and a World Series title from 2004 through 2006.
Mozeliak succeeded Jocketty as the GM after the 2007 season during a period of unusual volatility created by the feud and power struggle between Jocketty and the DeWitt-recruited analyst Jeff Luhnow. Mozeliak received well deserved praise for his role in healing a damaging divide in the organization and unifying the baseball operation as he prepared for the 2008 season.
“I reflect back to when I was first named general manager and that was a turbulent time for the Cardinals,” Mozeliak said. “And so for me, coming in here with an organization that is trying to get back to being a perennial winner, there are some similarities. But clearly when you look at having a successful franchise year over year, it really comes down to how you're built. Scouting and player development have to be a major force.”
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, Keith Tkachuk, 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.