It's probably not the best of ideas to schedule an off-day for the Cardinals, particularly when they're coming off of a very rare series win against the Cleveland Indians who came to town as one of the hottest teams in baseball. Apparently, the team didn't set their collective alarm clocks, went into deep REM and took 3 days off instead. By the time they awoke from their slumber, the nightmare that is the Atlanta Braves had positioned themselves to sweep the Dead 'Birds. The only thing that stands in their way is today's 1:15 finale and that may be just a formality. The Cardinals slept walked through 5-1 and a highly embarrassing 11-4 loss on national television that at one time saw them trailing 10-0. That's a touchdown, extra point and a field goal if you're keeping score in football terms.
Just when you think this team is about to turn the corner, they don't. Just when you think they're about to go on a roll, they won't. Just when it looks like they're on the verge of getting in sync, they fall apart and revert to the same old Cardinal ways that have plagued them over the last 3 seasons. The Braves scalped the Cardinals who eventually woke up in the bottom of the ninth inning when they plated their four runs but come on, the visitors from the Peach Tree State had already jumped to an insurmountable 11-0 lead. St. Louis showed up at the ballpark listless, uninspired, comatose, catatonic and void of any swag that may have lit a competitive fire in their clubhouse, not to mention the fact that they were playing another first-place team that should have had their competitive juices flowing first pitch Friday night!
But they were as much a no-show as were the fans in the announced sellout crowd of 46,667 who chose not to brave (no pun intended) the sweltering heat to watch another Dead 'Bird debacle at the hands of some unknown pitcher (the type known to give the Cardinals fits) named Max Fried (pronounced freed) who fried the home team lineup by striking out 11, walking 3 while scattering 4 hits in 6 & 2/3 innings. Not bad for the lefty who was called up to make what amounted to an emergency start. We've seen this movie over and over again. Same old re-run of what's wrong with this team when things go sour, which is far too often - no hits, no timely runs, no rallies, no error-free baseball, far too many strikeouts, a homerun, no consistently good starting pitching or stretches of dominant bullpen work but a ton of empty seats that grows with each home loss!
Following tonight's feeble effort, the Cardinals are 23-21 at home, 19-18 on the road and have fallen 5 & 1/2 games behind the division leading Brewers. Those numbers earmark this version of the 'Birds on the Bat as mediocre, nothing more, nothing less - just mediocre and that, my fellow fans, won't get you to Red October which will make for an innumerable, insufferable number of red eyed patrons that make up Cardinal Nation. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. The Cardinals are not good - definitely not good enough to make the postseason. The truth hurts even the most die hard supporters who bleed Cardinal Red but the problem is it hasn't hurt bad enough for the owner and management to make any changes, be they player or coaches, to send shock waves strong enough to get everyone's attention. Meanwhile, opponents will continue to make the trek to Busch Stadium, totally unintimidated, fully expecting to have a "happy flight" following a series win, let alone sweep, an achievement that used to happen on the rarest of rare occasions. Not anymore because this recent band of Redbirds have lost their Way, they've lost the brand, the swag, the intimidation factor, the Way the game was played, the Way things used to be when NL rivals or AL teams were left licking their wounds on the way to Lambert. Not anymore.
It's probably not the best of ideas to schedule an off-day for the Cardinals who generally have played poorly when given 24 hours to do nothing. It shows when play resumes in stretches of Bad News Bears performances that give scribes no alternative but to predict gloom and doom for this once-proud franchise. Add a litany of ugly outcomes in nationally televised contests to the dirty laundry that is post off-day play and it's far from surprising that this team is trending towards another third-place finish or lower. The result is inevitable. What's worse is that while the Cardinals are losing, the owner and management are still snoozing as the season slips hopelessly away. Too many off-days on their part, too. I guess the DeWitts, Mo' and Girsch forgot to set their alarms or ask for a wake up call!
