Has the Dam Burst?

It's the smallest of samples, but the offense has been booming.

On June 4, the St. Louis Cardinals were hitting .240 as a team, which was good for 17th in MLB. They were slugging .384, which ranked 19th. Things were still better than probably expected by folks before the season and the club was 32-28, so it wasn’t a significant concern by any means, but they had been shut out three times in their last 15 games.

Then Lars Nootbaar was activated and jet fuel got added to the ball club.

In the eight games since the return of Nootbaar (which also encompasses the return of Nathan Church and the promotion of Blaze Jordan), the Cardinals have scored 10, 6, 5, 7, 9, 4, 8, and 9 runs. In the nine game before today’s 9-6 win over Minnesota, the club was hitting .278, second in the majors (behind, of course, Milwaukee) and slugging .476, good for sixth. While it’s impossible to say whether this will continue at any level (I doubt they slug close to .500 for an extended period of time) it’s also fair to say these changes have been huge for an offense that was starting to sputter.

The addition of Nootbaar has been something that is more than the sum of its parts. Noot’s been a help, of course, with two doubles, two homers, and five walks in his short time back. However, his biggest contribution has just been lengthening the lineup. No longer can teams relax when they’ve gotten past Jordan Walker or Alec Burleson. Instead, there’s another count-working thumper that they have to deal with. That also means that the top of the lineup rolls around faster as well.

And over the last few games, you haven’t had to even wait until it came back to JJ Wetherholt to get production. Nathan Church has been an immediate upgrade over Victor Scott II and, well, it wouldn’t have taken much for Blaze Jordan to surpass Nolan Gorman’s recent production.

Add in the usage of Jose Fermin and this lineup is a lot stronger that it was a few weeks ago. Even Jimmy Crooks, who hasn’t necessarily lit the world on fire, still adds a threat dimension that Pedro Pages didn't. (That said, Pages had an excellent game this afternoon.)

Of course, when you have Burleson homering in four straight games and Walker bouncing back after a bit of a cold spell, you are going to look really strong as well. The only real sore spot is Masyn Winn, who is hitting .189 over his last 30 games, an average that not significantly different even if you cut it to his last week. However, Winn’s defense is still immaculate and if you have all these guys hitting, you can carry Winn a lot more than you could when Pages, Gorman, and Scott were also at the bottom of the lineup card.

The Cardinals have hit 16 homers over the past 11 games, which has made for a lot of excitement. There’s only one irritation. The offense hasn’t been limited to the boys with the birds on the bat.

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We’ve listed how the Cardinals have scored 59 runs in their last eight games (good for a 7.4 runs per game average), it’s also worth noting that they’ve lost two of those games and a couple of others were pretty close. After today’s win that saw the Twins put up six runs (and threaten for more), the ERA over this past span is 3.98. Which actually isn’t too bad, when you think about it. The club ERA for the season is 4.13, so the last few games have actually been down a touch.

However, that shutout in CitiField (I still want to write Shea Stadium) is helping that number a bit. The ERA is 4.57 with that game removed. I don’t want to do that because that was the Dustin May game, and that’s not out of line with what he’s been doing. We’ve also seen some good results out of Andre Pallante of late, going 5.2 or more innings in four of his last five outings and allowing two or less runs in all of them. I’m not sure it’ll last, but it’s nice to see. Michael McGreevy continues to baffle both hitters and statistically minded people, but that’s seemingly just what he does.

The problem comes with Kyle Leahy and Matthew Liberatore. Leahy has gotten an out in the sixth three times this season, and twice it was just one. He went six innings against the Royals in Busch, allowing just one run, but that’s the outlier. He’s also gone less than five innings three times. Which means, basically, he’s a five inning pitcher.

Let’s take a look at the five regular starters and their OPS again as they go through the order. Everyone’s going to have the third time through penalty, but let’s see how extreme it is.

