ST. LOUIS — At 11:45 a.m., before Wednesday’s Cardinals-Giants game, Busch Stadium public address announcer John Ulett made his trademark proclamation: “Welcome to baseball heaven!”
At 3:08 p.m., it felt like baseball hell.
The Cardinals had been up in the ninth, 5-3, with two outs and two strikes. But Giovanny Gallegos allowed a two-run homer.
And the Cards proceeded to lose in extras, 8-5.
“Today’s unacceptable,” St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol said.
The last-place team has now lost 13 of its past 17 games.
And to the Cardinals, I mean this in the nicest way possible, but I’m glad you’re leaving for a while. St. Louis needs a break from this club. They don’t need to suffer, 40,000 locals at a time, watching this embarrassment of a baseball team at Busch. So it’s good that the Cards, who are now 27-42, get a day off Thursday, then travel to New York, Washington and London. And by the time they’re back (June 27), St. Louis will at least be refreshed, reset and ready to strap into the roller-coaster again at Clark and Eighth.
Because it’s never been this bad for a Cardinals team that’s supposed to be good.
And rarely is it this bad for a Cardinals team in general. Heck, it’s their slowest start to a season since 1978.
And 2023 is a particularly infuriating situation, because this was the year they needed to take the next step in the postseason. The Cards have won just a lone playoff series since 2014. They have two superstars who finished first and third in the MVP voting. This should’ve been the year to make noise in the playoffs.
Instead, they’re not even going to make the playoffs.
Wednesday’s loss was like most of the others — some aspects of the team were productive, others were deplorable. Starter Jordan Montgomery pitched extremely well. But Gallegos blew it in the ninth, Steven Matz allowed three runs in the 10th, and on the day, Paul Goldschmidt, Nolan Gorman and Nolan Arenado (the 2-3-4 hitters) combined for two hits and eight strikeouts.
This included the bottom of the 10th (remember, a team starts each extra inning with a runner on second) when both Arenado and Goldschmidt struck out.
“At some point,” Marmol said, “you just have to do something about it. You keep getting punched in the face? Punch back. You don’t score after the third (inning)? You have the lead in the ninth? Finish the game.”
Honestly, if the Cardinals made the playoffs but didn’t at least reach the National League Championship Series, I would’ve called this season a failure. So this? My goodness, this is an abomination. And a slap to the face of Cardinals Nation.
The blame? It starts with chairman Bill DeWitt Jr., goes to John Mozeliak and the front office, and down to the manager, his staff and, of course, the players. The players must take a lot of the blame. Sure, the executives could’ve paid for some better players. But the players on the roster were still good enough to have, you know, a winning team. Instead, St. Louis is 15 games under .500. The Rockies aren’t even that bad!
The team is firing off mixed messages — Patience! Urgency! — and little is changing on the field, except for which aspect of the team is the culprit for the latest loss.
But it starts with starting pitching.
The Cardinals were confident in their five. They doubled down on their five. And now Matz is in the bullpen and the starters have baseball’s 21st-best ERA. And 29th-best swing-and-miss percentage. And only four teams in baseball have fewer quality starts than the Cardinals’ 16.
Meanwhile, the bullpen is tied for the most blown saves in the National League (15).
And since May 21, the Cardinals haven’t won any of their seven series — and the offense has the 25th-best OPS in baseball. And as seen in the very first play of Wednesday’s game — when shortstop Paul DeJong couldn’t come up with a hot grounder — the defense has been deflated.
“We just have to play better,” said the thoughtful catcher Andrew Knizner, who got the start Wednesday. “There are a lot of things that don’t go our way, but usually you can fight through that stuff when you’re playing good baseball. I mean, every single game is going to have things — a ball bounces this way, you don’t get this call, you don’t make this play. But when it’s compounded with not playing as good as we should be playing, then it just kind of piles on you.”
People are saying they should fire Marmol. I don’t think they should fire Marmol. A firing could fire up the players for the short-term, sure. But it’s not a good long-term plan — the Cardinals don’t need a fourth manager in six seasons. What the Cardinals need is the Cardinals to start playing like the Cardinals. Because right now, they sure look like a lot of Rockies out there.
With two outs in the ninth on Wednesday, I wrote on my screen, in anticipation for this column: “It actually feels weird that they won. That’s how strange things have gotten in 2023 for the Cardinals.”
Then, the Giants tied the game with the homer ... and the Cardinals didn’t punch back.
And so, instead of me saying it feels weird that they won, I’ll instead say — it feels normal that they lost.
