Cardinals lose in Pittsburgh and extend losing streak
Everything sucks in Cardinal Nation right now, and I don’t know what else to say, I cannot sugar coat this… The Cardinals are not playing well right now. They’ve lost 4 in a row and 6 of their last 7 games. The only bright note on the season was sweeping the Twins who are now 3-7. The Cardinals now stand at 4-6 and lost the fight for .500 tonight.
The Pirates are half a game behind us now. Leadoff sensation Lars Nootbaar was 0-4 tonight. So was the slumping Willson Contreras. On a brighter note Brendan Donovan had a good night 3-4 with a run scored and an RBI. Alec Burleson was given the cleanup spot because we aren’t doing very well right now, and he went 1-4. Jordan Walker is still trying to find himself and went 0-4. Another bright spot is Thomas Saggese who may just be playing himself into the major leagues, but probably not just yet: he went 2-4 tonight.
The brightest spot of the night was another random backup catcher home run: Pozo’s first major league shot. Michael Siani was 1-3 with a walk, not a bad night for Michael. Masyn Winn is starting to hit a little, maybe that could be seen as a silver lining. He did hit a home run tonight! The Cardinals actually had two included Pozo, and the Pirates only hit one dinger.
But hey, the hitting isn’t the problem this year, actually. Maybe we need a new pitching coach! Liberatore wasn’t horrible but he allowed some damage: 8 hits and 5 earned runs. Roycroft gave up 2 walks and 3 earned runs. You’re usually going to lose when the pitching is giving up big numbers like this, no matter how you slice it. Strangely enough, King is still putting out the fires.
If you want another silver lining: Liberatore pitching 6 and a third innings and struck out 7 batters while walking none of them. But perhaps, the no walks meant more meatballs down the middle. Not good really. But he definitely deserves more shots at the rotation (I mean, he’s already in it, so). Should be interesting to see if they go with a six man rotation still (I’m moreso thinking of the fans desire to DFA Mikolas, though).
McCutchen, Bart, and Kiner-Falefa all had 2 hits and 2 RBI for the Pirates. Leadoff hitter Hayes, and cleanup man Cruz each had an RBI as well. This was a game where the Cardinals didn’t really stand a chance, they weren’t ahead in any inning. There was one point where the Cardinals were down by only 2 runs, but other than that it felt pretty hopeless.
Tune in next at 5:40 CST, same time as was tonight’s game. Don’t forget: it’s super early in this fledgling season. Maybe the pitching just isn’t clicking right now (to say the least). Tomorrow night will be the premier matchup of the series with Sonny Gray taking on Paul Skenes on his home turf. Gray actually has struck out more batters than Skenes, but Skenes has had the better season thus far, quite obviously when viewing there earned runs. Both are deemed 1-0 so one of them may get their first loss of the season.