Go ahead and press pause on that Cardinals momentum talk.
A losing road trip through Philadelphia and Houston didn’t do it entirely. But a split — and that would be the best case scenario now — of this four-game home series against the rotten Rockies should. After reaching .500 in Cincinnati, the Cardinals don’t have consecutive wins since.
Reminder: The Rockies had just eight road wins when they showed up to Busch Stadium for this series. They now have two more, with a chance to make it three in a series-deciding game Sunday against … a Cardinals starting pitcher who had not yet been named by Saturday’s first pitch.
The announced crowd Saturday is something to note, too. School’s out for the summer, and 34,577 was the official paid attendance. Not good for around here. At home, Cardinals fans have now watched (or not watched) their team fail to win series against both the White Sox and the Rockies. Combined, those two teams are 39-89.
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And yet, thanks to a meandering National League, the Cardinals can be two things at once. They are cold again. And they are still quite alive in the NL’s wild-card jostling.
Calling it a race would suggest there was consistent, competitive progress in an obvious direction for the included teams. This looks more like a three-legged sack race done at recent elementary school field days across the region — after teams took 20 turns around their bats with foreheads pressed to the knobs. Eight clubs, including the Cardinals, are either holding a wild-card spot or within one game of it. Who wants it? Somewhere Ben Stein asks, “Bueller? Bueller?â€
Three big, obvious issues keep tripping up the Cardinals in their attempts to distance themselves from their league’s amorphous blob. Two seem plenty fixable if a front office believes in this team’s chances. A third is only fixable by two struggling cornerstone players who are making more than $60 million this season.
Let’s dig in.
Unreliable outfield
Dylan Carlson has become a microcosm of the Cardinals’ continued outfield unreliability.
People genuinely trying to find out what this team thinks about the switch-hitting outfielder have probably hit the injured list more often than Tyler O’Neill. The injury? Whiplash.
This offseason Carlson was described publicly and emphatically as a fourth outfielder the Cardinals would prefer to not play in center.
Now the message is Carlson, once again, needs regular reps as a regular starter. And he’s starting in center field.
Until the next approach, that is.
The team’s overoptimistic stance on Tommy Edman’s return from an operation blew up in its face. Lars Nootbaar’s injuries keep keeping him off the field. Jordan Walker is still locked in Class AAA despite playing more games there now than he did last season before returning and finishing strong.
Even with Alec Burleson’s encouraging performance, the Cardinals from their chaotic outfield are getting the lowest on-base plus slugging percentage (.629) in the majors.
It’s worse than it was last season, when the outfielders ranked 18th (.736).
And no, more chances for Red Sox slugger O’Neill would not have solved the problem. He’s hurt again in Boston.
Cardinals outfielders have 18 homers this season between them. That’s three fewer than Aaron Judge’s solo count.
Playing Michael Siani in center doesn’t help the offense, but he does get to balls Carlson can’t reach, as Saturday’s game showed again.
Still one starter short
Did I mention the Cardinals hadn’t announced Sunday’s starter before Saturday’s first pitch? Well, they didn’t announce it after Saturday’s last pitch either. It’s because there is no good answer. This approach is the closest thing manager Oli Marmol can do besides wearing a #SendHelp sign on his chest in the dugout. Rehabbing Steven Matz, Zack Thompson, Matthew Liberatore and Andre Pallante have combined to make 13 starts for the Cardinals this season. The Cardinals are 4-9 in those games. The coin-flip approach to the fifth starter spot is wearing on this team. Especially as Sonny Gray, who is supposed to be the rotation leader, searches for traction.
Glossing over a glaring hole gets a lot harder when anyone in the core four struggles.
You know when you have a bad game and you look forward to the next game’s starter as the stopper? The Cardinals have the exact opposite of that Sunday. The dreaded TBA.
Key sluggers stalled
The Cardinals talked so much about needing more vocal leadership added to their clubhouse this offseason, it raised some fair questions about how they viewed Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt’s abilities in that department.
What was not questioned was the third and first baseman’s ability to produce at the plate something relatively near their career norms.
Both Goldschmidt (.653 OPS) and Arenado (.676) are tracking toward career-low on-base plus slugging percentages. Arenado ranks 149th in the majors in OPS. Goldschmidt’s at 159th.
Look, Willson Contreras can hopefully return once healthy and start clamping down on the base stealers Ivan Herrera can’t stop. Defense needs to be cleaned up by all. There are other issues, sure, but none are bigger than Goldschmidt and Arenado suddenly becoming below league average hitters. The NL average OPS? It’s currently .699.
You don’t fix that with a move, folks. And if these two don’t fix themselves, it’s fair to wonder if adding help from the outside will make enough of a difference. Yes, even in a wide-open wild-card slog.