Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - Back In The Cellar Again

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

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The St. Louis Cardinals hit an all-time low this season, losing two out of three to the Chicago White Sox. We unleash the fury today on Locked-on Cardinals. You are Locked-on Cardinals, your daily St. Louis Cardinals podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hey, there, Cardinals fans. I'm J.D. Haffordan and I'm a National Radio Sports anchor, born and raised in the Lou, and a Lifetime Cardinals fan, and I'm your host for Locked-on Cardinals, part of the Locktown Podcast Network covering your team every day. You can follow me on Twitter, X at JD Sports Radio in the podcast at L0 underscore Cardinals.

I want to thank those of you who make Locktown Cardinals your first listen every day. We're free and available wherever you get your podcast. You can also find us on YouTube. Make sure you like, subscribe, and comment and hit that notification button. So you know when the new episodes are posted. This is a show, serving Cardle Nation and giving the best fans in baseball. All of the info about the birds on the bat. Game off for just a moment.

talk more about Monopoly Go. This fast-paced game that led you team up with friends for tournaments to unlock awesome prizes like unique stickers for trading, cool playing pieces, and hilarious emojis for taunting your friends. So download Monopoly Go. Now free on Google Play or the App Store. Game on. All right.

Well, that didn't quite go the way we thought it was going to this weekend at Bush Stadium, did it? You know, this was supposed to be a chance for the Cardinals to get things right again. This was supposed to be the weekend that the turnaround, this magical turnaround that the Cardinals needed was going to happen. Yeah, the Lily White Sox in town, just six wins, six little wins coming into town and very little momentum in their corner. It's not like they just won three or four or something. No, they just lost three in a row. So it's not like they were feeling all that great.

Cardinals had just dropped a disappointing series to the Detroit Tigers, but all was it lost? we weren't freaking out. Cardinals had won two series prior to that. This was going to be the series where everything got straightened out. We finally get this offense going in the right direction and to fail as miserably as they did, to look as awful at the plate as they did for most of the series. It's gotten to a point where maybe we're all just wrong and they're actually not a very good team. Like maybe these hitters aren't that good.

Now, I've had plenty of people who have been blowing me up about this saying, we knew they weren't going to be any good. The headings always going to be bad. We knew that they were going to struggle. Good for you, if that's what you thought. Most people, including myself, didn't think the offense was going to be a problem this year. Look at these guys, you know, people will say for the veterans, at least, that when you look at the back of the baseball cards, you hear that phrase all the time,

that by the end of the year, they're going to have the stats that they normally have, right? Just got to get them going. we just got to get them going. Great. When is this going to happen? We are now in May and nothing looks like it's going to get any better. Like point it out to me. Show me where it looks like things are going to turn around. And with all due respect to Brad Keller, Eric Fetty, Garrett Crochet in the White Fox ballpen, the Cardinals were supposed to beat these guys. They were supposed to be able to hit these guys. Almost everyone does. And yet, here we are again on another Monday after another disappointing weekend trying to figure out what the

hell is going on here. I don't have the answers. I wish I did. If I did, I would be passing them along to the players and the coaches and let them know, by the way, here's how you fix everything. You're welcome. I would be doing that. I don't have any answers for you. I mean, how does a lineup with the names that they got in there, Aronado, Goldschmidt, Contreras, Donovan. then you get Dylan Carlson back, but let's not be too hard on him right now after one game. Lars Newpar looks terrible. Is Lars Newpar the most overrated player ever? Like everybody loves him.

