How a homestand meant to break the St. Louis Cardinals got a rise out of them

Lost to found? Night and day? Give it a name, the comeback is real.

Every sports fan will ask the same question during a hot streak: Is it real?

Are the players and coaches getting lucky? Is it sustainable? Wins can be golden and deceiving at the same time in a long season. But if you’re watching the St. Louis Cardinals over the past couple weeks, the realism is sinking in. After all, you don’t win 11 out of 13 games by being lucky. Something has changed.

For the Cardinals, it’s the hitting. They can still trust the pitching side of things to do their part, like Sonny Gray performing five scoreless innings after a rain delay that pushed the start time back 2.5 hours, but the bats creating a 4-0 cushion is becoming a regularity. They carved out a 5-0 lead over Baltimore a week ago, and ended up holding on. Gray and a pair of Paul Goldschmidt homers staked them to a nice lead on Sunday night, but they needed all four runs to hold Chicago off.

Jeff Roberson/AP Images

The Goldy Effect

The answer is no, your eyes aren’t going to shit. You did read that a guy named Goldschmidt hit two home runs in a single game to help his team win. The guy hit the ball so hard in the third inning last night, the police could have been waiting for him at home plate. His first blast went 424 feet into Big Mac Land, carrying a rocket-like exit velocity of 110 mph. Home run #2 of the night occurred two innings later, leaving the park screaming into the left field seats right over the wall. 399 feet and 104 mph off the bat.

Unlike his other home runs, these were no doubt smashes, more representative of the Goldschmidt that fans have known for the past five seasons. Suddenly, the OPS is up to .643 and the homer total is at six. He’s batting well over the Mendoza line, and starting to pummel pitches inside again. The same offerings were tying him up or getting past him with ease a couple of weeks ago.

Goldschmidt is slugging .485 in his last 15 games, gathering four of his six home runs during that span. If he keeps that going, the team will keep scoring runs. Getting one of the big horses, the slumping Nolan Arenado being the other one, going was a huge key to the turnaround. Without run production, run prevention doesn’t really mean shit. Now, Goldschmdit steps into a hitter’s sandbox in Cincinnati. Hopefully he keeps it going.

Hello, Mr. King

From the outside looking in, the bullpen still looks sturdy. The finishing squad of Andrew Kittredge, JoJo Romero, and Ryan Helsley are doing their job and blowing heat past heaters. They’re imposing, while arms like Kyle Leahy and Ryan Fernandez clean up dirty work. But the unit needs a fresh shutdown arm who can take some of the pressure (aka big inning jobs) off the finishers. John King is certainly helping.

While Kittredge gave up another crooked homer and Helsley was tagged for another ninth inning run, King pitched a scoreless frame on 11 pitches. In 11.1 innings this month, he’s only allowed two earned runs and got his WHIP down to 0.85. There isn’t a lot of fat on the bone with King’s work at the moment. Maybe he’s a guy who can take one of those late game assignments. If not, the wear and tear on those three finishers will be too evident in June.

Winn equals winning for Cards

While his eight errors are a high total for only late May, Masyn Winn is hitting sharply again. After an impressive start and a slight lull at the onset of this month, his batting average is over .300 and the quality at-bats are increasing. Winn is hitting .400 over the past week of games, igniting run-production that thrives on small and big baseball. The Cards can beat you with homers or stolen bases and key hits right now, a deadly group to go up against.

Winn’s power, like Alec Burleson’s pop, is coming along. What they are for this team are trustworthy .300 hitters who spark rallies and wear down pitchers. Winn and Burleson are those sly, Skip Schumaker in his heyday type hitters that teams need to move the chains in a long season.

It’s always sunny when Sonny pitches

Apologies for the dad humor-inspired riff there, but it’s hard to avoid when thinking about the Gray effect. He has the effect of an ace, someone who steps on the mound and only needs a few runs to get going and shut things down for the opposing team. Two weeks ago, he couldn’t buy four or five runs from his offense.

Now, Gray has been given 5-0 and 4-0 cushions in his last two starts. Give a big game pitcher who is willing to attack the zone on any hitter or count those kinds of runs, and the win probability skyrockets. It’s nice to have that type of arm in the rotation. It was missing last year due to Jack Flaherty finding a ceiling well beneath an ace and Adam Wainwright’s arm finally having enough excellence on its ledger.

Gray can go only five innings and change the outcome of a game.

The homestand that St. Louis just went 7-1 on was meant to break them. The Boston Red Sox, Baltimore Orioles, and Chicago Cubs were a perfect mix of teams to test the Cardinals and determine how much fight was left in them before the white flag needed to be waved. One can say that white flag is back in the drawer, for now at least.

Taking two games against a team in Chicago who is directly ahead of you in the division was as important as the Baltimore sweep. Taking games against your divisional foes is more important than in recent years due to the balanced schedule. Unless you want to sing for your supper in a wildcard series, claiming the division starts and ends with winning series against teams like Chicago, Milwaukee, and Cincinnati.

That’s the beauty of baseball. So many games played, things can shift very quickly. The Cardinals are 25-26, in third place standing close behind the two teams above them. Two weeks ago, they couldn’t climb out of last place and had trouble scoring four runs on most nights. St. Louis has scored four or more runs in their last four games.

Not bad. John Mozeliak’s ass hasn’t been this cool in a year.