CHICAGO — If the Cardinals are going to make a run in their 50-game steeplechase for October and get over some of the higher hurdles ahead, they must figure out a solution to an unabating problem they encountered again Sunday night.
And fast.
There’s another arriving Monday.
Another on Tuesday.
Cubs lefty Justin Steele confounded the Cardinals through 6 2/3 innings and limited them to three hits and two runs that came one swing. Steele’s quality start allowed a game to hinge around a balk call and two homers as the Cubs rolled to a 6-2 victory Sunday and a series win during the Cardinals’ four-game weekend visit to Wrigley. The Cardinals ongoing inability to generate much slugging against lefties like Steele was a focus of a move on the deadline and is a clear and present danger to their playoff aspirations. They’ve lost 15 of their past 23 games started by a lefty opponent, and two more lefties are scheduled to face them to start this week’s home stand.
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The Cardinals (57-55) have a losing record since the All-Star break and, with help from the Cubs (55-59), are losing ground in the race for a playoff berth.
“If we’re going to turn it on, we’ve got to turn it on now,†starter Miles Mikolas said late Sunday at Wrigley. “We’ve got the Mets (on Monday). That’s a big game. I know we’ve got a good stretch against winning ball clubs — teams that if we make the playoffs, we’re going to see. Dodgers. Padres coming up. Big series. Now’s the time to really turn it on.
“If we’re going to get there, we’re going to have to beat those teams,†the right-hander added, “and if we’re going to get there, we have to beat them now.â€
A makeup game against the road-weary Mets on Monday at Busch Stadium begins a defining stretch for the Cardinals, and not because there is a neat, tidy 50 games remaining on the schedule. The Cardinals face teams ahead of them in the National League standings 14 more times, including six against the NL Central-leading Milwaukee Brewers. Of their final 50 games, 31 are against teams with better records. Twenty-eight of their next 31 games are against clubs with winning records.
That stretch includes 22 consecutive vs. winning teams.
To join them, the Cardinals have to beat them.
Now, as Mikolas said.
In two of the three games the Cardinals lost to the Cubs, they had a lead and misplaced it. Rookie Masyn Winn staked the Cardinals to a 2-0 lead with his second homer of the series in the third inning. Winn rocketed a 392-foot blast that ended up in the right-center net basket for a 2-0 lead on Steele. That lead vanished two innings later in part because of a disputed balk call on Mikolas that ushered home the tying run. With Pete Crow-Armstrong at the plate and Mike Tauchman at third, Mikolas set his right foot on the rubber and lifted his hands. He appeared to lose his balance as he moved his left foot and then disengaged his right off the backside of the rubber.
He started digging into the dirt behind the rubber.
That was when home-plate umpire Clint Vondrak called him for the balk, apparently for the motion forward as he tried to reset his balance. Tauchman received home for a 2-2 game.
“I know how it looked, and I know it can kind of go either way,†Mikolas said. “I was under the impression that I can step off whenever I’d like. If you’re in a set position and you’re on your way up you can step off. That’s a pickoff move guys use sometimes when they step off on their way up and you can throw, you can fake a throw. I was engaged and I was moving, but I moved my backfoot first. I asked the first-base umpire, ‘I’m allowed to step off whenever want?’ He said yes. And so where is the balk. I didn’t get a chance to talk to the home-plate umpire in the moment either. I was a little confused, a little frustrated.â€
A pair of two-run rallies in the next two innings cemented the lead, the game, and the series for the Cubs.
Beside that unusual balk was the Cardinals’ all too usual struggles vs. lefties.
Steele, who finished fifth in the Cy Young Award voting a year ago, walked Willson Contreras immediately after Winn’s home run. The Cubs’ lefty then retired 12 consecutive Cardinals to stymie them into the seventh. The Cardinals did not get a runner back to second base until an error and walk helped them do so in that inning. With two runners on Steele (3-5) struck out Lars Nootbaar on three pitches to finish his evening and unplug the rally.
This season the Cardinals are batting .228 against lefties and a .639 OPS. Only the Miami Marlins are worse. Those numbers are masked somewhat by the Cardinals’ 18-15 record vs. lefties, but six of those wins came in the season’s first five weeks.
“At times, right now, we’re pressing, for sure,†said John Mozeliak, president of baseball operations. “When you have to string hits to do it, it’s harder. When you’re not getting that dominating slug, it puts a lot more pressure on each at-bat.â€
The Cardinals sought Tommy Pham at the trade deadline to add a right-handed bat to their options and their lineup against lefty starters. On Sunday, when center fielder Michael Siani went on the 10-day injured list, the Cardinals promoted left handed-hitting rookie Victor Scott II ahead of two other right handed-hitting candidates, Jordan Walker and Luken Baker. That meant the Cardinals had all of their right-handed hitters on the roster in the starting lineup against Steele and still there were three consecutive left-handed hitters at the backend.
Two of the three hits Steele allowed were from right-handed hitters — Winn and Nolan Arenado — and both were extra-base hits.
For the Cardinals to address their problem with lefties, the answers must come from within. Pham alone cannot do it. Contreras, one of the right-handed bats needed to slug vs. lefties, got a base hit in his final at-bat Sunday to finish the four days at his former haunt 2 for 15 with two singles. Paul Goldschmidt, arguably the biggest of the right-handed bats for the Cardinals vs. lefties, had a three-hit game with a homer Thursday. He walked twice Friday, but he also went hitless in his final 11 at-bats of the series. He was 0 for 3 with two strikeouts against Steele. Overall this season he’s hitting .302 vs. lefties but slugging .453, down from his career slugging of .587 vs. lefties.
This season, the league average for slugging vs. lefties is .402.
The Cardinals slug .349 as a team.
There isn’t another NL Central team slugging less than .375.
“There’s no doubt it’s glaring,†Mozeliak said. “It’s very real.â€
And it’s not going to relent.
For the makeup game Monday, the Mets have lefty Sean Manaea and his 3.50 ERA scheduled to start. On Tuesday, Dylan Carlson and Tampa Bay arrive for a three-game visit to Busch Stadium that begins with lefty Jeffrey Springs set to start. The Cardinals will miss Kansas City’s lefty Cole Ragans, based on the Royals’ current rotation schedule. But then looms a series vs. Cincinnati and a chance to face two lefties.
In the postseason push, they must get right in those matchups or risk getting left behind.
“We can smell the playoffs,†Mikolas said. “And as soon as you kind of catch a whiff of that, dogs stark barking and you’ve got to go out and get it.â€
The Cardinals and New York Mets successfully converged on ºüÀêÊÓƵ for their one-game makeu…
Justin Steele held the Cardinals to three hits in his 6â…“ innings, and all of the Cardinals' runs came on a single swing in a 6-2 loss at Wrigley Field.
Michael Siani will miss at least a month with an oblique strain, opening up his position to Lars Nootbaar and rookie Scott, the opening day starter in center.
Cubs misplay the Cardinals into a game-tying rally that includes a two-run fly ball caught in the wind, not in a glove. Tommy Pham triples then for a 5-4 win.