Recapping a highly disappointing end to the St. Louis Cardinals' season
The main culprit: A weak offense. Looking at you, Arenado and Goldschmidt.
What makes baseball unique is its longevity. Spring training, the regular season, trade deadline action, playoff time, and the ensuing offseason front office moves. The sport rarely slows down and thrives on momentum, taking on a relentless energy as the summer develops into the fall. This isn't the sole reason the St. Louis Cardinals are suddenly planning vacations and golf expeditions, but it's in there.
Like every Major League team, the Cards were rushed into the commencement of the 2022 season, following the end of the labor lockdown. A new Collective Bargaining Agreement was hashed out, one that proposed the universal DH and a different (bigger) playoff format. The Cardinals tasted the beauty of one of those things, and felt the bittersweet briskness of the other.
A few days ago, downtown St. Louis was gearing up for a decent playoff run. Monday morning, they are chasing their cold brews with a little of grandpa's cough medicine. That's how quick and painful a season can end for a team, even one with 93 wins and a strong roster. The issue for the Cards were the amount of players on that strong roster not performing.
It'd be easy to sit here and blame Oliver Marmol for the team's demise. Maybe even throw a little shade at Cardinal Nation's favorite voodoo doll, hitting coach Jeff Albert. While Marmol doesn't escape blame for asking Ryan Helsley to get five outs on Friday in Game 1, he doesn't get anything for the remote deadness of Game 2.
Miles Mikolas, Jordan Montgomery, and the bullpen held the game in comfortable control, a 2-0 gap for the top 10 ranked St. Louis offense to conquer. But the bats could only muster seven hits, and only one of them went for extra bases. (Lars Nootbaar grinded pepper at second after a leadoff double in the first.)
Here's the reason the Cardinals lost Game 2: Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado went a combined 0-8 with five strikeouts and eight men left on base.
They had several chances to flip the game on its head. Albert Pujols collected two singles in the #2 hole, but Goldschmidt and Arenado couldn't chase him even past second base. They couldn't move Nootbaar home in the first, or any other hitter in the latter innings.
The two highest-paid players on the team combined to go 1-7 in Game 1 with a strikeout and four left on base. Arenado collected as many errors in the field as he did hits in the series, something that will simmer in his mind for the entire offseason. That cold air you're feeling today spread to the rest of the team as well. Yadier Molina had a single hit. Brendan Donovan, a versatile spark plug during the season, went hitless in seven at-bats.
Sure, throwing blame on Helsley, Giovanny Gallegos, and Andre Pallante in Game 1 is easy. Helsley, who was coming off a jammed finger from Wednesday's finale in Pittsburgh, experienced unusual wildness in his save attempt. A guy with a WHIP of 0.7 (average hits and walks allowed per inning) doesn't walk and hit a guy in the same inning. He may have told Marmol the hand felt fine, but it didn't look right at all. Either that or playoff jitters for the guy who can touch 104 mph at will.
Jose Quintana pitched 5.1 brilliant innings on Friday, stymying the Phillies before being yanked from the game after just 75 pitches. That decision, along with the need to leave Helsley in the game even with game on fire, will stick in Marmol's head all winter most likely. The analytics said to pull Quintana, but the analytics also said batting Pujols against righties for the second half of the season wouldn't work either.
The reason we have managers is to sit next to the sabermetrics, and the two entities keep each other in check and honest. That didn't work out well this October, leaving St. Louis still searching for their first NLCS win since 2014. Yes, they were invited in 2019 against the Washington Nationals, but the team once again couldn't muster any offense even when standing within a few wins of World Series contention.
The culprits from a distance for the playoff collapse: Arenado, Goldschmidt, Donovan, Helsley, and Marmol.
The culprits from a shorter distance: the bats.
You didn't trade for Arenado and Goldschmidt so they could put up shiny, gaudy regular season numbers. You acquired them for a postseason advantage, one they haven't yet given the team. The former Rockies third baseman is 5-33 in the postseason for his career, a stat that must change in the next few seasons. The former Diamondbacks first baseman looked like he was studying Paul DeJong and not the pitcher on the mound.
That's the beginning, middle, and end of it. The offense couldn't take advantage of a Philadelphia team that struggled in their own right over the final weeks of the regular season. A team that didn't carry a strong bullpen allowed three runs in Game 1, but held the fort in Game 2 for the shutout. The Cardinals found themselves without hits, home field advantage, or an ounce of swagger.
Pounding home the half-baked idea that the Phillies wanted it more than the Cardinals doesn't add up. However, St. Louis looked like a team with their backs against the wall already in Game 1, a feeling that arises when little is working. Their staff stalwart in Adam Wainwright didn't have a good September. Their biggest bats went quiet. The bullpen was armed yet unsure about effectiveness. The defense sprung a few unexpected leaks.
That's how the team looked on Friday, searching for a run that they only received from a pair of rookies in Juan Yepez and Nolan Gorman. Those two fine young gents accounted for the team's RBI this series. If that doesn't sum up the emptiness of this Wildcard series, I don't know what does.
The St. Louis Cardinals made it to the promised land, but couldn't do anything once they were there. If the infield isn't playing in during the ninth inning on Friday, Edman may scoop that ball up and start a game-ending double play. Alas, he was playing in and the hard grounder overwhelmed him. Those pockets of "could be" and "maybe if" scenarios can plague the baseball mind all winter.
Wondering why your most deadly bats went silent will be a longer rumination. Thank goodness for Albert Pujols, or the second half of Cardinals baseball may have looked a lot different. It would have been thrilling to see the Cards give Pujols and Molina a longer stint in their final playoff appearances, but fairy tales get expensive in October. You can only ask the old dudes to do so much.
That's all for now. Later this week, I'll dive into the good aspects of the season and the plan for the offseason. Rest easy, understand next year will be here before one can clean out their closet, and get ready for some Blues hockey.
Goldschmidt and Arenado failed when it mattered most. Instead of being guys with great careers who haven’t had much of a shot at the postseason, they are now clearly labeled as Mr. May and Mr. July: players who disappear when the stakes are raised. The good news is that they still have plenty of time in their careers to rectify that.
Game 1 was a disaster and for all the criticism of Marmol, his moves were working perfectly until the second batter of the 9th. Helsley was dominant getting the final two outs of the 8th, then struck out the leadoff batter in the 9th, gave up a bloop hit and then the wheels came off. The big mistakes were infield positioning and for not pulling Helsley after the second walk.
One side note: I like the new wild card format. Yes, this is coming from the guy who hates every recent change that has been made to the game. I still hate the DH and the extra inning rule, though.