The Cardinals were hoping to build some momentum after last night’s 8-5 comeback victory. However, it was not to be. Sunday’s game was just a letdown in all facets. The offense was dead, errors were made, and the pitching fell apart.
Jake Cronenworth got the scoring going for the Padres, hitting a two-run homer in the bottom of the fourth to make it a 2-0 game. The game went off the rails in the seventh. With the bases loaded, Jackson Merrill drove in three with a triple off Gordon Graceffo and later
scored on a sac fly by Xander Bogaerts. Ramon Laureano homered in the bottom of the eighth to make it 7-0.
The Cardinals made it a little interesting in the ninth. Nolan Gorman, who was originally supposed to get the day off before Brendan Donovan was scratched, drove in Ivan Herrera with a base hit. Jordan Walker followed with an RBI single of his own and Lars Nootbaar hit a sac fly to make it 7-3. But it wasn’t over there.
The Cardinals actually brought the tying run to the plate with two outs. However, Masyn Winn lined one back to Robert Suarez to end the game. Let’s break this one down.
Pallante holds his ground
He wasn’t great, but Andre Pallante held his ground today. His pitch count got close to 70 pitches before the end of the third inning. To be fair, a couple of errors forced him to throw some extra pitches, so it wasn’t really his fault.
The fact that he worked around those and got out of the inning without giving up a run was impressive, and it shows that he’s really worked on some things lately. He had a string of bad starts then pitched a gem against the Marlins, and he was solid today. Not great, but he gave the Cardinals a chance to win. If not for the seventh-inning meltdown by the bullpen, the Cardinals might’ve been able to steal this one away.
But it was good to see him stand strong despite a lot of adversity being thrown his way.
Defensive miscues aplenty
Something that really stood out about this series was just how poorly the Cardinals played on defense. We saw Willson Contreras make two errors on one play on Friday night, which led to the Padres putting up four runs against Matthew Liberatore.
But today, it wasn’t any better. Alec Burleson lost a ball in the sun at first base, and Thomas Saggese had a throwing error. I know that when people say “offense wins games, defense wins championships” it doesn’t always apply to baseball, but the Cardinals have long been a strong defensive team, always playing good fundamental baseball.
But that wasn’t the case today. The defense didn’t show up for the Cardinals, and it’s going to need to clean up for the Dodgers series, which begins tomorrow.
Offense remains flat
Another thing that stood out was the Cardinals lack of offense. I have a lot more faith in them being able to clean up their defensive issues than I do the offense. Since the start of July, it’s just been flat. I don’t think it’s Brant Brown’s fault, but it’s been really tough to watch the Cardinals just not have good at-bats and fail to capitalize on their opportunities.
There’s a lot of work to be done going into 2026 about the offense. Some of it can honestly be pinned on the fact that the Cardinals just don’t have any superstars in the lineup. Hopefully that changes with the arrival of J.J. Wetherholt.
The Cardinals kick off a series with the Dodgers tomorrow night, and things don’t look promising.
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