Weekend At Bernie’s: It Was Hot Fun In The Summertime For the Cardinals On Saturday At Busch Stadium.

WEEKEND AT BERNIE’S

The Cardinals played some baseball in the spirit of a Sly and the Family Stone song on Saturday, having some hot fun in the summertime by sweeping the Cubs in a day-night doubleheader.

Them summer days.

Those summer days.

(And yeah, that’s a corny way to begin the column. Overly cute. An outdated cultural reference. I’m showing my age. Sly and the Family Stone? What’s next, the Jimi Hendrix Experience? I couldn’t resist, so I went with it. Now give me another double espresso and I’ll resume typing.)

Here’s the thing: it really was hot fun in the summertime for the Cardinals and their fans. Busch Stadium was a dutch oven. The beer was extra cold. Two terrific wins in entirely different ways.

Game One: the home team scored nine runs in the first inning and romped 11-3. It was so easy the cavorting Cardinals all but showered the Cubs with a Super Soaker squirt gun. The picnic was set up by Masyn Winn, Alec Burleson and starting pitcher Lance Lynn.

Game Two: after being shut down for five consecutive innings – trailing the North Siders by a run (4-3) from the third through the seventh – the Cardinals hit back in the eighth. The decisive blow was the blistering, go-ahead, two-run single by Nolan Arenado. STL’s 5-4 lead was handed off to closer Ryan Helsley, who left a runner on third base to shush the Cubs for his industry-leading 32nd save.

Offensively the first game was taken from their top-two lineup spots by the younger dudes, Winn and Burleson. They combined for five hits in nine at-bats, scored four runs, and clobbered Cubs starter Hayden Wesneski for five RBIs.

In the night game the Cardinals conjured their latest one-run triumph through the timely work from three of their oldest guys. There was a walk by Willson Contreras (age 32), a ground-rule double by Paul Goldschmidt (nearly 37) and the dramatic two-ribbie winner from the 33-year-old Arenado.

“Just to come through for the boys and help us get a win — I feel like I haven’t done that very much this first half, so it felt great,” Arenado told reporters after the late win.

For the Redbirds, the doubleheader coup wiped away the smudge of a three-game losing streak. And for at least one day, the Cardinals put a stop to the Cubs’ plans for a revival.

The Cardinals came into Saturday’s double feature with a three-game losing streak that made them 7-7 since June 27. But after dunking the Cubs, the 50-45 Redbirds moved to within 3 and ½ games of first-place Milwaukee.

This is the closest the Cardinals have been to first place in the NL Central since sitting at a three-game deficit on April 17.

ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT

– In the NL wild card darby, the Cardinals occupy the No. 2 spot, 2 and ½ games behind the No. 1 Braves. The Cardinals are a half-game ahead of the No. 3 Mets and lead the Diamondbacks and Padres by 1 and ½ games. The Pirates lurk three games behind the Cards in the crowded wild-card row.

– St. Louis has the National League’s best record (35-21) since May 12.

– The Cards are 40-31 since April 24 for a .563 winning percentage that ranks third in the NL to the Phillies (.662) and Dodgers (.592) over that time.

– The Cardinals are 18-12 in one-run games. Their .600 winning percentage in one-run decisions is the fifth best in the majors. The Cardinals are also 28-21 (.571) in outcomes settled by two runs or fewer.

– The Cardinals are 6-2 against the Cubs this season going into Sunday’s game. The Cards are 14-7 against the Cubs, Pirates and Reds – and 1-6 vs. the Brewers. But the Cardinals have won 15 of their last 22 games (.682) against NL Central rivals.

POUR SOME ICE-COLD LEMONADE FOR …

1) The St. Louis bullpen. Money men, again. The Cardinals wouldn’t have had a realistic chance to bounce back for a comeback win in the second game without the merciless performance of relievers John King, Andrew Kittredge, JoJo Romero, and Helsley. The four arms combined for five innings of scoreless, two-hit relief.

2) Alec Burleson, who went 3 for 7 in the two-fer with four RBIs and three runs scored. His signature swing was a three-run, opposite-field home run in the first inning of Game One. Since June 2, Burleson leads the NL with 34 RBIs, is third with 11 homers, and ranks eighth in slugging percentage (.559).