Dustin May: First time .716, second time .693, third time .689 (so no real TTO)
Michael McGreevy: .608/.656/.757
Andre Pallante: .843/.560/.636 (you can tell if he’s on real quick)
Matthew Liberatore: .724/.679/1.236 (not counting today)
Kyle Leahy: .611/.790/1.363

Those last two are pretty tough to swallow. There is no reason why either Liberatore or Leahy should face a batter for the third time. Last night, Oli Marmol tried to see if Leahy could get another inning. To give Leahy his due, he did strike out Trevor Larnach to end the fifth, the third time Leahy had seen him. Yet the 2-3-4 hitters went double (exit velocity 99.6), walk, and double (EV 103.4), evaporating the slim lead the Cardinals had.

Liberatore is in a similar situation, though as you can see he can struggle at any point in the game. Byron Buxton and Royce Lewis homered in their second look at Libby, as did Luke Keaschall. In fact, Marmol didn’t even allow Liberatore to make things worse, bringing in Matt Svanson before he could see a Twin for the third time.

It feels like the best case with both of these guys is five innings that keeps you in the game. Which they’ve done some—Leahy has five wins on the season, Liberatore three—but it can put quite a strain on the bullpen. Some of those issues reared their head last night, some may tomorrow.

It really feels like both of these guys would do better in the bullpen as a long relief option. If they are going to stay in the rotation, though, it feels like the club needs to get a long relief option on the roster. Hunter Dobbins did that for a couple of games and did a fine job, but the club sent him back to Memphis to continue being a starter. I would have preferred keeping him up here for these sort of outings—instead of starting him Thursday against the Mets (which wasn’t really needed given the off day before the series as well as the one before the Reds series) he could have come in last night in the sixth instead of trying to piecemeal things together with a small lead.

We talked about this on both podcasts this morning—more on that in a bit—and while this long reliever in the past as wound up gathering dust, that was with rotations with more veterans which would inevitably wind up with a lot of six or seven inning outings. That’s not happening here. Between Leahy and Liberatore, there’s always going to be a chance for that sort of arm to get into games.

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Unlike Marc Antony, I come to praise Ryne Stanek, not bury him. There’s no doubt that last night was a terrible outing for the reliever. Allowing a tying home run to the first guy you face AND the third guy you face, plus a go-ahead homer to the fifth guy, means it’s a very bad night.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression and I think a lot of the fan base still thinks of him as the April version that was so rough. However, he’s gotten well past that.

He’s been much more effective than Riley O’Brien over that stretch. Every reliever is going to have an outing where the opposing team has their number. Last night it was Stanek’s. It was good to see him come in and be effective today, which makes it more likely that was a fluke and not a harbinger.

I also take some exception to the idea that Marmol shouldn’t have left him out there for three homers. I think that I would have made different choices than the manager did last night, starting with the sixth inning, but once Stanek had given up the lead, I think the club was a little stuck. They weren’t likely to bring in O’Brien for the eighth and ninth, JoJo Romero and likely Jason Bruihl (and not like people have a lot of confidence in the latter anyway) were unavailable, and the other options were Matt Svanson and Chris Roycroft. Svanson has looked pretty good since returning from Memphis but the powers that be may not be quite ready to put him into a one run game. As for Roycroft, we saw in today’s game how short the rope is for him. That wasn’t a situation they’d want him in.

So I think Marmol just had to ride or die with Stanek. Unfortunately, it turned into a die. That happens. The good thing is that we are frustrated by a Cardinals loss instead of inured to it because there have been so many of these kind of outings. The fact that we are carrying on like we always do is a testament to how much better 2026 has been than it has any right to be.

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As you get older, you have to try new things. I’m not a Bernie Miklasz who can do four shows, two columns, and a few Twitter threads, unfortunately, but this morning I did do my first podcasting doubleheader. Saturday mornings aren’t anything new for Allen and I, as we regularly record Musial in that time slot (if not Fridays), but David was going to be indisposed tomorrow evening so, after I wrapped Musial, we dove right into Gateway. You can find the shows here (Musial, Gateway) and it might be interesting to see how my two co-hosts take the same discussion in different paths.

The Star Wars book club has moved on to the last of the Darth Bane trilogy, Dynasty of Evil. I’ve gotten probably 60-70 pages into it and I can tell it’ll be one that I read quickly. The whole story has been enjoyable and I do want to see how things conclude. I’ve also spent some more time with The First All-Star Game and it’s really interesting, and I’ve not even really gotten to the baseball yet!