I think all of us, in one way or another, are checking in on where the season is at right now. What minor league players are begging to be promoted to replace lagging starters during what is, mostly, a rebuild year. What ways to improve a roster that might have a lot of fight in it, or at least be able to take on some good teams and give them a hard time.
There is so much to talk about but so little time.
The Cardinals season started out on a very competitive note, vs a Rays team who is now atop the
fierce AL East at 34-18, a couple games ahead of the Yankees. We ended up scoring 22 runs in that three game series, but the Rays scored 23. However what mattered on paper was the series win, despite a 11-7 defeat as the Rays left town.
The team then flipped the script and had another tight-fought series win vs the Metropolitans, the Cardinals scoring only 7 runs to the Mets 5. The run differential hovered like a quark.
Then it was the Tigers to take the team down a notch, putting the Cardinals down to .500 for a second there.
The St Louis Cardinals had another crazy series, similar to the Rays series, vs the Nationals. This time, the Cardinals scored 19 runs in three games, to DC’s 16 runs. The Cardinals remained over .500.
After the Cardinals won the first game against Boston on what was presumably a cold April 10th, 3-2, St Louis embarked upon what is perhaps their worst three game stretch of the season April 11-13 where they lost by 6 runs three games in a row! Oof. First, the Red Sox took the series, beating the Redbirds 7-1 and 9-3, then the Guardians did a reprise of the 9-3 score, knocking the Cardinals back down to .500.
What did the Cardinals do to respond to such a poor stretch? April the 13th would be the last time the Cardinals were at .500. They rattled off 5 wins in a row by taking the series vs the Guardians and then sweeping the Astros! Only 1 of those wins during that 5 game winning streak was a dominant win, they were otherwise all close, exciting games, for maximum entertainment value I suppose.
Coming down off that mountain was a rough trip as the Cardinals scheduling gods had them experience a nautical theme, involving rough waters vs the Marlins and Mariners, winning only 1 game out of 6 vs the Marlins on April 21st in yet another good game with a score of 5-3. The last leg of the nautical adventure was a very good one, however: the Cardinals swept the Pirates in a 4 game series! St Louis scored 30 runs that series, to Pittsburgh’s 18 run total.
The winning ways continued in a series vs the Dodgers, where the Cardinals won 2 games to 1 and outscored the Dodgers 11-8 over three games. Our roll slowed a bit vs the Brewers, where we split the first series against them, with a postponed game involved. Then things got more choppy with the Padres taking a 4 game series against us, 3 games to 1. The Cardinals only scored 6 total runs that whole series, with the Padres scoring 14 total runs.
Things looked better again with series wins vs the Athletics and the Royals. Nested within both series was a 3 game winning streak and back to back 5-4 wins, exciting fashion. The Cardinals win a lot of close games that could go either way.
After sweeping the Pirates, Pittsburgh did not give up the second time around and won a 3 game series two to one against St Louis, where they outscored the Cardinals 19-11 overall. Then the Cardinals split a series vs the Reds before they traveled to Milwaukee where they have faced some of MLB’s best starting pitching… and if you are wondering how good the Brewers bullpen is, it’s really good too, top 10 in MLB by ERA and even better by FIP.
So maybe it’ll be a miracle if we salvage a win in Milwaukee today. But the Cardinals have a winning record on the road, and they have a really good record vs teams over .500, so I like our chances. You might be surprised by the Cardinals home record, which is right at .500. That could be the type of team this is, a team hovering around even in run differential, or maybe even bucking a negative balance. the American way!
So how do the Cardinals win in such dramatic fashion? St Louis has gone 11-4 in 1 run games!
One run games
- March 28th vs Rays 6-5
- April 1st 2-1 over Mets
- April 7th 7-6 over Nationals
- April 10th 3-2 over Red Sox
- April 14th 6-5 over Guardians
- April 15th 5-4 over Guardians
- April 29th 5-4 over Pirates
- May 2nd 3-2 over Dodgers
- May 7th 2-1 over Padres
- May 14th 5-4 over Athletics
- May 15th 5-4 over Royals
So you’re not crazy, this has been a crazy exciting season so far. Who knows how good they really are? When they are doing that. That said, they haven’t won a 1 run game since May 15th. Is their bread and butter disappearing? Things have slowed down a little with no baseball on May 18th, 2 postponed games in Cincinnati on May 22nd and 24th, and the offense growing quiet, scoring 1 run in 2 games in Milwaukee. It was a good run of 1 run wins, and hopefully that might continue in some absurd fashion. Don’t even get me started on the extra-inning wins phenomenon. What is that. ‘Tis remarkable, even uncanny.
Two Run Games
The Cardinals are also very effective in close games in general, going 19-9 in 1 run or 2 run games!
- Opening Day was a 2 run game where the Cardinals beat the Rays 9-7!
- April 5th over the Tigers 5-3
- back to back 7-5 wins in Houston April 18 and 19
- April 21 over Marlins 5-3
- April 27 over Pirates 4-2
- May 12 6-4 over Athletics
- May 16 over Royals 4-2
Three Run Games
The Cardinals are at .500 in three run games, 3-3 overall
Four Run Games and Blowouts 6+ Runs
The Cardinals are terrible when getting blown out, just 2-12! When the offense goes quiet so does this team into the night. Despite the fact that the Cardinals are so good at winning close games, the opposite is true when the scores are far apart… The Cardinals don’t really blow out other teams, they simply can’t with their pitching. And with their lineup so lopsided towards the top, there are just going to be a good amount of games where the offense can’t make it close. If you tend to harp on the bad things in life, this is one really good reason why you might not like this team too terribly much. They do get trounced over 22% of the time.
