ST. LOUIS — The root of the Cardinals’ ongoing and consuming doldrums goes deeper than missing pitchers to the misplaced consistency by several pitchers, and the route out of this mess won’t be clear unless the healthy starters expected to carry the innings, do.
For the second time in a week and the second time on this losing streak, Carlos Martinez could not avoid the combustible inning and put the Cardinals behind before they had a chance.
Cleveland scored five runs against Martinez before the end of the third inning and that was plenty for reigning American League Cy Young Award winner Shane Bieber. The righthander encountered one troublesome inning on his way to a win in Cleveland’s 10-1 rout Tuesday night in an interleague game at Busch Stadium. Cleveland added four runs in the ninth to give the score a fitting hue for the welt rising on the Cardinals’ season this June.
The loss was the Cardinals’ sixth consecutive, their longest since 2017 and longest under manager Mike Shildt, and it continued their tumble out of first place and away from it in the NL Central.
They’ve lost five consecutive home games on the same home stand for the first time since two teams from Texas visited Busch Stadium in 2016.
And the struggles go deeper than losses.
While the Cardinals pointed to the fact they made late runs at overtaking Cincinnati in the Reds four-game series this past weekend – and the Cardinals did – they did not overtake anyone. In their previous 54 innings of baseball, a span that stretches to Los Angeles and back, the Cardinals have had the lead at the end of only three of them. That does not include Martinez’s previous start when the Cardinals had a 1-0 lead in the top of the first obliterated by the Dodgers’ 10 runs against Martinez in the bottom of the first.
The toughest way to win is to never play from ahead.
“You play 162 games and you’re going to have ebbs and flows both ways,” Shildt said before the loss. “What’s going on with the ball club? We just haven’t had a way to bring it home. In competitive games. A lot of those games could have gone either way. Didn’t play with the lead. That’s part of it. Weren’t able to get the big hit. Weren’t able to string anything together. Weren’t able to get the lead to bring it home.”
All those same descriptions fit Tuesday. They weren’t able to get the big hit with the bases loaded and a chance to tie the game against Bieber (7-3). They weren’t able to string much together, offering up a few singles here, a few there, and a walk. They weren’t able to get a lead. Most of all they haven’t been able to get the pitching to buy time either.
The Cardinals have 60% of their planned rotation for 2021 on the injured list with Jack Flaherty (oblique), Kwang Hyun Kim (back), and Miles Mikolas (flexor tendon) in the dugout watching. Only Adam Wainwright, Wednesday’s starter and stopper candidate, and Martinez remain, and even with all the openings in the rotation to fill Martinez has loosened his grip on the one the Cardinals need him to keep.
The righthander has allowed 15 runs in his previous 4 2/3 innings. Since throwing eight shutout in his first start of May, Martinez (3-6) has failed to pitch deeper than the sixth inning in any start and he’s seen his ERA bloat with a 9.97 ERA in his previous 21 2/3 innings. That includes the no-hitter he toyed with in Arizona, and since – when the Cardinals have needed stability from him the most because of injuries to Kim and Flaherty – he’s been at his worst for the season. He didn’t finish the first inning in the game started this losing streak, and by the end of the third Tuesday he’d allowed five runs on five hits and a walk. It took him 62 pitches to get through three innings.
Almost as quickly as the Cardinals were behind, the bullpen was again in a bind.
What the Dodgers did in one thunderous, record-setting inning against Martinez last week at Dodger Stadium, Cleveland parceled over a few innings, taking time not making history.
Ahmed Rosario, the starting shortstop part of Cleveland’s return on the Francisco Lindor trade with the Mets, tripled home a run in the first inning and singled ahead of a homer in the third. Each of the times the top of Cleveland’s lineup faced Martinez, it was able to produce at least two runs. In the first, Cesar Hernandez accepted a leadoff walk from Martinez. It was the third consecutive game that the leadoff hitter for the opponent had reached base by a walk, hit batter, or single. Rosario’s triple sent Hernandez home for a 1-0 lead. Rosario scored on a groundout to establish the 2-0 lead Cleveland took into the third inning.
Again, Hernandez led off by reaching base, this time with a single.
Rosario followed with a single.
Jose Ramirez, who finished second for the American League MVP in 2020, drilled the second pitch he saw in the third inning for a three-run homer. His 14th of the season came on a 93.5-mph fastball and traveled an estimated 425 feet into the right-field seats. That widened Cleveland’s lead to 5-0. The most Bieber had allowed in a game this season was four, and only once has the opponent scored as much as five in a game started Bieber.
Martinez sandwiched four strikeouts around two singles after allowing the five runs, and that gave him license to finish four innings.
He might have pitched longer if not for a chance to score runs in the fourth.
A rare opportunity against one of the finer righthanders in the game came with the bases loaded and Martinez’s spot up. Bieber walked a batter, hit a batter, and then rookie Edmundo Sosa dented the righthander’s line with an RBI single. A walk to No. 8 hitter Andrew Knizner and that brought up Martinez’s spot with the bases loaded. The tying run was at the plate – and in came pinch-hitter John Nogowski. The Cardinals’ righthanded bat off the bench fouled a pitch straight back before putting a hard grounder in play that ended the inning, the rally, the threat, and Martinez’s evening.
While the results gave off the same whiff, Martinez’s start offered some contrasts to his dud at Dodger Stadium.
Against LA, he threw more balls (20) than strikes (19) and never got a handle any inning. Against Cleveland, the innings started problematic, peaked, and then he was able to escape them. That was possible because he threw more strikes. Of his 71 pitches, 50 were strikes. He filled the zone, and almost a third of his pitches were called strikes or whiffs. He had six swings-and-misses on changeups – but only threw that pitch 14 times. The pitch he threw most often, the slider, was the pitch that got some of the fewest swings and misses – and flattening as it went, the most balls in play. Likewise, his four-seamer was only missed once and tagged another time for a hit that left the bat at 106.0 mph.
Cardinals once hoped their turnaround could happen as fast.