3) Winn had four hits in nine at-bats in the two games (.444), driving in three runs and scoring three times. He provided an early 1-0 lead in the second game with a leadoff homer. Winn is batting .300 with a .364 onbase percentage in July.

4) Willson Contreras was 3 for 6 with three walks Saturday. He homered and scored twice in the evening game. Since Contreras returned from the IL on July 2, he has four homers and 11 RBIs in 12 games and is batting .304 with a .448 onbase percentage and .609 slug. Contreras has walked 10 times during this stretch. Since coming back to the lineup, Contreras is fourth in the NL in onbase percentage, sixth in homers and tied for ninth in RBIs.

Among the 40 MLB catchers that have made at least 100 plate appearances at the position this season, Contreras ranks first in onbase percentage (.420), slugging percentage (.533), and OPS (.953). He also has MLB’s top wRC+ at the catcher spot, performing 71 percent above league average offensively. These are catcher-only numbers and do not include the results of plate appearances taken as a DH.

5) Bonus note on Contreras: if we add his DH stats, Contreras has a .273 average, .405 onbase percentage and .517 slug this season. Among major-league hitters that have at least 200 plate appearances, only five have an OBP of .400 or higher with a slugging percentage of .500 or higher. They are: Juan Soto, Aaron Judge, Christian Yelich, Steven Kwan and Willson Contreras.

6) Lance Lynn: the big’un rebounded from his worst start of the campaign to prevent any chance of a Chicago rally in the first game. Lynn pitched six innings, gave up two runs and five hits, and struck out six. The Cardinals have a 6-2 record in Lynn’s last eight starts.

7) Arenado was 3 for 6 in the doubleheader. And he scored three runs to go with his baseball-hero winning single in the night game. He’s had some rough moments in the Cubs series but made up for that with the huge hit that put the Cardinals in the lead late in Saturday’s game.

NOTABLES

+ The STL bullpen ranks fifth in the majors this month with a 2.89 ERA. Since May 12 the bullpen ERA (3.07) ranks fifth. And for the season, St. Louis relievers have produced the seventh-best ERA (3.48).

+ The Cardinals scored 16 runs in sweeping the Cubs, and 13 of those runs were scored in the first two innings. In the first two innings (both games) Redbird hitters were 14 for 26 (.538) with three homers and 12 RBIs. And that includes a .357 average (5 for 14) with runners in scoring position.

+ Kyle Gibson has a 7.50 ERA in his last four starts but the Cardinals went 3-1 in those games. The Cubs got to Gibson for 10 hits, two walks, a homer and four earned runs on Saturday night.

+ Gibson, however, held his ground in two important situations with the Cubs threatening to bust the game open. In the second inning, leading 4-2, the Cubs had two runners on with two outs. But Gibson prevented more damage by getting the dangerous Ian Happ to ground out to end the top half of the inning. In the fourth, with the Cubs leading 4-3, Gibson escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam by getting Christopher Morel to hit into a 6-4-3 double play.

+ In that key top of the fourth, the Cubs had Gibson in trouble from the beginning: men on first and third with no outs, and then bases loaded with one out. And they did not score to extend their 4-3 lead. The Cubs went 0 for 3 with a walk and strikeout when having runners in scoring position against Gibson in the fourth. A big hit by Chicago in that crucial fourth-inning sequence probably would have won the game for the visitors.

“I think the fourth inning would be the inning you’d look back and say we left at least a run out there,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell told reporters. “First and third, nobody out with 3-4-5 and we end up not converting there.”

+ The Cubs were 3 for 14 (.214) with runners in scoring position in the second game.

+ Among MLB hitters that have at least 185 at-bats in two-strike situations this season, Masyn Winn and Cleveland’s Jose Ramirez are tied for the MLB lead with a .281 batting average.

+ As of Sunday morning, Cardinals starting pitchers had a 5.80 ERA in July which ranks 26th overall and 13th among NL teams. Heading into Sunday’s game, St. Louis is 7-5 this month.

+ It’s Miles Mikolas vs. Jameson Taillon today (1:15 p.m.) at Busch Stadium. The sweltering conditions will challenge the pitchers. Taillon has a 2.37 ERA in his last six starts. Mikolas has a 3.88 ERA in his last 11 starts, but much of the damage occurred in one really bad start. Mikolas had a 2.81 ERA in the other 10 starts since May 12.

Thanks for reading and enjoy your Sunday …

–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.