Bernie’s Redbird Review: Andre Pallante Is Making A Case To Stay In The Cardinals’ Rotation. Plus: Where’s JoJo?

THE REDBIRD REVIEW

The St. Louis front office is said to be working the emails, texts and phone calls in the pursuit of a starting pitcher before time runs out on the July 30 trading deadline.

If president of baseball ops John Mozeliak and staff are successful in adding a starter, what would it mean for the current members of the rotation? The Cardinals won’t be going with six starters – so who gets bounced?

Before you answer that, here are the individual ERAs for Cardinal starters since Andre Pallante was plugged into the rotation on May 29:

+ Andre Pallante: nine starts, 3.42
+ Miles Mikolas: 10 starts, 4.40
+ Sonny Gray: nine starts, 4.45
+ Kyle Gibson: eight starts, 4.57
+ Lance Lynn: eight starts, 5.77

That fine 3.42 Pallante ERA stands out, eh? It looks even better when we see the combined earned-run average of the other four STL starters (4.72) since Pallante joined the band.

Pallante’s ERA is a solid indication of performance quality. I say that because his fielding independent ERA (FIP) over that time, 3.78, is in the same range. The only two St. Louis starters that have posted a superior FIP since May 29 are Gray (2.95) and Gibson (3.59.)

Pallante has averaged 5.25 innings per start, and part of that is manager Oli Marmol’s tendency to pull Pallante sooner than later in games.

But not always, and Pallante’s recent start against the Royals is an example. Marmol stayed with Pallante a little longer in the opener of a July 10 doubleheader to have more bullpen options for the second game. The Royals got to Pallante for three runs in the fifth inning to tie the game and proceeded to a 6-4 victory.

In terms of pitching deeper into starts, is Pallante more fragile than the others?

You be the judge:

ERA, 3rd Time Through The Lineup Since May 29

Pallante, 3.12
Mikolas, 4.50
Gray, 5.68
Gibson, 6.48
Lynn, 7.71

Again, I’m using May 29 because we have to include Pallante’s work to compare it to the others. Among Cardinal starters, only Lynn has averaged fewer innings per start (4.87) than Pallante since May 29.

All of this is very interesting. If the Cardinals can make the move for a starter, a large percentage of observers would say “Pallante” when asked to pick the starter that’s most likely to be displaced from the rotation. And I would have said that, too.

But would it be the correct decision? I’m not so sure. Pallante has pitched well in most of his outings, recording an average-or-better Game Score in six of nine starts. And if anything the right-hander is improving.

The main challenge for Pallante is taking on right-handed batters. They’ve put up eye-opening numbers against Pallante since his MLB debut in 2022. But even though it’s a small sample, the trend is shifting.

— Pallante vs. RH batters in his first five starts: .333 average, .417 onbase percentage, .548 slugging percentage, .965 OPS. And during this stretch there was only a 6.3 percent difference between Pallante’s strikeout rate and walk rate when facing RH hitters.

— Pallante vs. RH batters in his last four starts: .222 average, .263 onbase percentage, .352 slug, .615 OPS. And the difference between his strikeout rate and walk rate against right-handed batters over this time increased to 17.5 percent.

Again: not much of a sample size, but this is all I had to go on when I began looking to see if Pallante has made progress against RH hitters. And he has. During this time of positive change, RH batters have still punished Pallante’s four-seam fastball for a .316 average. But he’s repelled them with his sinker (.200 batting average) and slider (.222 average.)

Pallante’s ground-ball rate vs. RH batsmen has always been high, but he’s been more effective in this area. Over his last four starts, Pallante has churned a 63 percent GB rate against RH bats, and he’s getting a good number of grounders with his four-seam fastball. In the last four starts, hitters have a .182 average on ground balls against Pallante but are 2 for 17 on grounders hit when he uses the sinker or four-seam. And obviously it helps to have a strong infield defense.

In 19 career starts for the Cardinals, Pallante has a 3.72 ERA and 3.90 FIP. He isn’t Chris Carpenter or Adam Wainwright, but he’s done a commendable job when given a starting assignment.

Pallante certainly did his part to lead the Cardinals to a win Monday at Pittsburgh: six innings, three hits, two walks, three strikeouts and a 72.2 percent ground-ball rate. But all the Cards could manage was a solo home run by Nolan Gorman in a 2-1 loss. Pallante is good at working his way out of jams; as a starting pitcher this season opponents have hit .170 with runners in scoring position. And the PIrates were 1 for 8 against him in RISP at-bats Monday.

I don’t know what the Cardinals will do if they come away from the marketplace with a starting pitcher over the next week – but Pallante is doing what he can to make it a more difficult decision. How could the Cardinals justify pulling Pallante from the rotation when he’s pitched so effectively and shown that he belongs? If we get to that point, Mozeliak and Marmol can explain.

But – as the old cliche goes – you can never have too much starting pitching. Injuries happen. Fatigue is a factor. Lance Lynn could go off the rails. Padding the starting-pitching depth makes sense.

It comes down to three questions (1) what starters out there are realistically available; (2) how aggressive will Mozeliak be; (3) what would the Cardinals have to give up in trading for a coveted starter?

ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT: The Brewers lost to the Cubs on Monday, so the Cardinals remained 5.0 games behind the first-place Crew in the NL Central … the Cards hold the No. 2 wild-card spot but are only a half-game above the No. 3 Mets and are a game ahead of the Pirates and Padres and 1 and ½ games up on the Diamondbacks … after losing Monday, the Cardinals are 15-15 this season in games against division rivals. Milwaukee is 6-1 against St. Louis but the Redbirds are 14-9 against the Pirates, Reds and Cubs … Monday’s loss dropped the Cardinals back to .500 (26-26) on the road … the Cards are 36-37 this season when the opponent starts a right-handed pitcher. The Redbirds will face another righty Tuesday night in Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes, the tower of power.

