If you’re looking for phony optimism as a source of hope for the 2021 Cardinals, I’m sorry to disappoint you.
No can do.
Oh, I can point out a few positives. During a 162-game season you can find just about anything on the statistical menu. Good, bad, or somewhere in between. Even the worst teams in baseball had some good parts.
Yes, the starting pitching has been fine over the last week or so, limiting the lineups of Arizona and Colorado to nine earned runs in 38 and ⅓ innings. But that’s just a brief stretch of games against two unimposing lineups.
Yeah, the Cardinals are still waiting for their batted-ball fortunes to change. Their batting average on balls in play is .268, which ranks 28th in the majors and is 22 percent below the MLB average. Their hard luck should change, at least to some extent. But how much?
Cardinals hitters have done a good job of limiting strikeouts; their K rate of 22.1 percent is tied for third overall in MLB. And manager Mike Shildt is correct when he claims that his team’s two-strike hitting has gotten better over the last 10 games or so. Nice. But we’re really reaching here. When you’re touting improved two-strike hitting against three bad teams (Pittsburgh, Arizona, Colorado) as an indicator of happy times ahead, the evidence is awfully short on inspiration.
Sure, we can talk about several upbeat individual performances: starting pitcher Adam Wainwright, All-Star closer Alex Reyes, All-Star third baseman Nolan Arenado, the upswing of first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, and the generally good vibe of rookie Dylan Carlson.
Sure, there are conditional “ups” we can look to find brightness under the clouds. When he can stay in the lineup for more than about 90 minutes, Tyler O’Neill’s dangerous bat can wallop with heavy impact. When he’s been able to stay off the IL, Harrison Bader has homered every 14.8 at-bats. And certainly the early form of recycled lefty starter Wade LeBlanc is encouraging.
But let’s be serious here. In the final week of play before the All-Star break, the Cardinals are in a tough, terrible position.
Here’s why:
1) At 41-44 the Cardinals reside in fourth place in the NL Central, 10 games behind first-place Milwaukee. The deficit is 8.5 games in the NL wild-card standings, trailing four teams that are vying for the No. 2 spot that’s currently held by San Diego.
2) After completing a two-game sweep of the Pirates on May 13, the Cardinals were 23-15 and led the second-place Brewers by 3.0 games. Since then the Brewers are 31-16 and STL is 18-29. That’s a rapid and hellish descent to go from 3 up to 10 down in 52 calendar days. In the NL only Arizona and Pittsburgh have been worse than the Cardinals since May 14.
3) As of Monday morning FanGraphs gave St. Louis a 1.7 percent chance to reach the postseason. Only four NL teams — Miami, Pittsburgh, AZ and COL — have less of a chance than the Cardinals.
4) The Cardinals are 23-32 in their last 55 games. They aren’t stuck in some temporary funk of losing baseball that soon will pass; their identity has been molded. Over the 55-game slog the Cardinals are averaging only 3.5 runs per match; only Pittsburgh has scored fewer runs over the last two months of ball.
5) The Cardinals once dominated teams with losing records. But now, as a losing team themselves, the Cardinals have turned significantly weaker in their matchups against other losing clubs. The Cards went 9-11 in a 20-game stretch against losing teams — Miami, Atlanta, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Arizona and Colorado — that ended Sunday at Coors Field.
6) The Cardinals have been getting stomped on the road. They are 18-26 overall, but that isn’t the worst of it. They are 7-19 in their last 26 road games. Averaging only 2.8 runs per game, they’ve lost 14 of the last 17 games played away from St. Louis and have dropped eight of their last nine road series. Other than taking three of four games at Arizona in late May, the Cardinals are 4-18 on the road since May 14.
7) For the season the Cardinals rank 13th in the 15-team NL with an average of 3.93 runs per game. But the more recent trends are horrendous. Since May 30 (record: 11-22) the Cardinals are last in the majors in runs per game (3.2) and rank 28th or worse in batting average, onbase percentage, slugging and OPS.
8) Along the same lines: in the 33 contests since May 30 the Cardinals have scored 2 or fewer runs in 54.5 percent of the games; 3 runs or less in 67% of the games, and 4 runs or fewer in 79% of the games.
9) The Cardinals’ rotation has an average Game Score of 51; that’s below this season’s average NL Game Score of 53. Compare that to the rotations on teams that would be in the playoffs right now: Dodgers 59, Brewers 57, Mets 57, Giants 56, Padres 54.
