It’s around 11 a.m. on Saturday morning, and I’m still struggling to process Oli Marmol’s thinking during the Cardinals’ devastating Game 1 loss to the Phillies at Busch Stadium. The first-year manager, so smart and cool-headed during the regular season, entered his...
NOTES ON MY SCORECARD 1) How many arrows does Albert Pujols have left in his quiver? Even the best hitters in the game can come up empty over a short series. That’s the randomness of postseason baseball. But Pujols defied that canon throughout his early–career...
KEYS TO SUCCESS FOR THE CARDINALS Cardinals vs. Phillies. I’m looking forward to this. Who will prevail? I’ll try to go with a simple-is-better approach here. It’s a best-of-three series, and each team’s identity is pretty firm, so there’s no need to venture deep into...
The undertaking of qualifying for the MLB playoffs hasn’t been much of a problem for the St. Louis Cardinals. Since the start of the 2000 campaign, they’re about as good as it gets, making it to the annual postseason tournament 16 times over the last 23 years, second...
THE REDBIRD REVIEW Oli Marmol has been a very good manager for the Cardinals this season. As we’ve written before, the first-year leader has modernized his team’s tactics by dramatically increasing the platoon-split advantages, and displaying creativity with his...
THE REDBIRD REVIEW Paul DeJong was paid $4 million by the Cardinals in 2021. He has a $6 million guaranteed salary for 2022. Next season DeJong’s guaranteed pay jumps to $9 million. So that will be an outlay of $19 million guaranteed dollars by the Cardinals over a...
THE REDBIRD REVIEW Over the past two weeks the Cardinals had the opportunity to show that they belong in the group of elite teams in the National League. They failed, losing nine of 14 games. But you wouldn’t know that by listening to Cards manager Oli Marmol after...
THE REDBIRD REVIEW Give the Cardinals credit for pulling themselves out of a pit to salvage some respect at the end of a savage 11-game stretch against the Phillies and Braves. After getting kicked around to go 1-5 in the first six encounters, the Cardinals showed...
THE REDBIRD REVIEW Through the first 10 games of July the Cardinals are 3-7 and averaging 2.1 runs per game. They’ve been shut out four times in the first 10. They’ve scored more than four runs in only two of the 10. Before winning 4-3 on Sunday the Cardinals had...
