Here’s a quote from Cardinals manager Oli Marmol after his team was clobbered by Arizona in Thursday’s 10-6 loss at Busch Stadium:
“We’re not slugging a ton so then you do have to bunch (hits) together in order to score. We’ve done that at times, we haven’t done that at times. That’s just the nature of our lineup.”
(Otherwise known as an understatement.)
The Cardinals are suffering through another power shortage, and it’s been going on for a while. Since the beginning of May – and that’s 71 games ago – the Redbirds rank last (30th) in home runs and are 29th in slugging percentage.
The power drain is more extreme at Busch Stadium over that time. Which is nothing new in the Busch habitat.
But since May 1, when the Cards offense began showing signs of strain, here’s a snapshot look at their Busch bashing compared to their big-hit road shows.
Isolated Power: .150 on road and .118 at Busch Stadium.
Slugging percentage: .450 on road, and .350 at Busch.
AB/HR: one home run every 28.8 at-bats for the Cardinals on the road, and a homer every 42 at-bats at Busch.
I saved the most telling stat for last, and it’s based on the entire season to date.
Cardinals runs per game on the road: 5.43, ranking 3rd in the majors.
Cardinals runs per game at home: 3.67, which ranks 30th in the majors.
That’s right my friends; no major-league lineup is as frail offensively in their home yard as the Cards are at Busch Stadium.
And other than turn back the clock and replay the steroids era – just kidding! – I don’t know what the Cardinals can do.
I’ve written this before, but it’s a good time to hit on it again: this team’s disparity in road power and home power is massive. And it’s alarming.
Of course, the power-killing atmosphere at Busch Stadium is good for the St. Louis pitchers.
Their staff has a 4.19 ERA at Busch compared to 4.54 on the road. Cards pitchers are yielding a .397 slugging percentage at Busch – and that rate jumps to .439 when they’re working on the road.
At Busch Stadium, the home-team pitchers surrender a home run every 38.7 at bats. But on the road, where the flying baseballs soar, St. Louis pitchers have gotten pummeled for a homer every 27 at-bats. And the frequency of doubles and triples against them is considerably higher on the road once the safety and comfort of Busch Stadium is stripped away.
As a staff, the Cardinals went into the weekend with the second-lowest total of home runs allowed (101) this season. The fellas can thank their Busch Stadium air defense system for that. Only 35.7 percent of the home runs struck against Cardinals pitchers this season have come at Busch.
This – of course – works the other way around but isn’t as extreme. The St. Louis hitters have launched 54.5 percent of their homers on the road in 2026.
I assumed that gap would be larger, but it isn’t. This points to a more significant problem: the Cardinal hitters just don’t pack enough power overall. Not at home. Not on the road. And in an offensive era that’s absolutely fueled by home-run power, this puts the Redbirds at an automatic disadvantage.
This offense isn’t resourceful enough to use many elements to score a lot of runs that are independent of the home-run necessity.
Recent stretches of home games have made that abundantly clear. In their last 18 games at Busch, the Cardinals have scored four runs or less 16 times. That’s just flat-out awful. And these outages have occurred with increased regularity.
This is one of the most revealing stats I’ve come up with this year. The Cardinals are 15-22 since June 11 for a .405 winning percentage that ranks next to last in the NL and 28th overall.
The stat?
In 25 of their 37 games played since June 11, the Cardinals scored four runs or fewer in a competition – the most such games among the 30 teams over that time.
That’s no more than four runs plated in 68 percent of their games over the past six weeks. And the Cardinals prevailed in only 8 of the 25 contests. So bad.
Switching back to Busch Stadium, this is hardly a new trend.
When looking at the multiyear data from 2020 through 2025, Busch Stadium was in the bottom tier of fewest home runs hit in an MLB ballpark. Only Kauffman Stadium (KC), Oracle Park (San Francisco) and PNC Park (Pittsburgh) had fewer big flies leave the yard than Busch.
Then, if we look at the Statcast HR Park Factors from 2023 through now, a factor of 100 is exactly average for a ballpark. Anything below 100 means the stadium is suppressing home runs.
Here’s Busch Stadium through the years:
2023: 97
2024: 98
2025: 94
2026 (so far): 97
Those factors may not seem like much of a deal … but it’s a pretty big deal. But at least the St. Louis pitchers have reasons to appreciate it; since the start of 2023 the Cards have yielded the second-lowest number of home runs at home.
At least there are tradeoffs. STL hitters better away from Busch; STL pitchers better inside Buch. But it doesn’t change the arching concern going forward. The Cardinals’ offense needs to add a deep-ball game to Busch Stadium, and I’m not talking about football.
Of the eight Cardinals that have walloped the most home runs at Busch Stadium over the last three-plus seasons, five are gone. That includes Paul Goldschmidt, Nolan Arenado, Willson Contreras and Brendan Donovan. Nolan Gorman – who has 42 biggies at Busch – is working on a comeback at Triple A Memphis.
Still in place are Walker, Alec Burleson and Ivan Herrera. But Herrera is struggling horribly at Busch Stadium this year, batting .203 with a weak .337 slug.
Rookie JJ Wetherholt is a new arrival in 2026, and he’s a terrific all-around player. But as I wrote on Thursday, Wetherholt is still trying to get a read on developing the best hitting approach in a difficult home environment. His road numbers are substantially better in contrast to his rookie initiation at Busch.
Who can fill the power void? The pressure is on. We have to hope that Chaim Bloom and his group are right about power-hitting prospects Joshua Baez, Jesus Baez, Rainiel Rodriguez, Won-Bin Cho, Jack Gurevitch, Chase Davis, Tai Peete, Sammy Hernandez, Yordalin Pena, Sebastian Dos Santos or Tre Richardson.
Surely there is someone in there who can conquer Busch Stadium. My friend, the Old-Timey Sportswriter, sent me a telegram through Western Union about a dream he had. The oldtimer apparently witnessed a mighty young slugger who will change the course of Cardinals history!
BERNARD STOP
HAVE JUST WITNESSED A YOUNG SLUGGER WHO HITS SPHERES WITH APOCALYPTIC INTENT STOP
BALL EXIT VELOCITY MEASURED IN PURE TERROR STOP
LOCAL CONSTABLE ASKED IF WE SHOULD EVACUATE THE OUTFIELD BLEACHERS STOP
I SAID NO SIR LET THE PEOPLE SEE HISTORY STOP
KID SWUNG AND CARNIVAL WORKERS SWEAR THEY SAW IT PASS THE FERRIS WHEEL TWICE STOP
ONE MAN CLAIMS IT WHISPERED GOODBYE TO HIM AS IT ASCENDED STOP
BAT APPEARS TO BE RUTHIAN RELIC STOP
WOOD GLOWS LIKE IT REMEMBERS 1927 STOP
EVERY TIME HE CONNECTS THE AIR SMELLS FAINTLY OF HOT DOGS AND DESTINY STOP
BERNARD GET TO THE YARD POSTHASTE STOP
SKIES NO LONGER SAFE STOP
STOP THE PRESSES BERNARD STOP
FOUND A LAD WITH RUTH’S THUNDER IN HIS BAT STOP
BALLS LEAVING THE PREMISES LIKE FRIGHTENED BIRDS STOP
Damn. I think old feller has been in the sauce.
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.