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Hicks has been chased. Bowman comes in and immediately turns a should-be DP into an error. Another spanking from the cubs. Cards look totally lost. So many holes in this roster that I can’t see them making any short-term moves for this year. Some major re-grouping is in order, and I don’t begin to trust any of the current decision-makers to get it done. More of the same each year it seems, while the ship sinks just a little lower.
LOL an error from our pitching staff. Who would have thunk it? Worst in MLB the last couple of seasons I’d have to guess.
This doesn’t appear to have a happy ending.
After their 3-game sweep of the Cubs in early May, the Cardinals were atop the NL Central at 20-12. Here is each team’s record since then:
Cubs 24-12
Brewers 22-13
Reds 17-19
Pirates 16-19
Cardinals 16-20— Bernie Miklasz (@miklasz) June 17, 2018
Yes were aware we’ve been worse than just about every team in the NL.
It isn’t just the injuries either. Inconsistent play up and down the lineup on offense has plagued the offense all season even when we had a mostly healthy lineup. We can’t get 4-5 guys rolling together all at once it seems all season long.
The bullpen has been a disaster minus a couple of guys. I can make injury excuses all day but when most of these guys on the shelf were pitching they pretty much threw kerosene on the fire.
If people think Paul DeJong is the savior to this lineup then I’ve got bad new for you. He’s a good player but he’s not what this lineup really needs. Another catalyst on offense who can move the needle. Right now I count one and the other is on baby leave.
As of this point in the season, the Cardinals are a WYSIWYG team. We are just below league average in runs scored, and just barely above average in runs allowed.
I think the offense can be better, as too many guys have under-performed. You know your offense is weak when Yadier Molina is placed in the 3rd spot in your batting order, he of a 93 OPS+ so far this season.
Most likely we won’t see a transaction that brings in a significant position player, so that part of our game will depend on guys heating up in the second half.
The pitching culprits are mostly the bullpen characters, which in talking about it I sound like a broken record. There is no stability, and only Norris and Hicks have stepped up to provide relatively dependable results. And both of them have been touched up of late. Like the offense, unless we get 7 or 8 guys to pick up their game and the ‘pen gets in to a rhythm, we are in for more average baseball.
Lastly, we could use a better fifth starter. However, I am okay running Weaver out there every fifth game as he has the looks of a solid starting pitcher at some point. He just needs to gain innings of experience, so we will have to suffer along with the inconsistency for awhile.
Add terrible base stealing, terrible base running, and only really bad defense, along with average-at-best hitting, good-to-very-good starting pitching, and bad relief pitching, and what do you get? This team needs a complete rebuild. I do not think we should criticize Moze for not buying before the trade deadline. This team is not missing just a few parts. Except for Ozuna I think everyone is expendable, including C-Mart, and yes, you should be able to get a lot for him, but I’m getting tired of him. Of course Bernie thinks it’s because you don’t like C-Mart’s hair and that you’re a redneck.
What don’t we need….especially with Yadi getting a little long in the tooth. But with all of the quality starters, both here and in the farm system, you have a real nice foundation to build from. The only positions I feel decent about moving forward, is Bader in center and DeJong at short. I guess maybe Ozuna and his recent hot streak needs to be considered for the future as well. As the trading deadline approaches, I think I would be a duo-dealer….both a buyer and a seller. Young players of Machado’s talents do not become available very often. If you have the trading chips and you can sign him long term, you have to make a run at him. If the cubbies get him for Russell and some farmhands, we can forget about competing with those guys for at least the next 5 years. This Cardinal team presently has no…none….zilch…position players who even remotely resemble a franchise player….and that’s a big problem. So you pay the huge price to reel in Machado and you try to bring a few marginal young players into the system by trading the likes of Gyorko, Pham, Wong and maybe even Carpenter. Who knows, maybe you’ll get lucky and end up finding a diamond in the rough.
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