Great guy. Is he really that good? Why do we think he's so good? Why did everybody think he was supposed to be so great? I was talking about this with some guys at the bar last night. We went out for Siko de Mayo. And remember when he first came up, everybody was like, oh, the analytics say that he's going to be this really.

good hitter, man. He's awesome. Where, when? It has never happened. And don't give me, you know, the world baseball classic and hitting a lead off for team Japan. So he had a good week or two. I've never seen it at the major league level when Lars Newbar has been that great of a player. He's just average. There's nothing special about him. I just, I'm frustrated, and I know everybody else is too, but how does a lineup that's got all these dudes in it with the resumes they have continue to fail as much as they do at hitting a baseball. I don't know. You hear the comments from players and coaches that it's not a lack of effort. It's not that they aren't trying hard. It's not that they're not watching video or not looking

at scouting reports or not taking extra batting practice. You hear about all of these things that they're doing and you hear about them over and over and over and sooner or later. If you're a good baseball player, that stuff's supposed to click and you're supposed to be fine. But at the end of the day, the results just continue to not be there for this team. And I wonder, maybe they're just not that good. Maybe these guys are just not that good. I mean, outside of Wilson Contreras and Noon R. R. Nata this weekend, did anybody do anything? You know, we were doing that crossover with, with Todd from Locked on White Sox last week. And he was telling me about the changes that Eric Fetty had made and how Garrett Crochet, you know, is like how he's got this mass.

massive upside, which we knew. He was a nice prospect for the White Sox. We knew he had moments where you're like, oh, he can dominate. And he started saying that deep inside, I was like, uh-oh, the Cardinals could lose this series. I didn't want to say that because it's the White Sox, for God's sakes, even if they are throwing two of their best starting pitchers that they have, they've still been the worst team in baseball. And with the Cardinals coming home, I figured they'd be able to at least take two of three. You had your ace on the mounting game. Game one, and Sunny Gray does what Sunny Gray's been doing since he's put on a Cardinals uniform, and that's dominating his opponent. Seven innings of shutout ball, three hits, six strikeouts.

He was awesome. Meanwhile, offensively, the Cardinals, they strike early in that game with two runs in the first, thanks to Nolan Aronado. And they were off and running, and I'm sitting there, and I'm like, all right, here we go. This is what we needed. It's going to be a huge confidence boost for this team. They're all going to start swinging it, right? They'll be able to break out of this funk, whatever the hell is going on with them. This will be yet, right? But that doesn't happen at all. And that's when I started getting worried because after the first inning, they don't score again until the fifth.

And although they win the game three to nothing, which is great. And all you like wins, but the offense was shut down by the white socks outside of Nato, Wilson Contreras, and then Michael Ciani got a hit in that first game. That was it. Nobody else got a hit. And this is against Brad Keller and Jared Schuster. No offense to them. I'm sorry. I'm sure they're great dudes. But come on. You're the St. Louis Cardinals. You're supposed to be lighting people like this up.

Then in game two, you get the one huge inning where they put up five runs, which included the three run jack from Nolan Aronado. But with nothing else, the rest of the way, they got nothing the rest of the way again. And the way the game in it was obviously vomit worthy. extra innings, massive rainstorms coming in, Cardinals at the bases loaded, nobody out and strike out three straight times? You got to be kidding me. I want to talk about the end of that game

because I got to get into some CB Buckner stuff. We got to chat about that and the pain that was games two and three. We'll get into it next on Lockdown Cardinals. I got more to yell about. Are you struggling to close deals? B2B selling is tougher than ever, and that's why I want to tell you about LinkedIn Sales Navigator. LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a sales intelligence platform that helps professionals effectively prospect and engage high value customers.

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be totally negative about everything without throwing a little bit of positivity in there. And that's where Monopoly Go comes because Monopoly Go is a fun game. Not going to let you down. Not going to let you down like the Cardinals offense. No, it's on you. And Monopoly Go, well, it's also on your friends. Monopoly Go, you can team up with your friends. I don't know if you've heard me say this before, but you can't.

You can team up with friends and be a part of those time tournaments where you can work together to build up each other's boards. The more you win together and the more awesome prizes you, You can unlock. And there's a lot of things you can grab. You got unique stickers that you can trade with friends to complete albums for big prizes, cool new playing pieces to travel the boards with hilarious emojis. If you want to taunt your friends, that's cool too.