Five Run Games
I don’t know why but the Cardinals are fine in 5 run games, which makes the team all the more weird and random. They have soundly beaten teams in four different games this year: 6-1, 9-4, 10-5, 7-2. Nationals, Astros, Pirates, Dodgers. The only 5 run game loss was way back on April 4th at Detroit.
Position Players
Let’s take a look at how valuable Cardinals position players have been: they are tied with the Pirates at 7.2 fWAR. The only NL Central team better than the Cardinals and Pirates is the Cubs… because of their stacked roster (which doesn’t appear to be able to support some rather bad pitching performances). That said, the Cardinals would be ahead of the Pirates in WAR if they had played more games. The two offenses are essentially identical by wRC+, but the Cardinals’ strength shines on defense. Is that a 21.6 fWAR position player team season total I’m seeing?
So wait, how do the Cardinals have a team of position players better than the Brewers? JJ Wetherholt and Jordan Walker have been very surprising! They are both among MLB leaders and part of the 2+ WAR club, trending for 6+ win seasons! Neither appears to be a mirage, other than that they are very young players. Ivan Herrera has an on-base percentage of .387 near the top of the order, while Alec Burleson and Nolan Gorman have combined for 60 RBI. Cleanup hitter Jordan Walker is on pace for 45 HR and 126 RBI. The average Cardinals 1-4 lineup hitter is at 139 wRC+.
That’s really bleepin’ good for any top of the order. And it could get even better as the season goes on: if we are lucky enough to see positive learning curves for Wetherholt, who is probably not a .239 BA hitter, and Herrera, who has had a slightly peculiar season on offense (walking 13% of the time!), if Alec Burleson sees limited exposure vs left-handed pitching, and if Jordan Walker is still getting even better in his breakout season.
Hopefully reinforcements are coming for the rest of the batting order. Winn and Gorman have been lackluster but not terrible on offense. But that leaves three spots in the order that aren’t being too productive, while giving Winn and Gorman a pass on below-average hitting because they are good on defense. Church hasn’t really played enough yet to pencil him in as a productive starter. Pages may have 4 home runs, but otherwise pretty much unacceptable on offense at 74 wRC+ a third of the way through. And Victor Scott II has cratered to a 52 wRC+ and replacement level player status. Still, I’m frightened of anyone else but Church playing center field with this pitching staff, even though they’re pretty good at inducing ground balls, they still need all the help they can get.
With none of the bench guys stealing any jobs just yet, a lot of fans are clamoring for some promotions, and even I am starting to get a little impatient about it. But I don’t really know what to do there. Is Josh Baez ready? Do we want to risk that development curve with Chaim Bloom’s new technological tracking systems in place, and probably some sort of paced methodology underway? Is science and reason getting in the way of Josh Baez and Blaze Jordan? Should they promote Nelson Velasquez just to tweak the current formula? That is a tough question to answer.
If the team already has a core of 4 main players and a couple of decent complementary parts with some upside, should they try to make the rest of the batting order more capable so that they can maybe destroy some teams with lopsided runs scored? Or, at the least, make it so they don’t HAVE to win so many close games. It does seem entirely plausible that some tweaks could and should be made to make this team into something more. The pitching will sort itself out eventually, but it is not a strength to be looked at at this time. I think the bullpen will get better than it is, but if not, that’s probably not going to make or break this team.
No music this week, but it will be back next week, I promise! I just don’t feel like staying up late tonight. It’s basically ready to go, but hey, I wanted to focus on baseball this week.
As it stands, we could very well see 3.6 WAR seasons from both Burleson and Herrera (personally, I think Ivan will turn it on and surpass 4), we could see a Rookie of the Year from JJ Wetherholt if he is worth 6.3 fWAR, and maybe some MVP votes and an All Star berth for Jordan Walker, and maybe closer of the year for Riley O’Brien? Not out of the question, any of that. If that’s all we get and no postseason because of poor pitching, I’ll take it!
So what about the pitching, is there any hope there? Sure, we could see 2+ WAR seasons from McGreevy and May, but that’s not going to make us a playoff team. We have the core pieces, but not a lot of parts lying around. Too much value is still hopefully marinating in the minor leagues, ready to arrive when the stars align to the show. Who is the one player at AAA that you think will make a big difference on this team? It would be easy for a pitcher to take opportunity with this rotation, but it sure seems like nobody is ready for that quite yet. Which leaves it to a catcher or an outfielder to come smashing onto the scene and hopefully keep these games crazy good, and exciting. We may be trending the wrong way back toward .500, but this team has not had a losing record yet in 2026. And that says something about this Cardinals team. Even if there are still 2/3 of the games left to be played. Expect the flavor of the middle of the season to be pretty mid, if you ask me. They might just tread .500 for a while, but stay above the water line. That glass ain’t half empty, it’s half full. Add something.
Lars Nootbaar can’t get here soon enough. I want to see Jimmy Crooks III catching ASAP. Shake it up. But first, don’t get swept, and then sweep the Cubs, please. And thank you.
