Bernie’s Redbird Review: Runners In Scoring Position. And Not Scoring. Same Old Cardinals.

THE REDBIRD REVIEW

I’ll get warmed up with nine Fungoes …

1. How low can the Cardinals go? And I’m talking about the number of fans who actually are seated at Busch Stadium for home games. There were fewer than 12,000 patrons in the house for Tuesday’s 7-5 loss to the Padres. Good luck to the Cardinals’ excellent marketing staff. They do a good job, but it’s excruciatingly difficult to sell a bad and boring product. Surely this will fire up ownership to make massive changes in the baseball department. Right?

2. Wait a minute. What? This, from the esteemed Derrick Goold in his Tuesday chat with readers on STLtoday:

“All indications are that (John) Mozeliak will finish out his contract and that ownership will welcome him finishing out his contract, and that Mozeliak has — let me type this again — said he wants to create a clear plan where other voices grow in influence and volume over the coming offseason and season. No, the DeWitts are not close to selling, and I’m guessing we’re just going to have to repeat this over and over for the next few months too. Yes, they have access to the same standings you do.”

3. Well, then. If it plays out that way, the fans will rejoice and overwhelm the Cardinals’ ticket operations for season-ticket applications and suite rentals for 2025. Those folks in the ticket department will have to cancel offseason vacation plans to handle the overload of ticket requests.

4. Yeah, that was sarcasm.

5. I’ll get into this epic failure later in the column, but it’s inexcusable to see the Cardinals abandon so many runners on base because of terrible at-bats with runners in scoring position. This is ridiculous.

6. I like the way Victor Scott II is playing ball. His talent is obvious. He wasn’t ready for the majors at the beginning of the season, but the rookie center fielder is clearly moving in the right direction. And he delivers some excitement for a dull, increasingly unwatchable team.

7. The Cardinals dropped the first two games of the four-game set with Mike Shildt and the Padres. But hey, at least the Redbirds will have their best starter, Andre Pallante, pitching the rock on Wednesday.

8. Meanwhile, on the other side of Missouri, the Kansas City Royals have won three straight games at Cleveland and have a chance to make it four in a row over the Guardians with a victory this afternoon. Royals have won 10 of their last 13 games with an offense that’s cranked an average of 5.8 runs and slugged .508 during the stretch. The Royals (75-58) and Guardians (75-58 are tied for first in the AL Central. On June 25 the Royals were in third place in the division and trailed Cleveland by 10 games. At that time, FanGraphs gave the Royals a 4.5 percent shot of winning the division and a 27.3% probability of making the playoffs. And now? KC has the highest probability of winning the division (39%) and a 91.7% chance of making the playoffs.

9. Through Tuesday, former Cardinals infielder Paul DeJong has played in 19 games for the Royals since being acquired from the White Sox. And he’s making an impact, batting .304 with a .375 onbase percentage and .625 slug for a nifty 1.000 OPS. DeJong has homered twice in the series at Cleveland, giving him five home runs and 12 RBIs in 53 at-bats for Kansas City. For the season, DeJong has 23 homers, 17 doubles, 53 RBIs and a .458 slug in his combined stats for the White Sox and Royals.

“I think it’s given me a lot of life to be able to come here every day and compete with these guys,” DeJong recently told MLB.com. “They’ve had their culture all year, they’ve been doing well, but for me to be able to step in and do what I can do and bring something to this team, it just makes coming to the ballpark a lot more fun.”

ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT: After losing two straight to the Padres, the 65-67 Cardinals are now seven games out of the NL’s third wild-card spot that’s held by the Braves. The Cardinals have four teams ahead of them and trail the Giants and Cubs by 1 and ½ games, the Mets by four games and the Braves by seven. There’s been no charge from the Cardinals, who have lost 15 of 24 games in August.

– With only 30 games remaining on the St. Louis schedule, FanGraphs gives the Cards a 0.9 percent chance of making the postseason, and Baseball Prospectus is even lower at 0.6 percent.

– The forecast models used by FanGraphs, Baseball Prospectus and Clay Davenport project a final 80-82 record for the Cardinals.

– Since peaking with a record of 48-42 on July 8, the Cardinals are 17-25 for a .409 winning percentage that ranks 14th among NL teams since July 10. Over this time, only the Marlins (16-25) and White Sox (5-34) have done worse than the Redbirds.

MILES MIKOLAS: STILL THE SAME. Making his first start since turning 36 on Aug. 22, the righthander gave up six hits (including a homer) and four earned runs in 5 and ⅔ innings.

Through 27 starts, Mikolas has a 5.23 ERA that is 58th among 60 innings-qualified MLB starters this season. And his 16.4 percent strikeout rate is the poorest by an innings-qualified big-league starter in 2024.

Since the start of last season, Mikolas has a 4.97 ERA that’s the third worst among regular starters in the majors. Mikolas has a guaranteed contract with the Cardinals that will pay him $18.5 million in 2025.