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So get off the bench and go download it now for free on Google Play or the App Store. Game on. Are you watching Fox Sports or ESPN on your TV all day and have to turn down the volume because of the shouting? Then make that switch to Locked on Sports today. It's a free 24-7 sports streaming channel program for you every day to bring you the biggest stories without all of the screaming. It's got the canness analysis, opinions. It's got news and it's 24-7 on YouTube or the free Amazon Fire TV channels app.

Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Remember, you can catch every pitch of the Cardinals sometime broadcast with SiriusXM. Just download the SXM app and then search the word Cardinals. And again, thank you for making Locked on Cardinals your first list in every day. Leave your angry comments in the comments section on YouTube. Hit me up on Twitter X. I want to hear them. feel free to unleash whatever anger you have that's going on after an abysmal weekend

against the Chicago White Sox. I still can't get over that. That's what they did. They lost two or three to the White Sox. I mean, what? And yes, the CB Buckner call was horrendous. All right, let's get into this real quick. You had the game two.

You have the one inning where they just blow up and then they do dittalipoo the rest of the way, right? And then we get into the extra inning. and you get the rain and it's just a mess. And then we have to delay it at the time. What was it? Basis loaded. Two out already. Two dudes had already struck out.

And here we go. We've got Yvonne Herrera up at the plate. And, you know, CB Buckner makes this god-awful call at the end of the game. Rings Yvon Herrera up is ready to go home. I mean, CB Buckner is a terrible umpire. Let's just be honest. Okay. He's been terrible.

It's not just against the Cardinals or the whites. It's all the time. Like go look at the accuracy ratings. Go look at the voting where they do about Google that. Go worse umpires at MLB baseball. They did a like a voting on it. And CB Buckner is always right up there as the worst. Like he's just not good.

I mean the guy. Okay. So the rain delay happens and he missed. Okay, there was only four pitches thrown after the rain delay when they came back. And he missed two of them. Two of the four. He screwed up half of them. You know, I still don't understand how we have umpires like him still allowed to umpire at the major league level.

I don't understand it. Why can't they be held accountable for their mistakes like everyone else? You know, if their level, like, why isn't it a system where if their level of umpiring is not up to major league standards, which it should be. This is the top in baseball. and if they fall below a certain level with their accuracy, their consistencies, because they have these umpire scorecards, so they know exactly how good and bad these guys are.

If it drops below what is deemed major league worthy, then send their butts down to AAA until they can get their act together, until they become better umpires again, just like we do it with young players. You send them down. That should be something that happens. Like every week, it's C.B. Buckner or Angel Hernandez. or Hunter Wendelstad or Ron Culpa.

It's the same guys over and over and over and over who are just terrible. They're terrible. Like have you ever heard of Alan Porter or Ben May or David Arieta? No? You know why? Because they are good Major League umpires. They do their jobs the right way and they don't cause controversies while the other guys continue to make baseball games into circus acts with their poor decision making and their egos.

It's brutal. And I know it's a union thing with the umpires. That's why people aren't fired. I know that. But when they're affecting the outcomes of games day in and day out by being terrible umpires, like everybody's going to miss calls. Everybody's going to miss plays. But these, the certain grouping is just the pond scum.

of umpires. Now I don't know how these guys are as people. I'm not attacking them as people. I'm just saying as far as their jobs go, they're brutal at it. They're awful. And I don't know how they are still employed, like how they haven't been like, all right, for two weeks, you're going to go back to umpiring school for a little bit and figure this out because a strike show doesn't move. It's what it is. It's not six inches off the plate or six inches higher below. It is what it is. It doesn't move. And if you can't figure out how to call the strikes, they're supposed to be in that little box, then get the hell out of here. That's what it should be. I don't know how you get it done, but something's got to be done. But let me also be clear about this. CB Buckner did not

lose that game for the Cardinals. Okay. He sucks as an umpire, but he didn't lose that game for the Cardinals. It's not his fault. They only got five hits. In all honesty, like I said, Herrera should have wrong up on that third bitch. That was a strike. If you go and look at the box, that was a strike. He called it a ball. And then he called the one that was way out of the zone, a strike. But CB Buckner didn't lose that game for the Cardinals. It just was the exclamation point to failure in that inning to score run at all. Like put it in play. Cardals never should have let it get to that point where he could make, you know, the outcome of this game decided by him. It should never got to that. To not even put.

