The St. Louis Cardinals have reached their season’s lowest point as they sit 10 games behind the first-place Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Central.
Friday night’s heartbreaking 7-6 defeat to the Los Angeles Dodgers was painful because it was a game the Cardinals could have easily won if things had gone a bit differently.
The most crucial mistake of the game was made when Cardinals manager Oli Marmol neglected to turn to his bullpen in the sixth inning and starting pitcher Miles Mikolas was left on the mound to throw.
“‘He was throwing the ball well,’ Marmol said,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Lynn Worthy wrote Saturday morning. “‘If you’re just reading the game, you know what’s coming out of his hand — you’re liking the way it’s moving and what he’s able to do with the ball. He’s kind of freezing guys on the corners and not giving in a whole lot. So you trust him to get one more out there, not knowing what it’s going to look like if you go to the pen.'”
Despite having the No. 9 ranked bullpen in the league with a 3.71 ERA, Marmol felt it best to squeeze as many innings out of Mikolas as possible.
“I thought we might see a manager fired today,” my friend wrote on Thursday morning. “The club just bottomed out in Cincy. Talent shortage is one thing, but the collective mood of that club is worse than dreary.”
If this continues there will be dismissals, demotion, and commotion. That’s based on my assumption that chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. still cares about winning and doing what’s necessary to reinvigorate a flat-lining team and restore the pride and and higher standards.
We can spend the next 41 games thinking about what should be done, and when it should be done, and who will be doing it and whether it will be enough to energize disillusioned fans. Every baseball person in the organization should be scrutinized and held accountable. I’m going to table the discussion for now, at least in this space. We will have plenty of time to trade ideas, debate, argue, jump onto X for spontaneous and overly hostile tweet wars …
Final thought on this: I would describe the outlook as something we often see on those big signs posted when a business is closing its doors for good.
EVERYTHING MUST GO!
In losing four in a row, the Cardinals were a sorry-looking bunch. In four savage slapdowns from the Royals and Reds, the Redbirds were out-scored 27-7, and out-homered 11-2. St. Louis pitchers were blistered for a 7.03 ERA.
When the Cardinals and their opponents came to the plate with runners in scoring position over the past four games, the respective numbers were both incredible and comical …
Cardinals with RISP: 5 for 28, .179, no extra-base hits, five singles. And 12 of the 28 at-bats (43%) were terminated by strikeouts. The Cardinals hit .218 overall, struck out 37 times, and stranded 28 mates on base. Do the Cardinals have a batting coach? Do they have a pulse?
Royals-Reds RISP: 13 for 36 (.361) with five home runs included in the pounding of 16 extra-base hits. Overall the two dominant opponents buffeted STL pitchers for a .592 slugging percentage, .942 OPS and 16 extra-base hits.
From a competitive standpoint – and from a St. Louis perspective – these four games were about as uncompetitive as could be. I thought no-compete clauses applied to business contracts – not the effort on a baseball field.
After the final flogging in Cincinnati, which sunk the Cardinals to 60-61, the players said all of the predictable stuff about still being in the postseason race, still believing, still working hard, refusing to give up … hell, go ahead and write your own boring cliches.
These statements were not supported by visual evidence as captured by the Bally Sports Midwest television cameras.
I would say that the Cardinals looked like a team that was packing it in for the season, but I suppose they have an opportunity to alter such opinions by reawakening and rising up to smote the beastly Dodgers, Brewers, Twins, Padres, Yankees and Brewers (again) over the next 19 games. And then they’ll take on a few other barbarians after that.
The Cardinals have the third-toughest remaining schedule among major-league teams. The Rays and the Royals supposedly have tougher schedules. I guess those teams will be playing series against the 1976 Reds, the 1927 Yankees, the 1942 Cardinals, the 1931 Philadelphia Athletics, the 1970 Orioles, and maybe the 1998 Yankees, the 1939 Yankees and the Homestead Grays.
ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT: The Cardinals are 12-19 in their last 31 games for a .387 winning percentage that ranks 28th overall and 14th in the National League … the Redbirds are 10-15 (.400) since the All-Star break, 6-9 (.400) since the trade deadline, and 4-9 (.308) in August … The Cardinals have been outscored 70-42 this month for a grotesque minus 28 run differential.