NOT MUCH TO SAY … about Monday’s 2-1 setback at PNC Park. Pittsburgh starter Mitch Keller and relievers Aroldis Chapman and David Bednar held the Cardinals to six singles, two walks and Gorman’s 19th home run. Gorman led off the fifth inning with his homer but after that the Cardinals had two hits (singles) in 17 at-bats and went quietly into the Pittsburgh night.

For me, this was the stat of the game for the offense: The Cardinals were 1 for 11 with four strikeouts when hitting with runners on base. That includes their 0 for 3 with runners in position to score. The top five hitters in the St. Louis lineup combined for two hits (singles) in 18 at-bats. Paul Goldschmidt had two singles, so that deserves a quick thumbs-up.

HANS SOLO WOULD APPROVE: The Cardinals sure do like to fly solo when hitting home runs. They’ve hit 62 solo homers this season … 10 of their last 11 HRs have been solo shots … and 15 of their last 18 bombs have been solos. The Redbirds have only seven three-run homers and one grand slam this season. They’ve hit only one three-run shot since June 22.

LANCE LYNN TO THE MOUND: Best of luck to Lynn, who draws Pittsburgh’s incredible-hulk rookie Paul Skenes in Tuesday’s starting pitching matchup. Skenes faced the Cardinals on June 11 at Busch Stadium, pitching 6 and ⅓ scoreless innings while striking out eight and limiting the home team to four singles and a double.

Lynn’s Statcast profile is troubling:

* Lynn is in the bottom 12 percent of major-league pitchers in total Pitch Run Value.

* All of his pitches are well below the league standard: bottom 32 percent in fastball Run Value, the bottom 13 percent in breaking-ball Run Value, and the bottom 20 percent in offspeed pitch Run Value.

* Lynn has used his four-seam fastball on 46.8 percent of all pitches thrown this season. Problem is, his average four-seam velocity (92 mph) is among the bottom 20 percent of major-league pitchers. Lynn has been fortunate to allow a .394 slugging percentage on the four seam; based on quality of contact the expected slugging percentage is .492.

* Lynn rates among the bottom 10% of pitchers with an opponent barrel rate of 10.2 percent. And the hard-hit rate against him (40.6%) is in the bottom 34 percent.

SCARY SKENES: He’s in the top three percent of MLB pitchers for strikeout rate, and also in the top three percent in total Pitch Run Value. But to go along with his dominant 35 percent strikeout rate, Skenes gets hitters to hit a pitch to the ground on 50 percent of the balls they put in play against him.

And about that famous “splinker” pitch that Skenes uses to make hitters look foolish … they’re batting .157 with a .193 slugging percentage against the splinker this season. The hybrid pitch has the velocity of a hard sinker and the vertical drop a nasty splitter. Throwing 95+ mph with wicked vertical movement? Ridiculous.

The Pirates are 8-3 when Skenes starts. He has a 1.90 ERA in his first 11 major-league starts, and opponents have batted .202 against him. Vulnerability? I don’t know, but opponents have homered four times against his four-seam fastball.

THREE STRIKES, AND … Nolan Gorman’s 37.9 percent strikeout rate is the worst among qualifying MLB hitters this season. Paul Goldschmidt’s 28.7% strikeout rate is the 11th worst in the majors. Goldy and Gorman have a combined total of 256 strikeouts in the team’s first 100 games. The two have accounted for 30 percent of STL’s 845 total strikeouts so far in 2024.

WHERE’S JOJO ROMERO? Marmol went with lefty John King in the eighth inning Monday and King gave up the winning run on a single, wild pitch, and RBI single. King has done a very good job for the Cardinals this season, so I’m not criticizing the move to go to him. That said, I think a lot of Cardinals’ fans are wondering: what happened to JoJo Romero?

Perhaps he’s hurting. Maybe he’s just recuperating from a heavy work schedule early on. I don’t know, and if this is anything related to an injury, only Romero can’t disclose that … or Marmol could talk about an injury problem as long as Romero grants permission. But he hasn’t been the same pitcher.

To keep this simple, I’ll just show the month-by-month strikeout rate for JoJo this season:

= March-April: 30.8 percent
= May: 19.2 percent
= June: 17.1 percent
= July: 5.9 percent

After pitching in in 38 games and covering 37 innings over the first three months, Romero has made five appearances and worked 3 and ⅔ innings in July.

He’s struck out 1 of 17 batters faced this month (5.9%), and 4 of 47 hitters (8.5%) in his last 15 appearances. In his last 18 relief outings, Romero has struck out eight of 64 hitters (12.5%.)

Something ain’t right.

And the Cardinals clearly miss Romero’s strikeout punch. And right now they’re carrying two relievers — Romero and Giovanny Gallegos — that Marmol is reluctant to use. St. Louis has played 26 games since Gallegos was reactivated from the IL on June 21.

During the last 26 games, Romero has faced only eight hitters in high-leverage situations — and Gallegos hasn’t thrown a single pitch in high-lev scenarios. Gallegos has pitched to 32 hitters since returning; all 32 were low-leverage situations. And 75 percent of the hitters encountered by Romero since June 26 have come in low or medium leverage.

Thanks for reading …

–Bernie

A 2023 inductee into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Bernie has provided informed opinions and perspective on St. Louis sports through his columns, radio shows and podcasts since 1985.

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Stats used in my baseball columns are sourced from FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, StatHead, Baseball Savant, Baseball Prospectus, Brooks Baseball Net, and Sports Info Solutions and Cots Contracts unless otherwise noted.