Continuing the Hot Start

It's getting harder and harder to say this Cardinals team is "rebuilding".

May 09, 2026

Last night on AppleTV (and we can get into the whole four-games-on-four-platforms thing later), the broadcast team was talking about the hot start of the Cardinals. They followed that up with “but they started hot last year as well”. That didn’t quite sit well with me and it’s Saturday morning, so let’s take a look.

After last night’s win based on Michael McGreevy’s conjuring up Bud Smith memories and Fernando Tatis continuing the family tradition by being referenced close by the words “grand slam”, the Cardinals sit 23-15, eight games clear of .500 after 38 games. They have never been under .500 at any point this season. So let’s see where they were at the last few years at the same mile marker.

The 2025 Cardinals did start out 3-0, so depending how technical you want to be perhaps that counts as a “hot start”. However, it didn’t last very long. The Cardinals slipped under .500 for the first time after game 9 and, at this point in the season, were an even 19-19 as they hit the midpoint of what would be a nine game winning streak. They did not reach eight games over .500 until a win in Texas in game 57. They would reach their season high of nine games over on June 29, which makes it even more remarkable that they were selling just a month later. Winning five of your next 17 will do that.

What about 2024? That season, they were under .500 from the get go, losing the opening game to the Dodgers. In fact, they didn’t get over .500 until game 9 after beating the Marlins. At the 38 game mark, they sat at 15-23, the inverse of where we see the team now. Of course, game 40 that year was the Mother’s Day win that set them on a strong winning month. Even with that, though, they never got six games over .500, even though they finished the season in positive territory.

We tend to not want to talk about 2023, for good reason. They also lost the opener, so they were under .500 after Day 1. The only time they were over .500 was after game 3, when they were 2-1. After 38 games they were 13-25 on their way to a completely disastrous season.

So when was the last time the Cardinals were this good or better after 38 games? Not their last playoff year of 2022 (they were 20-18). In 2021, they had this exact record after Jack Flaherty (with help from Alex Reyes) shut down the Brewers. You have to go back to 2015 to find a Cardinals team with a better record at this point, as that team, after a 14-inning loss to the Mets, were 25-13. (Let’s remember some guys: Sam Tuivailala got the loss in that one.)

Of course, this doesn’t get into what teams they played and how strong/weak they are, but after 38 games you probably have had a strong mix no matter what the year. After going so long without facing a team over .500, the Cards are now 9-2 against such squads. Only the Nationals and Pirates have more wins against such teams and they’ve both had many more opportunities, as the Pirates are 10-9 and the Nats 10-13.

I felt like this part of the schedule was going to tell us a lot about the team. As you know, it’s a stretch of 17 games without a day off (well, it was supposed to be, but the rain at least gave them a bit of a break) and they were playing teams that either were successful this season or were supposed to be successful. I think even if they’d run this gauntlet 8-9 (assuming they’d played all the games) we’d have been pretty impressed.

Instead, they are going to be at the worst 9-7 through this run of Seattle, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, and San Diego. You wouldn’t expect a team that is supposed to be learning, growing, developing to be able to do that. Yet here we are.

I think, given the expectations of the team in general but the pitching staff in particular, we’re always going to be looking for the other shoe to drop, for the team to hit their ceiling, for the momentum to run out. The rest of the month has a lot of divisional games in it, as after the Athletics and Royals they face all four of the other NL Central teams back-to-back, culminating in the Cubs series at the end of the month. (Blogger and Podcaster Day is the Saturday night of that series, which should be exciting.) If we’re still talking about a team 8-10 games over .500 at that point, you start thinking this is who they are. A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.

So let’s talk about the fact that, to watch this series, you had to have ESPN, Apple TV, FOX, and Cardinals.tv.

On the one hand, I get the consternation. There should be some way that, if you purchase Cardinals.tv, you get to watch the games that are on these sort of national broadcasts as well. I don’t have ESPN and I’ve not been able to get my digital antenna to pick up FOX, so I’ll miss half of the series. (If it wasn’t for an early season deal pairing Apple and Peacock, I would be missing more.) I understand the reasoning about being on platforms like this, which will hopefully draw some casual eyeballs, but it’s frustrating for those of us that want to watch every night.

That being said, I still remember growing up when the only time here in Arkansas you could watch the Cardinals was if they happened to be on the NBC Game of the Week. Even when things like FOX Sports Net (as it was originally called) started covering most of the games, you still didn’t see every game. So while the various options are frustrating, it’s almost like complaining that your wallet is too small for your fifties and your diamond shoes are too tight. We get probably 85% of a season through one provider and we can keep track of the other games on GameDay or social media if we want. I’d like it to be better, but I’m not going to be terribly worked up about it until there are a larger percentage of games in these silos.

I will say that the broadcast team for Apple is OK but the graphics and presentation is really nice. That’s the other thing about seeing it on different platforms, you get some variety in voices and looks. The Peacock presentation is excellent, Apple was good, and hopefully the others had their high points as well.

I mentioned in the last (non Star Wars) post that I was getting a chance to go up and see the Razorbacks play baseball. It was an enjoyable afternoon. The Hogs got down early to Northeastern Louisiana, trailing 2-0 after a couple of frames, but they chipped away and tied it in the middle of the game, then put up some runs late to win it. A cool day, good company (my kids and my daughter’s boyfriend), and a Hogs win. Can’t beat it.

The book reading really hasn’t changed much as I’m continuing to work on the ones that I’ve mentioned. It’s been a busy couple of weeks so I’ve not really sat down and read much, though maybe I’ll be able to do that this afternoon. (I’d say as I wait for tonight’s game, but I won’t be able to watch that one so….) The Star Wars book club meets this week and after that, I’ll get into book 2 of the Darth Bane trilogy, Rule of Two. While this is an older Legends book, I never read it or its sequel, so I’m excited to get the chance to do that.

Did finish watching Maul - Shadow Lord. You really can’t go wrong with Star Wars Animation and this continued the winning trend. As I mentioned before, it was a slow burn—something I expected to happen fairly early didn’t occur until the closing minutes—but the buildup has been incredible and the last two episodes were especially intense. Now just two weeks away from The Mandalorian and Grogu!

Had a fun conversation last week with Richard McGill on Musial. If you aren’t reading his Substack, you can subscribe to it over here. Last night, I talked with Tyler Gettinger mainly about the minor leagues and the players that are coming up. You can listen to that right here. Mr. Medlock’s Tulsa Hale team has concluded their season and he’ll be back in the saddle as soon as next week. There are still three more guests to go as well: Eugene Tucker from the excellent Portion Under Busch, J.D. Hafron from the Locked On Cardinals podcast, and our dear friend Alex Crisafulli, who will join us right before we all head to St. Louis for the blogger event. And, of course, David and I are still doing Gateway—he was poking around on some reasons for Michael McGreevy’s success and I’m sure we’ll get to those Sunday evening.