Cardinals' 2024 start continues a middling decade of St. Louis baseball

We're a long way from that 100+ win 2015 season, aren't we?

AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

It didn’t even take an official losing streak for the St. Louis Cardinals to see their fans do a collective eyeroll over the play of the 2024 roster. This team is the fart in the room that hangs around for a few minutes. They’re the driver who merges onto the highway like your aunt gets ready to go out for dinner, slowly and not so surely.

Two games and a couple ugly losses later, the white flag is being pulled out of the cardboard box quite early. The social media fan groups are waving it around, but that’s on par for them. This team loses 5-4, and so many fans want an apology and thesis statement from Oliver Marmol. Optimism is a less attractive way of saying you’re hopeful, but it may become a drug around St. Louis sooner rather than later.

The Cardinals found a way to start off the 2024 season in an even more embarrassing fashion than last year. The Toronto Blue Jays smacked the Birds in the mouth with a wild 10-9 opening day victory a year ago, but the Cards got up and came back to win that series. The Los Angeles Dodgers have completely dominated St. Louis like an overpriced Triple-A team stepped onto the field at Chavez Ravine against momma’s well-fed boys. There may be $175 million tied up in this team, but it’s not looking like a well-oiled machine that knows what it’s doing; more like a group of Midwest farmers lost in the corn, or looking for Kevin Costner.

Miles Mikolas and Zack Thompson provided the Dodgers with some frequent miles by allowing five home runs all together in the first two games. This is the nightmare that unfolded when Sonny Gray went down with a hamstring injury. Los Angeles fans hadn’t even settled into their seats on Friday when Mookie Betts deposited a Thompson offering into the bullpen. The ball flew, and the thumbs rolled on the Twitter XBox. Bobby Miller struck out 11 Cardinals and a three-run eighth inning wasn’t enough. 6-3, Dodgers. Done and shown on an Apple. They made it look easy.

Lance Lynn getting a scoreless first tonight would be the progress report that the team and lineup need right now, but he didn’t exactly fool hitters in that ballpark towards the end of last year. He takes the ball in a game that doesn’t already feel like the Dodgers are winning, but it kind of does in a sad way. They’re right back in the middle of 2023 suck mode.

The St. Louis Blues are surging up the street at The Enterprise Center, following a first half of the season that most likely took away their playoff hopes. They’re bringing it on very late and it may not be enough. That could be the Cardinals in late July or August, possibly September. Making a push that results in a less-awful record but still carrying the punchless sense of defeat.

That’s just how it feels. I predict 7-10 comments on the thread of this article post to inform me that it’s very early. Yes, there’s 160 games left. Math isn’t as hard as it is for the Cardinals, who think they’re spending a lot of money well when they’re just spending money. How does this team cost $178 million and look like this? The “it’s early” birds should also take notice that the only N.L. Central team St. Louis plays in the first two months of the season are the Brewers. The rest are going to be tough.

Next week, Skip Schumaker’s Miami Marlins come to town. They spend a third of the St. Louis budget and actually look like a team. They poached so many young players from rosters for the likes of Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, and Marcell Ozuna. Before that matchup, the Cards face Mike Shildt’s San Diego Padres. The Arizona Diamondbacks, armed with Jordan Montgomery, will take on the Cardinals as well.

Think about when this began for the team. How long has it been since the team was a surefire playoff threat that could advance deep into October? The answer is 2015, the year they won over 100 games and burnt the pitching staff out doing so. The Chicago Cubs came in and knocked them off, and the play since hasn’t been that inspiring. An exciting run in 2019 that ended in an NLCS sweep, and a couple teases afterwards.

There have been three 90-win seasons mixed into those nine years, and also a miserable 71-win campaign last year. The team can turn it around and have a good year, but the probability isn’t as high as it once was. There was a time when the Cardinals were known as one of the toughest franchises in baseball. Now, the team is a mere poser, and an expensive one at that.

Do the Cardinals have the necessary guns to keep up with the Braves, Dodgers, or Phillies? No. They do have great players, but they don’t have the kind of roster that wins championships or even competes for them. This was known after their offseason, and even before they began adding starters. Fans are acting like this team has been rock solid for a time, when it’s mostly been treading water or becoming forgettable.

It just took Yadier Molina, Albert Pujols, and Adam Wainwright clearing out and a robotic manager in Oliver Marmol to really bring out the aesthetic of a team that used to be great. I don’t think St. Louis can catch the rest of the NL due to the arrogance of John Mozeliak and Bill DeWitt Jr. They had a clear-cut opportunity to add Montgomery or Snell on a short term, team-friendly contract--and instead they balked and did nothing.

All a cynical fan can do is hope that the play remains awful enough that Mozeliak’s seat becomes hot--but that’s a number attached to a dollar sign and not playoff baseball.

Through the first two games, it’s great pitching from Tyler Glasnow and Miller that shut the Cardinals down, while their pitching gets roasted. What they ultimately needed stares them down in the face. A typical situation budding in St. Louis that tells of a change in the air. The Cardinals are still royalty and an institution around the city, but it’s not as strong or fresh as it used to be. Walt Jocketty and Tony La Russa could make something of this team; Mozeliak and Marmol can’t even come close to that precision and execution.

It’s hard to write about the team so early in the season. I would love to rave about Masyn Winn’s 2-hit game Friday and Victor Scott II’s energy, but those pots of food need to marinate longer. A conversation about them wouldn’t be mature enough to mean much. Nolan Gorman had a nice stroke late in the 6-3 loss, but couldn’t come through on Thursday. Short sample size is a real, breathing thing. Real stats and analysis needs time.

What I can tell you is exactly what James Dalton told his bar of bouncers: “It’ll get hard before it gets easy.”

The Cardinals can be struck out, shut down, and serve up homers. It’s the Dodgers doing it, the highest-spending franchise in the game. But the next few weeks of opponents don’t take the boot off the neck, so to speak. Also, the Dodgers aren’t perennial World Series champs. Teams that spend less, and wiser, get to the promised land too.

Before I leave you, let me drop some numbers on you. Since the start of the 2016 season, St. Louis has spent $1,404 million on their rosters according to Baseball Prospectus, eliciting a record of 632-560. They’ve won four playoff games and averaged 3.3 million fans per year during that time. Ruminate on those figures for a little while.

Thanks for reading, and I advise buying more bourbon for the remainder of the season… or road trip.