the ball and play in that situation is ridiculous. It's pathetic. It's embarrassing. You should be embarrassed. And you can blame weather conditions because I know it was wild out there with the rain before the delay started and they brought him back. But guess what? Former Cardinal Jonathan Brebby, he had to throw in that stuff too. He seemed fine. Got it done. Kept getting dry baseballs. He fought through the conditions. The excuses. It's just excuses over and over and over. And they're beginning to fall on a lot of deaf ears. I know a lot of fans. have already been over it. They don't want to hear this crap anymore.

I'm a guy that's usually pretty relaxed about stuff. I'm like, all right, they'll get to it. But this weekend, man, you can't let that happen. You just can't. And I don't want to hear excuses anymore. I'm tired of sticking up for these guys and trying to stay positive for everybody when there's no reason I should be.

Like, show me something that you guys are doing that will lead us to believe you're going to get better at any moment soon. I haven't seen it yet. I thought we were going to see it this weekend. Like if you're playing the Cardinals right now, would you even pitch to Contreras or Aronado? When you know the other seven dudes in the lineup

are probably not going to get a hit? I wouldn't. And then in game three, I mean, just nothing in that one. Garrett Crochet, who again, very talented young pitcher, breeze right through them as if they didn't even have a heartbeat. We're going to get to some, quotes from Ali and the players. I want to get to these next that they're not going to make you feel any all that much better

about this team anyway, but at least you're getting responses from them of how they're dealing with the frustrations and what's going on. And well, you'll hear what they say next. We'll do that on lockdown cardinals. Sorry, I'm flustered. When it comes to your financial future, you think you've done it all. You've saved. You've researched.

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Locked on Sports Today here for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day. Last night, used it. It came out after we went to the bars after the games and I drowned my sorrows and some tequila and margaritas for Cinco. my game home flipped on the locked on national sports 24 seven streaming channel i went straight to it had to fumble through the remote a little bit because i was like okay how do i what do i boom there it was got on my youtube and found it and you can find locked on sports today now available on the free fire tv channels app covering every league they got you covered with all of it you know local

experts of uh locked on plus national shows so it's all there for you so use it's good stuff So what can the Cardinals do to try and get things right again? Where do we go from here, right? Because this wasn't supposed to happen. This wasn't supposed to be the problem this year. Bats. What do we do? What do we get them?

Who do we know that can hit? Because scoring runs wasn't supposed to be something this team struggled with. That was supposed to be the strong suit. They were trying to get back to be a better defensive team and be a better bullpen and be a better pitching staff overall. The hitting was supposed to be fine. And it hasn't been. It's been a huge disappointment.

So what do we do? You know, people are constantly sending me suggestions about, you know, sending people up and down between Memphis and St. Louis. But who are you bringing up that's going to make a huge difference onto the team? You know, and you got to remember, too, it's not like you can send Paul Goldman down, you know, guys that aren't hitting. You're not going to send these guys down. You're not going to send Lars Neupar back to Memphis.

We're not going to do that. Brin Donovan's not going down. You know what I mean? Like, you can't. I've seen people suggest making trades. Like the Padres of Marlins just pulled off for Louisa Rice, which was a shocker. But who are you trading? Like who on the Cardinals right now has value that you're like,

I'm trading them to get offense back that's going to make a difference for this year? Like, who can you get? Who's even available? That's another thing that was shocking about that trade was that, I mean, who's even calling teams right now looking for trades? because who knew Luis Surrides was available? Most teams haven't really punted on the season already. So, you know, that was a surprising move.

