A lot can happen in baseball in three weeks.
The St. Louis Cardinals were on top of the National League on May 1, taking some swagger into Wrigley Field for their first matchup with the division rival, Chicago Cubs. It was a fine time to make a statement and place their foot on the throat of the division, but things didn't go on as planned. It went about as smooth as Daenerys Targaryen's siege of King's Landing.
The Cubs swept the Cardinals.
Since flying into Chicago on May 3, The Cardinals have lost 12 of 16 games, including five straight series losses. A team that was finding multiple ways to win a month ago is now finding various ways to lose a baseball game. The Cardinals own the worst May record in baseball and head home for a meeting with the Kansas City Royals Tuesday night, looking for a spark against their struggling Missouri neighbors.
For Cardinals fans, this is more of the same from the past few seasons. The Cards have a good three weeks, and then plummet back to reality. They are either hanging around .500 or just staying above it. After signing Paul Goldschmidt and Andrew Miller in the offseason and revamping their coaching staff last season, hopes were high for 2019.
So far, the Cardinals are a feeble if undead 24-23 on the season.
What's wrong? A laundry list of things, but let's point out a few noticeable flaws before we start singling out players.
-The bats are chilly. In 9 of the 18 May games, The Cardinals have failed to score more than two runs. That's disabling a game before it even starts. Cutting the power before the circus begins. The pop is missing in the lineup, and certain bats have gone cold. Marcell Ozuna is slugging .344 in his last 15 games with just three home runs. Matt Carpenter is working extra hard to stay above the Mendoza line. Kolten Wong is 10 for his last 49. The home runs are departing and the strikeouts are returning. The baseball resembles a golf ball to most of this lineup. The Birds struck out 11 times on Sunday.
-The starting pitching hasn't been useless, but they aren't going deep into games, so they seem softer than usual. In six of the past 10 starts, the rotation has produced quality starts, but you will only find two outings of seven innings or more. The owners of those two seven-inning outings, Miles Mikolas and Adam Wainwright, got clobbered in their recent turns. Michael Wacha may never go six innings ever again, but it would be nice if he'd stop walking so many hitters. A lack of innings from the starters puts a strain on the bullpen, making Mike Shildt and Mike Maddux antsy in the dugout. Speaking of which.
- The bullpen was torched on Sunday, giving up three runs in 3.2 innings, including a game-winning sacrifice fly off Carlos Martinez, who shouldn't even be in the bullpen. Miller has failed to sustain reliability, and Jordan Hicks isn't getting enough work. The unit gave up five earned runs on Thursday but recovered the following two days in Texas. While inconsistent, they are being pushed and pulled by a lacking offense and early-exiting starters.
- The defense isn't the issue. The Cardinals rank 11th in errors, bettering more than half the league. Remember, this team led the Majors in errors last season with 133. This year's 24 would have happened inside a month one year ago. The National League won't be lining up to hand the Cardinals Gold Gloves in November, but this year, the gloves aren't malfunctioning.
Let's get more detailed, shall we?
Wake up, Goldy
The Cardinals brought this guy in to be the big weapon, and he really hasn't taken off yet. There have been periods of dominance, but overall, Goldschmidt needs to be better. You can look over his last 7, 15, and 30 games to find a slugging percentage below .400. Goldschmidt's OBP is solid, but he wasn't brought here to merely reach base. He's supposed to clean them. The Cardinals need more.
Too Many Walks by the Pitchers
When it comes to pitching stats, the team has a moderate amount of room to improve. They rank 11th in quality starts (19) and 13th in strikeouts, but they have allowed the 11th highest amount of walks in the Majors. Wacha and Flaherty give a lot of free passes, and if you checked the ruins of May, you'd find too many free passes. The team has the 19th best earned run average in baseball, which isn't something to write home about.
How many 4th and 5th starters does the team have?
Do the Cardinals have enough studs in the rotation? Flaherty and Mikolas are solid, Wainwright has impressed, Hudson has recovered, but what about true shutdown arms? Wainwright gets torched every third start, and Hudson can only go six innings tops. Same for the chosen one, Flaherty, who still needs polish. When the Cards opted away from signing another starter and re-assigned Martinez to the bullpen, it was a declaration of "it's alright" from the organization. Everything isn't alright.
Failure to Slug
While the Cardinals rank in the top five in batting average and on base percentage, they are only 15th in slugging. In the month of May, they rank 25th in slugging percentage and 23rd in home runs. While the OBP is solid in May, the batting average has dipped. All around, they are taking a lot of bad at-bats. They swing for the fences or come up looking at juicy pitching. With POP artists like Goldschmidt and Ozuna in the lineup, this group should do better. So far, they aren't much better than average. If not for Dexter Fowler and Paul DeJong, the lineup would be dormant.
No Closing
You know things aren't going well when your team can't score runs, but your closer doesn't even get work. Jordan Hicks doesn't have a save opportunity in May, and he was pushed to 39 pitches in Sunday's loss. The outing didn't even qualify as a save, and left Hicks burnt possibly for Tuesday's game against Kansas City.
Here's the thing. The Cardinals are white hot garbage right now. Put the Kool Aid down and admit it. They are 5-13 in May, and seemingly finding themselves down 4-5 runs before the game can stretch its legs out. Sunday, Mike Shildt was ejected early, and Oliver Marmol let Hicks' arm roast out at nearly 40 pitches. Things are getting out of hand early in games, and the team can't score enough runs or depend on a bullpen to bail them out.
It starts with better at-bats, more innings from the starters, and getting the bullpen out of crisis mode. In April, the Cardinals were barely blown out of a game, losing 12-1 against Cincinnati. In May, they have been beaten by five runs or more in five different games. Teams are getting the jump on them, and the Cardinals just can't recover.
They need Matt Carpenter AND Goldschmidt to get in tune, and set the tone for the lineup. A healthy hitting Fowler and robust DeJong simply isn't enough. Ozuna needs to do what cleanup batters do, because his defense isn't saving any burning buildings.
Mike Shildt needs to adjust if things continue to not work. That could be the lineup or how he manages the bullpen late in games. He's 65-51 in his early tenure as manager, but a losing season won't make anyone forget Mike Matheny.
Start hitting, watch the pitching follow, and the defense will do its job. And don't roast your closer's arm in one game.
The Cardinals were flying high a month ago, but have fallen on hard times. It's not just the little things to fix. The Cards need their stars to shine and their young guns to be consistent. And they need Wacha to pitch six innings.
This team looks about as threatening as a civilian leaping into Arnold Schwarzenegger's back at a charity event. Utterly futile.
It's early, but I can't see the team just climbing out of this right away. And if you spend too much time looking up the Cubs, they will be long gone by August. The Milwaukee Brewers and Pittsburgh Pirates aren't moving easily either. The Cardinals have eight games to tune up before they play Chicago six times in ten days at the start of June. Will they be ready then? Will they be better than .500 then? Only time will tell.
Cardinals fans were promised a better team this year, and so far on the whole, that team hasn't been delivered. They are sloppy and near average. At the end of May last year, the Cardinals were 30-24. Will this year's team get there by June 1? I wouldn't bet money on it, but pounding on the lowly Royals sure would be a fine start.
I tell Blues fans this all the time: Buy more bourbon and IPA beer in order to stomach this 2019 baseball season. The ride will still be quite bumpy.
