Slump or Slide?

The Cards are struggling. Is it a road bump or a return to expected form?

Moments ago, the Cardinals dropped their second game to the Milwaukee Brewers. After being completely dominated against Jacob Misiorowski, which is not exactly a surprising occurrence, they dropped another against Kyle Harrison. Thanks to the Chicago Cubs dropping 10 in a row, they remain in second place in the division, but for how long remains to be seen.

It would easy to mark this slump from last Tuesday, when the Cardinals shifted from an American League-heavy schedule to the thick of the NL Central. (The Cardinals played 24 of their first 46 against the AL, going 13-11 in that stretch.) However, let’s go ahead and mark it from the start of the Tarps Off era, just for fun. Not that the boisterous fans have anything to do with the slide, it’s just a convenient marker.

We wondered in the winter if the offense was strong enough and how the pitching would do. Much of April saw a remarkable offense, led by the breakout of Jordan Walker. May saw the starting pitching be effective beyond most people’s wildest expectations.

Pre-TO offense: .240/.322/.391, wOBA .319, 21.5% K rate, 9.1% BB rate, 4.63 runs/game, 1.14 HR/game, 0.70 SB/game

TO offense before tonight: .230/.309/.368, wOBA .304, 20.0% K rate, 8.7% BB rate, 3.89 runs/game, 1.22 HR/game, 0.44 SB/game

Probably because the Cardinals have been shut out three times in the last eight games, but I was surprised to see that the numbers, even in a smaller sample, really aren’t that different. Perhaps the hits aren’t sequencing the way that they were before, leading to the slight downtick in runs, but it’s not really that different overall. The strikeout rate has dropped, even with the 12 strikeouts yesterday, but they have grounded into 11 double plays in those 9 games, compared to 31 in the 43 before that. You really can’t draw anything from this, I don’t think, but it’s possible they’ve killed some rallies by putting the ball in play.

Pre-TO pitching: 4.29 ERA, 5.01 xERA, 7.27 K/9, 46.2% ground ball rate, 11.8% HR/FB

TO pitching before tonight: 3.95 ERA, 4.54 xERA, 8.49 K/9, 43.9% ground ball rate, 11.8% HR/FB

Much like the hitting, which has struck out less through this slide, the overall staff is striking out more in the last nine games. They still aren’t going to be confused for a power staff, but they’ve had a significant jump in strikeouts. In this span we’ve seen Andre Pallante strike out seven (in a loss), Matthew Liberatore strike out nine (in an extra-inning win), Dustin May fan seven (in a loss), Kyle Leahy strike out eight (in an extra-inning loss), and Liberatore get 10 in a loss.

It would be interesting, honestly, to plot each starter’s strikeouts against their runs given up. While the uptick in whiffs is nice to see, it’s also possible that they aren’t necessarily working for folks that aren’t used to those sort of results. Perhaps more pitches, a little less effectiveness in the zone, who knows. It’s all speculation but it is interesting that an increase in strikeout output hasn’t necessarily led to more wins.

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Liberatore in particular has been the subject of some scrutiny. Brandon Kiley, for one, was looking at Liberatore’s splits and wondering if he was taking the next step.

It’s an interesting premise, but I look at those numbers and wonder if this just isn’t who Liberatore is, a 4.75 ERA pitcher that will see enough other things shift to never really perform at a higher level. If his BABIP goes down, his K rate might also decrease because more outs will be gotten on the ground. Maybe not, maybe you could see him hold the K percentage while getting “luckier” on BABIP.

He’s at a 21.4% K rate for the season, his career high. Of course, the walk rate at 8.9% is close to one. I would defer to people that are smarter than me but I just think this is what he is. He’ll have ups and downs but this is his mean.

I also did a quick look to see if there was anything to the idea that he has one blowup innings on the regular. A long time ago, I did similar writeups about Lance Lynn and the Lynning. (Hopefully that link works, it’s usually 50/50 to the old site.) All in all, I don’t know that there’s enough to draw any conclusions.

In his 11 starts, he has allowed all of his runs in one inning seven times, including in his last four outings. Four of those, though, were games where he allowed only one run. The other three, which were his last three, he allowed four runs in the fifth twice (which would make you think he’s either running out of room or the third time through penalty kicked in) and three in the first on Monday.

Actually, his runs are pretty well distributed of his 11 games, he’s allowed runs in the:

• 1st five times (8 runs total)

• 2nd twice (3)

• 3rd twice (2)

• 4th twice (4)

• 5th four times (11)

• 6th twice (2)

Granted, he’s only gotten to the sixth four times, another indication he’s not necessarily anything more than a mid-rotation starter. Hopefully he puts together some strong starts and we can revisit this issue, but for right now, I’m not buying the increased strikeouts will improve his results.

