The Cardinals pitching staff isn’t holding up their end of the bargain.
I think back to 2023 when John Mozeliak talked about the need for pitching, pitching, pitching and how this season already is starting to mirror that 2023 season. The offense is humming along and doing its thing, but the pitching is once again underwhelming after it was stabilized as a focal point in the 2024 offseason.
As vanilla as the Lynn and Gibson signings were in that offseason, what they did provide on most occasions was stability, and the ability to stay in ball games on a nightly basis. If only this year’s version of the offense were present last season the St. Louis Cardinals would’ve contended for an NL Central division title.
Let’s start with the starting rotation. The basis and fundamental expectation from a starting pitcher are to give your team length, that’s why you start the game. Of a possible 94 innings pitched, the five starters; Gray, Fedde, Pallante, Mikolas, and Liberatore have provided 49.1 IP through its first 2 turns through the rotation. That means your bullpen has had to cover roughly 45 IP or 4.5 IP per game. Thats a recipe to burn out your bullpen QUICKLY.
Stop me if you expected Matthew Liberatore to be the innings eater of the rotation through the first 10 games of the season leading the team with 12.1 IP. Aside from 1 rough inning per start he’s been really impressive. Same with Sonny Gray; his mistakes are few but impactful so far, but outside of small hiccups with the long ball (that continues to be a concern) he’s registered 15 K’s in 11 IP. That will certainly play in the modern version of baseball. Fedde and Pallante I’m not worried about long term. Their stuff seems to be at the expected level but their fighting through some command and mechanical struggles early in the season.
Then there’s good ol’ Lizard King Miles Mikolas. I’m going to keep this short out of respect for the player and his contributions to the organization over the course of his career. He’s 36, in the final year of his contract, in a season that’s designed to evaluate future talent and try to win simultaneously while doing it. He helps you accomplish neither of those objectives at this current stage of his career. Much like 2023 version of Adam Wainwright —that was more difficult to watch because it’s obvious to everyone except the player that they’re no longer a capable player in this league. I just hope it doesn’t get to a point that’s really ugly before Cardinals management steps in and mercifully puts an end to this situation.
But Jake, you wrote an article about how Miles was being undersold, and he could be more useful than people think? -It’s true and having led the team in Quality Starts a season ago I had no reason to really think he would fall totally off the cliff, but instead, descend down the mountains edge at a slow pace. Miles thought twice about that, said “hold my beer” and he found the nearest edge and flung himself off the edge into the river of wretchedness.
Mikolas is lined up to start against the Philadelphia Phillies this weekend. I don’t have particular faith in that matchup the way I didn’t against a really scary and deep Boston Red Sox lineup. I even wondered if it had been smart to start Liberatore on normal rest on Sunday and kicked Mikolas back to Monday against a much feebler Pirates lineup. Alas, Oli stuck with his veteran, and it turned out the way most probably expected it to.
The bullpen is a more interesting case of the haves and have-nots. Aside from the one blow up that Helsley had in an unusually cold environment in Boston he’s been lights out to start the season, so I’m chocking that one up to the weather. Jojo has looked solid to start the season and the 2-million-dollar man himself, Phil Maton, has been nails so far to start the season as well. Leahy and Matz have pitched valuable bulk innings and have really given you what you would want out of those guys. John King’s profile offers a lot of variability with how reliant he is on groundballs and soft contact that occasionally those hits find holes and it just is what it is.
Ryan Fernandez and Chris Roycroft have the pure stuff to be leverage relievers at the MLB level but they’ve seemingly lost command of their secondary pitches and are actively hurting the team more than they’re helping. Perhaps they would benefit from a ride on the “Memphis shuttle” and go work on some things and give guys like Riley O’Brien and Roddery Munoz a shot to help stabilize things a bit in the middle innings.
The Cardinals offense started out on a historic pace and was one hit shy Monday night of tying the MLB record for most consecutive games with 10 or more hits to start a season. They would’ve matched the 1999 Cleveland Indians (Guardians.) Unfortunately, it’s mostly been a waste because of pitching, pitching, pitching…
-Thanks for reading