Bernie’s Redbird Review: Is It Quitting Time For The Cardinals? We’ll Soon Find Out.

THE REDBIRD REVIEW

Text message from a friend who loves the Cardinals and hates what he’s seeing from them. In a pathetically soft appearance, the Cardinals got swept and had the WKRP kicked out of them in Cincinnati for three straight nights. It was another disgusting turn in a season that has even the most loyal Cards fans seeing red.

“I thought we might see a manager fired today,” my friend wrote on Thursday morning. “The club just bottomed out in Cincy. Talent shortage is one thing, but the collective mood of that club is worse than dreary.”

If this continues there will be dismissals, demotion, and commotion. That’s based on my assumption that chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. still cares about winning and doing what’s necessary to reinvigorate a flat-lining team and restore the pride and and higher standards.

We can spend the next 41 games thinking about what should be done, and when it should be done, and who will be doing it and whether it will be enough to energize disillusioned fans. Every baseball person in the organization should be scrutinized and held accountable. I’m going to table the discussion for now, at least in this space. We will have plenty of time to trade ideas, debate, argue, jump onto X for spontaneous and overly hostile tweet wars …

Final thought on this: I would describe the outlook as something we often see on those big signs posted when a business is closing its doors for good.

EVERYTHING MUST GO!

In losing four in a row, the Cardinals were a sorry-looking bunch. In four savage slapdowns from the Royals and Reds, the Redbirds were out-scored 27-7, and out-homered 11-2. St. Louis pitchers were blistered for a 7.03 ERA.

When the Cardinals and their opponents came to the plate with runners in scoring position over the past four games, the respective numbers were both incredible and comical …

Cardinals with RISP: 5 for 28, .179, no extra-base hits, five singles. And 12 of the 28 at-bats (43%) were terminated by strikeouts. The Cardinals hit .218 overall, struck out 37 times, and stranded 28 mates on base. Do the Cardinals have a batting coach? Do they have a pulse?

Royals-Reds RISP: 13 for 36 (.361) with five home runs included in the pounding of 16 extra-base hits. Overall the two dominant opponents buffeted STL pitchers for a .592 slugging percentage, .942 OPS and 16 extra-base hits.

From a competitive standpoint – and from a St. Louis perspective – these four games were about as uncompetitive as could be. I thought no-compete clauses applied to business contracts – not the effort on a baseball field.

After the final flogging in Cincinnati, which sunk the Cardinals to 60-61, the players said all of the predictable stuff about still being in the postseason race, still believing, still working hard, refusing to give up … hell, go ahead and write your own boring cliches.

These statements were not supported by visual evidence as captured by the Bally Sports Midwest television cameras.

I would say that the Cardinals looked like a team that was packing it in for the season, but I suppose they have an opportunity to alter such opinions by reawakening and rising up to smote the beastly Dodgers, Brewers, Twins, Padres, Yankees and Brewers (again) over the next 19 games. And then they’ll take on a few other barbarians after that.

The Cardinals have the third-toughest remaining schedule among major-league teams. The Rays and the Royals supposedly have tougher schedules. I guess those teams will be playing series against the 1976 Reds, the 1927 Yankees, the 1942 Cardinals, the 1931 Philadelphia Athletics, the 1970 Orioles, and maybe the 1998 Yankees, the 1939 Yankees and the Homestead Grays.

ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT: The Cardinals are 12-19 in their last 31 games for a .387 winning percentage that ranks 28th overall and 14th in the National League … the Redbirds are 10-15 (.400) since the All-Star break, 6-9 (.400) since the trade deadline, and 4-9 (.308) in August … The Cardinals have been outscored 70-42 this month for a grotesque minus 28 run differential.

STANDINGS CHECK, OK, WHATEVER: The Cardinals and Reds trail the first-place Brewers by 8 and ½ games in the NL Central. This is STL’s largest deficit to the Brewers since being nine games out on May 11. The Reds are now even with the Cardinals after being 5 and ½ games behind the Cards on July 9.

Over on the runners-up side of the competition, the Braves are seated in the No. 3 wild-card tram, two games ahead of the Mets, and 4 and ½ above the Giants, Cardinals and Reds.

PLAYOFF ODDS REPORT: Here’s a sampling of today’s forecasts …

+ FanGraphs: Cards have a 2.4% chance of capturing the division, a 2.7% probability of securing a wild-card certificate, and a 5% dream of making the playoffs.

+ Clay Davenport: 2.5% chance of winning the division, a 2.1% shot at winning a wild-card license, and a 4.6% possibility of making it to the postseason tournament.

+ Bally Sports Midwest: the Redbirds have an 87 percent chance of winning the NL Central, a 98% probability of making the playoffs, and a 71% likelihood of winning the 2024 World Series.

CHASING THE WRONG KIND OF HISTORY: If the 2024 Cardinals finish with a losing record, they’d have two consecutive losing years in a full season for the first time since 1958-1959. The St. Louis front office needed to put more talent around the wonderful hitters Stan Musial and Ken Boyer and starting pitchers “Vinegar Bend” Mizell and Sam “Toothpick” Jones. But you can’t blame John Mozeliak.

STARTING PITCHING GOES BOOM: In the last 50 games, Cardinals starting pitchers have a radioactive 5.22 ERA that ranks 25th in the majors over that time.

The starters have 5.36 ERA since the beginning of July.

Halfway through August, the starters have been gouged for a 5.96 ERA that ranks 14th in the NL and 27th overall for the month.

OK, now take a look at these August earned-run averages, and it’s an unpleasant view.

• Sonny Gray, 4.74
• Andre Pallante, 5.23
• Erick Fedde, 5.63
• Kyle Gibson, 6.13
• Miles Mikolas, 10.13

This month, Gray, Gibson and Fedde collectively have been nuked for an astonishing 14 home runs in 52 and ⅔ innings.

At some point, I expect we’ll have some mainstream-media coverage of this serious rupture. No rush. The St. Louis has rotation has been imploding for only six or seven weeks.

I read something in The Athletic about how pitching isn’t the team’s biggest problem. Actually, the writer absolutely had many choices to ponder – putrid offense, the vanishing hitting with runners in scoring position, the failure to throw out base stealers, the front office, ownership, coaches, developing young pitchers, messing up young hitters – so I have empathy for any scribe who must identify the No. 1 problem.

OK, snark time is over for the day …

Thanks (as always) for reading …

–Bernie

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