(By the way: I prefer to use Game Score instead of Quality Start. In my opinion, the Quality Start has become outmoded for a simple reason: teams are having their starting pitchers throw fewer innings, and you need at least six innings in a start to have a chance to qualify for a QS. Game Score grades a starting pitcher on how well he pitched while in the game. And that’s significantly more on point during a season in which managers are more aggressive about removing starters earlier in games — even those that are pitching well.)
10) The schedule becomes more difficult. So far this season the Cardinals are 13-24 against opponents that are .500 or better. From now through July 28 all of the Cardinals’ 18 games will be played against teams that are .500 or above: Giants (6), Cubs (7), Reds (3) and Indians (3.) And 11 of the 18 will be on the road, where the Cardinals are an abysmal 5-13 against teams .500 or higher.
If possible, how do the Cardinals get back into the postseason hunt?
— Stating the obvious: the Cardinals must play a helluva lot better than we’ve seen since mid-May. They’ll have to put up more runs and do so consistently. They’ll need enhanced results from the starting pitchers for the remainder of the regular season. Shildt will have to avoid burning out the team’s three-best relievers (Reyes, Giovanny Gallegos, Genesis Cabrera.)
— What about the July 30 trade deadline? If the Cardinals continue to sputter and stall, there’s absolutely no reason for the front office to barter coveted prospects for attempted fixes that would only lead to incremental improvement. Yeah, anything is possible and all of that, but the Cardinals appear to be beyond the stage of saving the campaign through incremental improvements. That’s the reality. All we can do is wait to see if president of baseball ops John Mozeliak decides to take a big swing, make a small-ball play or watch pitches go by at the trade deadline.
— They’ll need a healthy return of starting pitcher Jack Flaherty; preferably sooner than later. The same applies to Miles Mikolas, but after frequent setbacks I can’t assume that he’ll (A) return; (B) stay in the rotation without breaking down; and (C) pitch effectively. I sincerely hope that Mikolas can do all of that. I’ll just have to see it.
— The Cardinals can’t climb the stairway to October unless others fall. Examples: Milwaukee’s starting pitching. Cincinnati’s offense. The offense and pitching being generated in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. There’s no question about this; other contenders have to stumble. And other potential contenders — Atlanta in particular — must remain lukewarm and not reach a lava-level degree of hotness.
— To circle back to the most important necessity — improved performance — here’s the scope of the Cardinals’ mission. Here’s the Fangraphs version of Wins Above Replacement (WAR) at each position. It’s just a snapshot that shows us where the Cardinals rank among the 15 NL teams at each spot:
- Starting pitching: 12th
- Bullpen: 7th
- Overall pitching 12th
- Catcher: 11th
- First Base: t-6th
- Second Base: 12th
- Shortstop: 12th
- Third Base: 5th
- Outfield: 12th
- All Position Players: 12th
The need for better overall play by the Cardinals is quite dramatic.
And mandatory.
That’s the starting point. And if the Cardinals can’t begin to play at an elite level, there’s no hope. The 2011 Cardinals came from way back — 10.5 games out of the wild card on Aug. 24 — to catch Atlanta. But there are differences between 2011 and 2021, and I’ll explore the comparison in an upcoming column.
I hope you had a terrific 4th of July weekend.
Thanks for reading. As always.
–Bernie
Check out Bernie’s sports-talk show on 590-AM The Fan, KFNS. It airs Monday through Thursday from 3-6 p.m. and Friday from 4-6 p.m. You can listen live online and download the Bernie Show podcast at 590thefan.com … the 590 app works great and is available in your preferred app store.
The weekly “Seeing Red” podcast with Bernie and Will Leitch is also available at 590thefan.com.
Follow Bernie on Twitter @miklasz
For the last 35 years Bernie Miklasz has entertained, enlightened, and connected with multiple generations of St. Louis sports fans through his writing, broadcasting and interaction via social media.
While best known for his voice as the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch for 26 years (1989-2015) Bernie has also written for The Athletic, Dallas Morning News and Baltimore News American. During an extensive career in sports radio, Bernie has hosted shows in St. Louis, Dallas, Baltimore and Washington D.C.
Bernie, his wife Kirsten and their five cats reside in the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood of St. Louis.
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