NEW YORK — It took starter Erick Fedde, a relative newcomer to the Cardinals’ season, two sentences including one rhetorical question to illustrate accidentally how the offense’s math has added up again and again to a pedestrian offense for the Cardinals.
“What was it – like four hits I gave up?†Fedde said late Friday night in the visitors’ clubhouse at Yankee Stadium. “But when you give up four runs it doesn’t really matter.â€
Fedde gave up fewer than half as many hits as Yankees starter Marcus Stroman and he struck out nearly twice as many. Yet, Stroman plunged through seven innings and Fedde was finished in the sixth, three innings after the decisive blow of the Yankees’ 6-3 victory against the Cardinals. If the baseball as a game was just about the hits, Fedde would have coasted deeper in the game, but hits are only as good as the damage they cause.
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What has dogged the Cardinals this season cost them this game.
It’s all about the slug, silly.
Yankees catcher Austin Wells, the cleanup hitter stationed behind the game’s preeminent slugger Aaron Judge, launched two two-run homers to carry the Yankees to the win. In so many other columns, the Cardinals had the edge. They outhit the Yankees, 10-6. Fedde allowed four hits to Stroman’s nine. The Cardinals had more at-bats with runners in scoring position than the Yankees and – wait for it – more hits with runners in scoring position, too, 3 to 1. Where they lost the game is how far those this went. Four of the Yankees’ six hits in the game went for extra bases. Two of the Cardinals’ 10 did.
“Hard to overcome a couple of homers, especially with runners on,†Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “It’s hard not to get the extra knock there, especially some slug. Damage. They outslugged us.â€
The Yankees regained the lead in the third inning with Wells’ first homer. Nolan Arenado answered with a solo homer in the eighth to trim the Yankees’ lead down to a run, and then Wells delivered again. Immediately after reliever Riley O’Brien struck out Juan Soto and Judge, Wells tagged a pitch for a two-run homer that gained a three-run against the Cardinals and set the final score. The first multi-homer game of the rookie catcher’s career carried the Yankees when the Cardinals contained the Bronx Bombers even as they captured, in nine innings, what has given the Cardinals such troubles for five months.
So much of the Cardinals’ inconsistent and low-scoring offense can be traced back to their lack of slugging, their inability to produce extra-base hits and turn opportunities to score into all-out crooked number bonanzas.
The Cardinals have hit .247 as a hit and that ranks 13th and above the midpoint in the majors. The drag? They have slugged only .389, and that ranks ninth-lowest in the majors. Carve up their statistical splits like a turkey and the same flavors emerge. Pick an area where they’ve struggled. The Cardinals have the third-lowest batting average with runners in scoring position (.225). Slugging is worse. They rank last in the majors, at .330. In the second half of the season, the Cardinals have hit .252 and do rank 10th in the majors. So, top third. Slug? Well, since the All-Star break they’ve slugged .399, ninth-lowest in the majors. So, bottom third. Which is a better indicator of success given the Cardinals slip in the second half?
This past month, as they’ve tumbled out of playoff position and below .500, the Cardinals have hit .249, right there at 15th in the majors.
They’ve slugged .390, eighth-lowest in the majors.
Slugging simplifies.
Slugging magnifies.
The Cardinals, meanwhile, have a labor-intensive offense.
There’s less bang for their buck.
Consider their radio dial rally in the third inning as they moved station to station to tie the game and overtake (briefly) the Yankees. Alec Burleson began the opportunity with a single to right. Arenado followed with the 1,800th hit of his career – another single. Brendan Donovan singled to score Burleson and tie the game, 1-1. Paul Goldschmidt followed with the first of his three hits to score Arenado and break the tie. The Cardinals defied the probability by stringing together four consecutive singles against Stroman for two runs.
The Yankees got that many on one swing – twice.
Stroman (10-6) allowed nine hits, but eight of them were singles. Five of the eight Cardinals who singled did not get to second base safely. Burleson attempted to push for second only to be tagged out there when he over-slid the base as one can sometimes do when trying to goose a single offense. The Yankees also turned three double plays to slow the Cardinals’ lineup and erase singles. Stroman coaxed two of them, and he started one of them with a snazzy turn that nullified Goldschmidt’s third hit of the game. The middle of the Cardinals order went 8 for 16 in the game in the game, produced both extra base hits and all three runs, but only had two bursts of offense – one in a flurry of singles and the other by Arenado on his own.
Fedde (8-8) and the Cardinals did an excellent job of neutralizing Judge as he started the day with 51 home runs, a pace to break his own AL record, and a slugger’s chance at a Triple Crown. Fedde struck out Judge twice. O’Brien struck out Judge once. On the third inning as Fedde pitched to protect the Cardinals’ lead, he got a popup from Judge that appeared to unplug the inning with Soto watching from second. Two pitches later, Wells connected on a changeup for a two-run homer that flipped the game.
“My game plan was big on trying to make sure I got (Nos.) 8, 9 and 1 out so the big guys came up with nobody on,†Fedde said. “The one big inning, (I) walked Gleybar and they made me pay.â€
Fedde was asked if there’s a natural tendency to relax or let down as Wells came to the plate after being so sharp vs. Soto and Judge.
“Everybody is a big-league hitter,†he said. “What’s he hitting? Four-hole for the Yankees? I’m sure that’s not an easy thing to do.â€
Soto had two hits in the game, but Judge went without a hit, and he struck out three times. Cardinals pitchers also struck out Giancarlo Stanton three times in the game to keep two of the biggest sluggers in the majors to a single hit – one that, granted, pelted off the center-field wall for a double. In the eighth, O’Brien struck out Soto, Judge, and Stanton for the three outs, but there in the middle of those three household names was Wells, delivering the power.
In 20 games at cleanup this season – as teams get from Judge to him – the rookie catcher is batting .346 with nine extra-base hits.
He’s slugging .593 in those 81 at-bats.
Cardinals cleanup hitters this season are slugging .374.
“Wells took some good swings (and) I thought we did a nice job of – to use your words – containing the two guys before him,†Marmol said. “But, yeah, he beat us.â€