Where Is Rock Bottom?

Some tough results against the White Sox have the pitchforks being sharpened

Sometime this week, I believe it was on Saturday afternoon when the Cards had stormed back from a 3-0 deficit, I looked at the NL Central standings. With a win on Saturday and a Reds loss, the Cards would be tied for third. They would be about a game out of second. Things felt like they might be looking up.

Little did I know that, in honor of Star Wars Day, I was Luke Skywalker standing in front of Jabba the Hutt and the floor was about to drop out.

The Cardinals couldn’t hold a two run lead against the worst team in baseball, nor could they, in a half-inning that took close to four hours, capitalize on bases loaded nobody out to at least tie the game in the 10th. Then Sunday they mustered one run while running a bullpen game without the best pieces of the bullpen being available.

Suddenly, a team that looked like it was finding purchase was free falling like a one-handed Luke Skywalker through the infrastructure of Cloud City. It remains to be seen if there’s a weather vane to break their fall and even if there is, it seems more and more doubtful there’s a Millennium Falcon out there to rescue them from their dire straits.

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You wonder if the base hit by Harrison Bader was the wrong sort of turning point.

Last Sunday, the Cardinals were a strike away from sweeping the Mets in CitiField. What happens if they complete that? We talk so much about baseball being a mental game. Does taking that game give a shot of confidence to the club?

Does it help if they don’t have a rainout Monday? They were able to take the first game against the Tigers (even though Jack Flaherty continued Old Home Week by striking out 14) but taking a doubleheader is always hard. Maybe a sweep and less of a storm front lets them build their winning streak to five or six and then the mindset in the clubhouse is more what you’d think a winning team would have.

Momentum, good thoughts, and mental boosts are all real things but they are hardly quantifiable. It seems unlikely that there’s any sort of rah-rah that would help Paul Goldschmidt have better results outside of having some more hits. Success leads to motivation leads to success, in some ways.

What is quantifiable is that this offense isn’t getting it done.

The Cardinals briefly pulled ahead of the White Sox and out of last place in home runs on Sunday, only to sink back into the tie like a waterlogged X-Wing. Their team batting average is .214, ahead of only the White Sox and their divisional rivals from Cincinnati. The Reds have more extra base hits and a league-leading 57 stolen bases, though. What hits they get, they make them count.

The Cards’ team OPS is .624, ahead of the Marlins and the White Sox. (When you keep getting compared to a team that had six wins before you faced them, you probably aren’t doing great.) And if you are wondering if you can still chalk it up to a slow start….

So no, probably not.

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The Cardinals have yet to win on a Sunday in 2024.

Think about that. Every week this season, Cardinals fans have had to face Monday still dragging behind the baggage of the end of their weekend. Sometimes, like last week, it’s a nail biter. Sometimes, like the game against the Marlins, it’s a blowout. However it happens, there has yet to be a #HappyMonday, as it were.

No wonder we’re all grumpy.

I saw an indication that 2022, the magical year of Albert Pujols, might have been an aberration over the last five or so seasons. Just the basic numbers don’t really bear that out, but they do show how bad this season has been.

The basic numbers are all pretty much in line, though I am sure you can get under the hood and point out differences here and there, with exit velocity or success against fastballs or the like. 2024 just doesn’t fit in that pattern. It’s bad and, if it keeps up like this, it’s going to be Whiteyball power without Whiteyball speed and success.

There are so many ways to point out how weak this offense has been. Before today, they were hitting .128/.271/.197 with two outs and a runner in scoring position. They have a .597 OPS in tie games. They actually hit better (.249/.322/.391) in high leverage situations than they do in anything else. They have only four homers after the sixth inning. .197 BAA against power pitchers. A .634 OPS at Busch. I don’t imagine there’s a slice that shows a success rate. Maybe if you filter out everything but catchers.

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The problem is, contrary to what the internet tells you about so many other things, there’s not One Quick Trick To Fix Your Offense. It does feel like someone like Turner Ward might get the ax but that’s less about what he’s doing and more about….well, you have to do something.

And doing something really seems called for. It’s understandable that you want to “trust the process” and not to wildly flail around, but it’s not just a small sample size anymore. The offense hit just 88 homers in the second half of last year. They hit .230 in September. Plus, you know, that whole completely lost season of 2023. It’s been seven straight losing months and they’re already on their way to eight.

Again, letting go of people on the coaching staff isn’t likely to change a lot of things. As Oli Marmol said in his press conference after Sunday’s loss, those coaches are doing a lot, putting in the work, trying to find out what the issue is. Maybe if you let one of them go and hire someone outside of the organization some fresh eyes would find something or a different communication would work, but you wonder how far that goes.

Something has to be done. The Cards are still that one game out of third but they are now back in last place and 5 1/2 behind the Brewers and Cubs. The club can’t afford to let things get worse. The season is about 5 1/2 weeks old. Five and a half weeks from now puts you in mid-June (just after what could be a very interesting Blogger and Podcaster Day) and by then teams are already starting to get ready for the trade deadline. The season isn’t over yet but it’s teetering.

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We talked last time about the underlying issues in the pitching staff and the need for the Cardinal offense to take advantage of things by winning these games that aren’t going to require five-plus runs. Sonny Gray is being everything advertised and Kyle Gibson continues to ride the post-Gateway interview bounce, but the warning lights are still flashing.

Lance Lynn has only once this year gotten an out in the sixth and his lack of depth has cost the Cards in bullpen usage or, like this weekend, the club has stuck with him a little longer than they should. Steven Matz is now on the injured list, which led to some interesting choices this weekend on how to replace him (and we’ll see what they do for his next one). Miles Mikolas has been better as of late and hasn’t walked a batter in his last three outings, but I think we are all still holding our breath when he takes the mound, not sure which Miles is going to show up.

This whole club seems precariously balanced. It’s up to the front office not to panic but to figure out how to shore it up before it all crashes down.

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If you missed it, I had a great chat with Blake Newberry on Meet Me at Musial this week. You can find that on any of your podcast platforms or directly here. Blake’s also got a great article up that goes along with our offense discussion, looking at the lack of pulled fly balls.

Lots of fun things come out around May the Fourth. I haven’t had a chance to watch Tales of the Empire yet, but I’m excited to do so. Also, a new trailer for The Acolyte dropped and it looks quite intriguing.

Also, The Bad Batch wrapped up this weekend. I don’t want to get into any spoilers, but it was an interesting way of finishing up the Dave Filoni era of animation. Perhaps that’s a little too strong—Dave might wind up doing another animated show, even though he’s got live action focus now with The Mandalorian and his upcoming Mando-verse movie—but it definitely brings to a close the Clone Wars era.

I don’t think everything is tied up neatly in this final episode. There’s still questions out there, threads that might get picked up somewhere around the way. The ending is satisfying, though, and I hope that Disney doesn’t take too long before it goes back to the animated well. The live action shows are great but there’s a lot you can do in animation that is much harder to deal with when you have real life people and objects.

Also, The Phantom Menace is back out in theaters. My son and I are planning to go Tuesday night, because even if you have the lines memorized, there’s something special about seeing the films on the big screen. Star Wars turns 50 in 2027 and, if I were in charge, I’d be releasing the Saga movies, plus Rogue One and Solo, back in theaters for a limited run. Running one a month for a week would be a great way to celebrate this massive cultural icon.