Hunter Dobbins, nice to see you again. It’s too bad you couldn’t stay a while. But you’re one of the pitchers that exists in the hazy gray of a rebuilding zone, which can be like being in the twilight zone.
Are you a major-leaguer? Minor-leaguer? You are a man of multiple identities, multiple roles, multiple homes. Memphis, St. Louis, National League, International League, starter, reliever, Cardinals, Busch Stadium, Redbirds, AutoZone Park.
You’ve pitched against the huge-market New York Mets, and pitched against a team called the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp. You’ve pitched against the Chicago Cubs and pitched against the Iowa Cubs. You’ve pitched against Storm Chasers and Mud Hens and Stripers. You’ve fought Pirates and Knights and Angels.
You did this last season for the Boston Red Sox organization, pitching for the big club and making starts for the minor-league teams in New England – Worcester and Portland.
That was before Chaim Bloom acquired you for the Cardinals. Which makes sense because as the Red Sox chief baseball officer Bloom drafted you in the eighth round of the 2021 MLB Draft. Bloom clearly sees something in you.
You’ve done this MLB-Triple A Boogie very well. In six appearances for the Cardinals this season, covering 28 and ⅓ innings, your ERA is a damn fine 3.18.
You just gave a struggling, wobbling, sinking Cardinals team a timely and valuable lift by going to Anaheim to prevent a fifth consecutive loss by your St. Louis teammates. Six shutout innings. Toughness under pressure. Ignoring the men on base to terminate the hitter at the plate. The best part: NO WALKS.
Without you, Hunter Dobbins, the offensively impaired Cardinals had no chance to walk out of the stadium with a 1-0 victory. This is no easy job – all this moving around, and the ups and the downs. But you’ve made a positive impression.
And many of us wish you’d be allowed to stay with St. Louis … a team that doesn’t have Smoltz, Maddux or Glavine in the rotation. Heck, you’d be a beacon in that Cardinals bullpen. One day.
BIRD BYTES
1) JJ Wetherholt’s solo homer was the St. Louis offense and the winning blow that clipped the Angels. JJ became the 12th St. Louis rookie of the expansion era (1961-present) to stroke 15 homers in a season. How many of the other 11 can you name?
2) Time’s up. The other 11 are Albert Pujols, Paul DeJong, Chris Duncan, Dylan Carlson, Matt Adams, Randal Grichuk, Aledmys Diaz, Colby Rasmus, Jordan Walker, Todd Zeile and Masyn Winn. With five more home runs, Wetherholt would be the fourth Cardinal rookie to shoot 20+ homers in a season during the expansion era. Pujols had 37 homers in 2001, DeJong clubbed 25 big ones in 2017, and our late friend Chris Duncan banged 22 homers for the 2006 World Series champions.
3) It’s thick, thick, thick in the jam-up for the NL’s No. 3 wild card validation ticket. The Arizona Diamondbacks are at Busch Stadium Thursday afternoon to see if they can ruin another day for Cardinal loyalists. The rainout that made this game possible has also set up a more meaningful date in the wild-card derby.
4) The Dbacks come into Thursday’s stop-by with a half-game lead over the Cardinals and Pirates in the thrust for WC three. Peering over the shoulders in front of them are the Marlins and the Nationals who trail STL and PITT by 1 and ½ games. Then comes the Padres at 3 games out, and the Reds at 5 and ½ back.
5) I mention the Reds because they’ll be in town for the weekend, and they’re eager to knock the Cardinals down and win the series. Maybe even sweep the three-game series if the Cardinals remain in retrograde. The Reds are desperate to close ground on the wild-card track.
6) And early next week this - - - - gets hardcore when the Cubs enter Busch Stadium, and PCA out in front, two-stepping. The Cards and Cubs will go moshing for four games … and after that we’ll all take a look at where the Cardinals fit in this crazy wild-card circle pit.
7) What I’m saying is … big homestand for the Birds. And Busch Stadium hasn’t been a sturdy bulwark for the Cardinals this season; their 26-26 home record ranks 20th in the majors. The Cardinals have been kicked around too often in recent weeks. After reaching nine games above .500 (40-31) on June 16, they had the fourth-best record in the National League. And in the NL standings, the Cards were above every team they're currently battling in the wild-card melee. But after hitting that peak, the Cardinals are 12-18. Since June 17 the Redbirds have a .400 winning percentage that's above only one NL team, the Mets. This is a chance for the Cards to reset and start winning again ... if they are capable of doing so.
8 Not using any of the current NL division leaders, here are the wild-card probabilities for each contender, courtesy of FanGraphs:
Cubs, 71.6%
Phils, 56.9%
Bucs, 44.8%
Dbacks, 34.8%
Cards, 23.9%
Marlins, 13.4%
Padres, 9.3%
Nats, 6.4%
Reds, 1.5%
9. Baseball Prospectus listed Cards catching prospect Rainiel Rodriguez at No. 7 on its updated Top 50 midseason valuations. Here’s the happy write-up from BP:
“There are very few prospects capable of hitting the ball as hard as Rodriguez. He’s not merely a one-trick masher either, as he’s got a good shot to stick at catcher, and despite an incredibly effortful hack, his contact rate is fine for his age and level and his swing decisions are downright good. The offensive bar for a catcher is obviously pretty low, but Rodriguez should bound well over it, and may just be a great hitter, period. No need to add “for a catcher.”
10. And is there a reason why Rodriguez would fail? BP: “Even if you are the best teenage catching prospect we’ve seen in a while, you are still a teenage catching prospect, and it’s a cohort that tends to see a lot of underperformance in the majors as the wear-and-tear of the position catches up to you.”
11. The Cardinals begin their eight-game home stay with an 8-11 record in July. Despite smashing the Braves for 11 runs on July 2, and going berserk for 17 runs the next day against the Cubs at Wrigley Field, here’s the accounting on the Redbirds offense in July so far:
.216 batting average, 28th
.286 on-base rate, 29th
.345 slugging pct, 27th
.630 OPS, 28th
77 wRC+, 29th
The little 77 wRC+ means the Cards are 23 percent below league average offensively through their first 19 games in July.
I’ll be back with more writin’ later today.
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.