Digging Some Holes
Are things getting less competitive as we get into the summer?
I don’t know about you, but in my head it feels like there’s been more noncompetitive games in the last month than there were the entire season beforehand. Maybe that’s just because of both of the Cubs series with their blowouts are still fresh wounds but it feels to me that we’ve had more games decided by five runs recently than we did early on. Is that the case?
Depends on how you look at it.
I gathered up all the scores for this year and did a little basic manipulating. Let’s first look at the average score per month. Caveat being, of course, that March had four games and July isn’t completed yet.
March: Cardinals +3 (5.75-2.75)
April: Basically even (4.56-4.62)
May: Cardinals +1 (4.67-3.67)
June: Cardinals +0.25 (4.79-4.54)
July: Cardinals -2.33 (3.33-5.67)
The fact that the Cardinals have been shut out in three of the nine July games really hurts there but it’s clear that things aren’t trending in the right direction.
Another way to break it up is to use the Blogger Day as a dividing marker. After all, John Mozeliak talked at that event on June 7 about how the team had been in almost every game to that point. Has that changed?
Before Blogger Day: Cardinals +0.49 (4.7-4.21)
Blogger Day On: Cardinals -0.25 (4.375-4.625)
So the run differential has dropped three quarters of a run since then. There have been more losses (the club is 15-17 in the span compared to 35-28 before it) but have they been more dramatic?
Baseball Reference defines a blowout as losing by five or more runs. By that criteria, the Cardinals have been blown out 13 times this season. Four of those 13 have come in July, so that’s a strong point toward things are getting worse.
They’ve lost by eight or more runs six times this season. Two of those happened in July and one in the last week of June.
They lost by 10 or more three times in 2025—April 6 at Boston, May 30 at Texas, and July 6 at Chicago.
Obviously, the cratering of Erick Fedde and the rough games of Miles Mikolas (though it was good to see him adjust and improve in his last outing) have led to a lot of these. The team ERA over the last two weeks is 5.24, 25th in the majors (though it’s slightly better than the Dodgers, Mets, and Yankees over that span, so huh).
Sonny Gray: Started 3 games that wound up as blowouts
Matthew Liberatore: 2 games
Andre Pallante: 1 game
Erick Fedde: 5 games, including the last three in a row
Miles Mikolas: 2 games
(The last three Fedde starts the Cards have been outscored 26-0. When you are getting torched and unable to respond, that makes for a long day.)
So how does this inform how to approach the trade deadline, if at all? St. Louis is 5 1/2 games behind the Cubs and now two games out of the wild card, with the Padres also between them and a spot. Fedde is going to go this afternoon, which doesn’t necessarily bode well for cutting into the gap.
It’s also fair to recognize how last year went. At the All-Star Break, the club was 50-46 and was in the second wild card spot by 1/2 game. Two weeks later, with the deadline looming, they were a game out of a playoff spot. The club tried to add with the Fedde trade but continued to sink.
This team is better than last year’s team, I think, but it’s also fair to say that it would need a significant pitching infusion to be able to put together a true playoff run. It’s also hard to see where that would come from. Michael McGreevy will be replacing Fedde soon if things don’t turn around, but that’s not really enough. Mikolas is still one of the worst pitchers in the league. Pallante is 60th out of 68 in fWAR. There was a hope by this time Quinn Matthews or Tekoah Roby would be ready but their injuries have kept them from being true options.
I imagine John Mozeliak will still want to add to this team, assuming no disasters coming out of the break. That said, if they lose a series to the Braves (who were 40-52 before last night, though they are a talented team), it would seem to be a dark mark against them. The club comes out of the break going to Arizona, which is a coin flip, and then they get three games in Colorado which might give some hope.
Most likely, though, no decisions on direction are going to be made until the Padres come to town for four games July 24-28. That could easily be the last stand and push the club into seller mode. I have a feeling the front office will resist until the last minute, but losing three of four would definitely feel like the death knell. Even splitting puts you in a rough position.
My Gateway co-host David Jones regularly gets messages from me complaining about how the club uses Matt Svanson. I’ve felt that he’s been a fairly consistent option out of the pen but he always seemed to get garbage time.
The last time Svanson came into a game when the Cardinals had the lead was when he pitched the ninth inning of a 14-7 win at Philadelphia on May 14. He actually got his first win in Cleveland after that when the Cardinals rallied to take the lead after he came in. Before last night, the average gap (lead or deficit) that he inherited was five runs.
He’s not been perfect—he did allow that Fedde Chicago game to get more out of hand, but he’d never pitched in the third inning before—but he’s been a fairly reliable arm out of the pen. When the ghost of Kyle Leahy can still get into close games it seems managerial malpractice not to let Svanson see if he can handle more important outings. Hopefully last night is the first step toward that.
This blog (the whole experience, not this current incarnation of course) turns 18 tomorrow, which means it can vote and has to register for the draft. I don’t write as much as I used to because 1) I’m old and value sleep more than I used to and 2) with two podcasts I can usually get things out of my system there. I still plan to keep this going for a while, though. Maybe if I get to 20 Bernie Miklasz and Brian Walton will support my bid for the Red Ribbon Committee for the Cardinals Hall of Fame.
Cardinals have the fifth pick in the MLB draft that happens tomorrow, something that you very much know if you are a Cardinals fan. Plenty of mock drafts and analysis out there—here’s a great one from Cardinals Prospects—and there should be a very talented person entering the Cardinals system. (More than one, actually, since the first three rounds will be Sunday night.) I keep hearing Eli Willits when I read these things and that wouldn’t surprise me, but I think that this pick might tell us a little bit about who is making the picks. Feels like Willits would be a Bloom type while Jamie Arnold would be a Mozeliak type, but that’s probably just an impression.
I have not been out to see Superman yet but my son went and said it was incredible. We’ll probably go and see it next week when he comes home for a few days. Also getting fired up about Fantastic Four just being a couple weeks away.
The Star Wars devotionals are still clicking along for the summer, working our way through A New Hope. If you want to read them, they are here or I can email them to you directly should you prefer.
Meet Me at Musial and Gateway to Baseball Heaven are doing a crossover episode this Sunday that will be on both feeds, so if you are a Musial fan that’s why you haven’t seen something this week.