Cardinals return for three-series home stand with time to right the ship running out

At the actual quarter mark of their season, the St. Louis Cardinals had more than enough reason to panic. A weekend series dismantling at the hands of the Milwaukee Brewers left them with 16 wins in their first 40 games, and four innings into Monday night’s eventual win over the Los Angeles Angels, they were trailing 4-0.

A comeback in that game and a solid victory in game two are perhaps enough to buoy spirits and forestall reality for the time being, but good feelings can only be forced for so long. Last season’s team did indeed carry a worse record through 40 games than this season’s – they had 15 wins, one less than this year’s bunch. At the end of game 43, they were 17-26; again, one game worse than season’s mark.

By adding on one win per quarter, the Cardinals could perhaps look forward to a 75-win season, which would be good enough for no one and still push them down a path the franchise has resisted treading for full span of its current ownership. What stands as cause for alarm – as if they wanted any more fires in need of extinguishing – is the lagging performance of the starting pitching in recent weeks. The offseason’s major additions had performed exactly as described, and it was the stalwart pitching which propped up a completely lost offense through the season’s first month. Given the ages and track records of those pitchers, though, it was fair to wonder for how long they’d be blessed with the top end of the performance curve. Lance Lynn’s 2.64 ERA in March and April has jumped to 7.36 in May, his batting average allowed has jumped 50 points, and his OPS against has leaped by nearly 100. Sonny Gray’s 1.16 ERA in four April starts has been followed by a 5.50 mark in three starts in May, correlated largely with a leap in his home run rate. Steven Matz made his last start of the season to date on April 30 with back stiffness that the team knew about and opted to permit him to pitch through, and he’s now set to miss the entire month of May at a minimum as he recuperates. Matthew Liberatore has been shuffled into his spot as a replacement and the gains in results he posted as a reliever this year have seemingly evaporated as he’s been unfairly asked to shift roles mid-stream without the chance to properly build up as a starter.

 

Liberatore is there because Zack Thompson, who made the second start of the season for the Cardinals, is in Triple-A wrestling with his command. Andre Pallante is there too, working to establish a secondary pitch. None of Gordon Graceffo, Adam Kloffenstein, Michael McGreevy or Sem Robberse apparently have sufficient trust from the organization to plug what for now is a temporary hole, and so a full off-season’s work is at risk of crumbling in an eerily similar fashion to a year ago.

All of those struggles are occurring over a backdrop of an offense that’s just barely clicking into gear. Paul Goldschmidt doubled his season home run total on the just-completed road trip, and Iván Herrera and Pedro Pagés have performed well enough since Willson Contreras’s arm-shattering season disruption to keep that part of the offense clicking. Power remains largely elusive for Nolan Arenado, however. And while at bats for Nolan Gorman and Lars Nootbaar are demonstrating better patience and have allowed them to look closer to the foundational hitters they’re meant to be for this team, the results have still come in something closer to a drip. If it’s going to happen for them this season, it needs to happen quickly, and the runway to wait is shrinking. Thursday’s off day might have been a turning point for the franchise had the series against the Angels played out differently. An off day at home and ahead of a long homestand is the sort of date on the calendar which gets circled in cautionary red ink, especially after president of baseball operations John Mozeliak preached accountability rather than patience in his appearance Sunday on KMOX.

Even as the major league season has been unfolding, special assistants to Mozeliak like Chaim Bloom and Joe McEwing have been canvassing the minor leagues, gathering a feel for the system, its players and its coaches. There’s no sign yet that high profile job changes are imminent, but “yet” can dissipate in a hurry. That’s the difference between a 3-4 road trip and one which might have held only one win. The latter would have cranked up a rolling boil and been all but impossible to ignore, and the whistling kettle screams for the fan base for that preached “accountability” – that always means “firing people” – would have been at a fever pitch. Instead, with three home series on deck against the Red Sox, Orioles and Cubs, the temperature remains at a high simmer. It will be easy enough to turn it back up again. Turning it down will require time.