Welcome to The Redbird Review
THE OBVIOUS OPENING COMMENT: Pirates 11, Cardinals 7. The most horrendous and humiliating loss of the season for the increasingly kooky Redbirds. When the Pirates are now beating your arse on a regular basis, you can’t be taken seriously.
ABOUT THE WILD-CARD RACE: Is it really a race? Granted, the Reds aren’t bad. Cincinnati has a bad bullpen, yes, but the team is 70-59, and trending in the right direction — having won five of the last seven games and 19 of the last 29. The Reds have muscled their way — with some glitches — to a two-game lead over the Padres for the NL’s No. 2 wild card. The Padres are spinning in a 2-12 skid and just get swept by the Dodgers. The Phillies have lost 11 of their last 14. The Mets were a factor for a while but their 6-18 August has put their season in a dumpster.
And the Cardinals? Well, since peaking at eight games over .500 (30-22) on May 29, the boys are 34-40. And after a promising (if mostly bogus) 8-1 stretch the Cardinals have lost six of their last nine games.
After getting smacked around by the Pirates — who have won three of the last four vs. STL — your Redbirds are 4 and ½ games beneath the Reds.
The Reds aside, this “race” for the No. 2 wild card is all about a bunch of careening, rambling, stumbling, seriously flawed teams trying to stand up straight for more than 30 seconds while squinting to see a finish line. They should be fined for loitering.
The Cardinals are 24-26 against NL Central opponents and 29-32 on the road. The Cardinals are 10-6 against Pittsburgh this season and 14-20 against the other three teams in the division.
As of Friday morning St. Louis had a 3.9% chance of securing the No. 2 wild-card spot — according to FanGraphs.
SEVEN RUNS SHOULD BE ENOUGH, BUT: After the top of the third, the Cardinals led the Pirates 7-1. In the first three innings the Cardinal lineup was 6 for 14 (.428) with a double, two homers, two walks, no strikeouts — and 2 for 3 with runners in scoring position. Very good, fellas!
Then … splat.
Over the final six innings, the Cards went 1 for 18 (a single) with one walk, a hit batter, and six strikeouts. They did not have a plate appearance with a runner in scoring position. The Pirates are giving up an average of 5.01 runs per game which ranks 14th out of 15 NL teams.
When Edmundo Sosa’s two-run homer extended the STL lead to 7-1, the Cardinals had a win expectancy of 93 percent.
You know the rest.
THE QUESTION: Did manager Mike Shildt wait too long to remove lefty reliever Genesis Cabrera during the Pirates’ eight-run assault in the seventh? Probably, yeah. I say “probably” because this little disaster erupted quickly. But even after accounting for the speed of the game, there was a time to bring RH reliever Daniel Ponce de Leon into the game.
Cabrera entered with two runners on base, and the Pirates attacked him for three singles on Cabrera’s first five pitches. Pitching coach Mike Maddux tried to slow things down by visiting the mound. But on the first pitch after that, Wilmer Defo singled to tie the game, and Gregory Polanco smacked for a go-ahead two-run double (9-7.)
Had the Cardinals heated up reliever Ponce de Leon sooner than they did, perhaps he could have walked on before Cabrera faced Polanco. But if that wasn’t possible, Ponce presumably was ready to go after the Polanco double. And if he wasn’t ready to go, that’s on Shildt for being too slow to warm a reliever and make a move. Down two runs. Still had a chance.
But with Yoshi Tsutsugo up next to pinch hit, Shildt wanted the lefty vs. lefty matchup.
Two problems with this:
1) The LH-batting Tsutsugo has a career .742 OPS vs. lefthanded pitching. And he is much weaker (.639 OPS) against RH pitchers.
2) Cabrera is better against RH batters than LH batters. This season — before Thursday — Cabrera had allowed a .507 OPS to righthanded batters, and a .762 OPS against lefthanded batters. Even before Tsutsugo’s homer, LH batters had a .431 slug vs. Cabrera this season.
I’d have to believe that Pirates manager Derek Shelton was aware of these numbers. If so, he would have been pleased to see Shildt ignore the reverse-platoon split and stay with Cabrera to face Tsutsugo.
NOLAN ARENADO: His two-run homer in the first was nearly predictable. Arenado is a superior hitter on the road this season. Arenado is slugging .433 at Busch Stadium, and .557 on the road. His road OPS (.888) is 159 points higher than his OPS at Busch.
In home games this season Arenado has gone deep every 22 at-bats. In road games he’s gone deep every 15.6 at-bats.
Using the fancy-pants metric — park-and-league adjusted runs created — Arenado is three percent below average offensively at home, and 31 percent above average on the road.
TOMMY EDMAN: Another terrific game, and more damage vs. RH pitchers. I keep coming back with this because I gave considerable display to the topic earlier this season, when Edman struggled terribly to hit righthanders. But this month he’s up to .373 against RH with a .448 OBP and .510 slug. That’s a .958 OPS. What a turnaround. In the first three months Edman batted .241 with weak power and a .597 OPS vs. RHP.
MILES MIKOLAS: Not very good on Thursday night in his second start since escaping the IL. But his first start was good. So … have to wait and see how this goes. Too soon for snap judgments.
EDMUNDO SOSA: Time to update one of my favorite Cards-related stat of the season. Sosa went 2 for 3 against the Pirates, scoring twice and clubbing a two-run homer. In his 52 starts this season Sosa is batting .302 with a .382 OBP, .426 slug and .808 OPS. In 169 at-bats as a starting player Sosa has four homers, five doubles and three triples. Sosa has started games at shortstop, second base and third base.
In his 86 starts this season shortstop Paul DeJong is batting .196 with a .289 OBP and .372 slug for a .660 OPS — that’s 148 points lower than Sosa’s OPS as a starter.
TYLER O’NEILL: Is it time to send out a search party?
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
–Bernie
Bernie invites you to listen to his opinionated sports-talk show on 590-AM The Fan, KFNS. It airs Monday through Thursday from 3-6 p.m. and Friday from 4-6 p.m. You can listen by streaming online or by downloading the “Bernie Show” podcast at 590thefan.com — the 590 app works great and is available in your preferred app store.
The weekly “Seeing Red” podcast with Bernie and Will Leitch is available at 590thefan.com
Follow Bernie on Twitter @miklasz
* All stats used here are sourced from FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, Stathead, Bill James Online, Fielding Bible, Baseball Savant and Brooks Baseball Net unless otherwise noted.
For the last 36 years Bernie Miklasz has entertained, enlightened, and connected with generations of St. Louis sports fans.
While best known for his voice as the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch for 26 years, Bernie has also written for The Athletic, Dallas Morning News and Baltimore News American. A 2023 inductee into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Bernie has hosted radio shows in St. Louis, Dallas, Baltimore and Washington D.C.
Bernie, his wife Kirsten and their cats reside in the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood of St. Louis.