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We started this whole thing wondering if this was just a bit of a slump for the Cardinals, just going 4-6 in ten games thrown off some by a lot of rain in Cincinnati. A rebound tomorrow, coupled with a series win against the Cubs (it’s always troublesome to face a team with a long losing streak, because you know it’s about to flip) and we’d probably feel better about things. June has the Rangers and the Reds at home, a trip to New York (Mets) and Minnesota, then back for the Pads before hopping across Missouri to face the Royals again. There should be a lot of winnable games in there if the team is truly going to be a surprise team this year.

However, we’ve also said that there were a lot of reasons to believe that regression was coming. This team never expected to be this far above .500 at any point, much less this late in the season. We’ve been waiting for the crash and if it is actually here, I don’t think we have any reason to complain about how good it has been.

Unsurprisingly, I have no answers for you. I do think we are probably in a spot where the club is going to start gradually sinking, but I don’t think we’re in for any extensive struggles right now. It helps (maybe?) that Milwaukee is planning a bullpen game tomorrow against Dustin May, who has been pretty effective since his rough start to the season. Come home, hopefully take care of some business against the Cubs, and see what happens. All we can do is enjoy the ride, no matter where it takes us.

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It’s a function of being online that you don’t necessarily know why you haven’t heard from someone in a while. Perhaps they got wise and got off of social media. Perhaps you just haven’t seen a post from them in a while. Or, perhaps, it’s something else.

I only knew the man as Scott or by his Twitter handle, TexasCardsFan1. Scott was a bit of a curmudgeon and could grump with the best of them about the Cardinals, especially the last couple of years, but he was also willing to engage and talk about them with people that didn’t agree with him. We would sometimes go back and forth either in replies or in direct messages when he’d agree or disagree with something I wrote or said on a podcast. A few months ago, he left the following kind words when he pledged support if I ever turned on a paywall (which I have no plans to do).

“When I first got sober back in 2004 one of the “old timers” in the recovery community (25 years sober) pulled me aside one day & said “Scott, just relax. Wear your life like a gentle blanket. Not everything is life or death.” C70 writes & carries himself like this in our Cardinals community, and I’m proud to be a member. Thanks! TexasCardsFan1”

I thanked him for those comments on February 4th. It was our last interaction. Five days later, he passed away. The Cardinals community only found out this week when OnlyCardsFans found and shared his obituary.

The anonymous nature of most online interactions means that you can have people come and go from your life and you never even know their real name, you may have no way to find out if something has happened to them. I wish I had known sooner and I wish I could interact with him one more time. He’d have loved the Jordan Walker resurgence and he’d complain about this last week for sure. May we resume our conversations in heaven.

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I got out to see The Mandalorian and Grogu this weekend with my son, continuing our tradition of watching Star Wars premieres together. My professional opinion, which means nothing, is that it is a perfectly fine movie. It’s not adding a ton to the lore, of course, but that’s what happens with a stand-alone movie.

I don’t think anyone (save the young, perhaps, as I have already heard from a friend that his son ranks this as one of his favorite movies period, not just of Star Wars) is going to set it up high, but that’s not a slam. I would probably rank it probably right below Solo on my personal rankings, but it’s well ahead of things like The Rise of Skywalker. For the hard-core fan, we do get to see Nal Hutta for the first time and more of the Hutt culture (for lack of a better word), and there’s some X-Wings, U-Wings, and Y-Wings. I’ll watch it again when it comes to Disney+, I’m sure.

The Star Wars book club is working on the second Darth Bane book, Rule of Two. I hadn’t read it before so I finished it up over the weekend. It’s quite good and I’m excited to read the final book in the trilogy, though I’ll hold off until our next meeting so I don’t get confused.

Blogger and Podcaster Day is Saturday. It used to be that we got the second-rate matchups, the Padres or the Reds or the Diamondbacks or the Pirates. Last year, however, we got the Dodgers and this year we get the Cubs, which is nice. I’ll drive up Saturday morning, go to the game, and leave out Sunday morning which doesn’t leave me time to see many people. If you happen to be at the park Saturday night, maybe we can meet up. I’m looking forward to seeing my fellow travelers in this space. I don’t know if I’ll have a question for Chaim Bloom, but I know there are going to be a lot of interesting things discussed. There will be audio out there soon after the event, I’m sure, but I’ll try to come back in this space early next week to write up my thoughts.