ST. LOUIS ROTATION UPDATE: Cardinal starting pitchers rank 26th in the majors with a 5.13 ERA since the end of June. The team’s record since the start of July is five games under .500 at 22-27. The rotation ERA is 5.21 through the first 24 games in August.

Here are the pertinent starting-pitcher ERAs since the beginning of July:

• Pallante, 3.33
• Erick Fedde, 4.23
• Miles Mikolas, 5.07
• Sonny Gray, 5.83
• Kyle Gibson, 5.94
• Lance Lynn, 6.27

THE LATEST CHAPTER IN THE POPULAR MYSTERY SERIES, “THE CASE OF THE VANISHING RUNNERS IN SCORING POSITION WHO DON’T SCORE.”

Or something like that.

It was another absurd evening of missed opportunities, lost chances, heartburn, drained confidence and the inability to turn a 5-4 lead into a larger advantage. Accordingly, the Cardinals were toppled by the Padres, 7-5.

With runners on base the Cardinals went 1 for 10 and struck out five times. They abandoned 10 teammates on base. They’ve stranded 18 runners in the last two games.

In two bases-loaded situations the Cardinals were 0 for 3 with two strikeouts.

This has been going on all season, with the Cardinals retching in the batter’s box when presented with a timely chance to rearrange the game with a big hit.

I came with numbers:

+ The Cardinals have the worst batting average in the NL with runners in scoring position at .224. That’s 28th overall.

+ Their 22 home runs with RISP are the fewest in the majors.

+ Their .329 slugging percentage with RISP is the worst in the majors.

+ Their .630 OPS with RISP is last in the majors.

+ They are last in the NL and 26th overall, for RBIs in RISP situations.

+ With the bases loaded, the Cardinals rank last in the NL and 29th overall with a .163 batting average. They’re last in the NL with a .293 slug with the bases jammed. And the Cards have only three doubles and two homers with the bases full.

Now, for some history:

+ Over the last 10 years, beginning in 2015, here’s where the 2024 Cardinals rank in RISP categories on a list of 300 individual-team seasons:

— Batting average, No. 293 of 300
— Slugging: No. 299 of 300
— OPS: No. 298 of 300
— Home runs: No. 274 of 300

+ With the bases loaded over the last 10 seasons, the 2024 Cardinals rank 297th (among 300) in batting average, 293rd in slugging, and 289th in OPS.

OK, WHY ARE THE CARDINALS SO TERRIBLE AT THIS?

First reason: the Cardinals have been doomed by too many RISP failures by notable hitters. Paul Goldschmidt, Nolan Gorman, Willson Contreras, Lars Nootbaar, Matt Carpenter, Victor Scott, and Michael Siani are all batting .210 or less with runners in scoring position in 2024.

Second reason, more on Goldy: among 75 MLB hitters that have at least 120 at-bats with RISP this season, Goldschmidt is dead last with a .167 average and at the smack-dang bottom with a .225 slugging pct. He also has the third-worst strikeout rate among the 75 hitters at 31.2 percent.

Third reason: the Cardinals have three bad characteristics in RISP plate appearances:

– Only five MLB teams have watched more called strikes go by than the Cardinals in RISP situations.

– The Cards swing at too many pitches off the plate with RISP, and when they put the ball in play on non–strikes, they’re hitting .121 with a .131 slug.

– This might be the most damaging RISP flaw of all: when pitchers attack with heart-of-the-plate strikes, the Cardinals are last in the majors in batting average (.259) and slugging percentage (.422.) Even worse, only two teams have taken more called strikes than the Cardinals when pitchers throw a meatball down the middle. Good grief.

OK, that’s a lot of numbers. Too many. But I hope it puts some light on the problems.

LOOSE ENDS

A) Since returning to Triple A Memphis after the Cardinals wasted his time on a one-week call-up, Jordan Walker is 7 for 19 (.368) with a .905 OPS. And in his last 25 games for Memphis, Walker is batting .320 with a .380 OBP and .577 slug. Hey, the Cardinals don’t need no stinkin’ offense.

B) In his last nine games for the Cardinals, Victor Scott is 8 for 25 (.320) with a .393 OBP and .520 slug. Three of his eight hits have gone for extra bases. I hope he keeps it up.

C) Since being sent down to Memphis, Nolan Gorman had a two-hit game that included a home run – but otherwise is 0 for 11 with three strikeouts.

D) Mike Shildt’s Padres are tied with the Diamondbacks for the best record in the majors (26-9) since the All-Star break. This is an excellent road team. San Diego has the NL’s best road record (39-26) on the season and are 15-5 in their last 20 games away from Petco Park.

E) After taking a 5-4 lead over the Padres on Goldschmidt’s two-run homer in the fifth, St. Louis hitters had 3 hits in 16 at-bats the rest of the way.

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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For weekly Cards talk, listen to the “Seeing Red” podcast with Will Leitch and Miklasz. It’s available on Apple, Spotify, or where you get your podcasts. Follow @seeingredpod on X for a direct link.

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