But as far as the Cardinals go, which guys on this team do you think actually have value that somebody else would be willing to give up good players in return for it? There's not that many. And the ones that you would think about, they've got no trade clauses. They're not going anywhere. So it's not going to happen.

Like, so just wipe that off your mind or your mind. It's not going to happen. I know you're saying anybody is better than who we got right now. I get it. Trust me, I get it. But it trade is just, it's not likely whatsoever. You know that. I know that.

So let's move on. So the honest answer is the cardinals are just stuck with who they have right now. This current group is just going to have to turn it around. They're just going to have to be better. That's all, that's what we're at. We don't have any choices here. Like it's very limited. Hopefully when Jordan Walker gets his act together,

AAA Memphis, he'll be better when he gets brought back up. But there's really not a lot of guys. I mean, what are you going to bring up Thomas Adjacy to hit over a Gorman, I guess? I mean, you know what I'm saying? Like there's just not a lot of places to move guys around. Now, here's what Ali said about this weekend. Kind of talking about the frustrations of it all. We've had months like this before where it doesn't look very good.

And then we come out of it. We need to come out of it. A day like today, a series like this one. you've got to figure out a way to take this series. We didn't. We didn't even give ourselves opportunities today. When asked about what was the most frustrating thing about the weekend, Ali said it's that I think so many things are looking good as far as how we want to play the game, the style of the game, what the pitching is doing, what the bullpen is doing,

outside of Giovanni Gallegos, obviously he didn't say that. I added that in there. But the offense, this is still Ali here. The offense is struggling. Excuse me. The offense is struggling. And that's an area that we honestly felt pretty good about coming into the season. and some guys are adjusting to their second, third year in the league, and it's been tough on them.

There are no excuses, though. The offense is struggling at the moment. We've got to find a way out of it. And, you know, people want coaches and managers, and they want people fired. And they've been calling for the heads of hitting coach Turner Ward, assistant hitting coach, Brandon Allen, game planning coach, Pachie Alkins. They want all these guys gone. Get them out of here. You know, a new voice needs to be brought in to wake these guys up.

And Ali spoke about that as well, saying, I like the voices we have, man. I can't speak higher of Turner, Allen, Elkins, and what they do in that department. No one's getting a whole lot of sleep right now. I'll tell you that. They're working at it. They're trying to make sure they're not missing anything.

The communication with the players has been really good. It sucks. Bottom line, it just does. So we agree with Holly on all of that stuff. Again, firing your hitting coaching guys, like it's still going to be the same, cardinal ideas of how they want to go about hitting that. Right?

Like it's a system that they use. Like they all buy into it. And that's how they teach them from the lower levels up until they get to the major leagues. Same stuff. So you fire those guys. You're going to bring in somebody that just says the same stuff, right? Because you're not going to bring in somebody who doesn't agree with what the Cardinals are how they want it done.

Because when that happens, you get the Mike Schilt situation where they don't want them around anymore. So firing those guys, I don't even know what good that would do. Brennan Donovan spoke about the frustrations as well, saying this is a very results-oriented game and when you feel good in the cage and your routine is good and you don't get the results, it can be very frustrating. I wish I had a different answer, but we just have to keep doing it. We have to find a way to compete, turn our brains off and say, it's me in the box and that

guy on the mound, and I'm going to find a way to win this on what their approach is. Moving forward, he said, you show up tomorrow and be ready to. to go. That's all you can do, whether it's sports or life. When things aren't going your way, you show up and attack the day. There's no panic. When you get kicked in the face, you've got to show up, and that's what we're going to do. And I know that you got to, at least me, I respect these guys for not panicking because we're all freaking out. I'm freaking out, you're freaking out. We're all freaking out because we feel the same as we did last year where this team and the season is slowly slipping away already.

And to lose two of three to the White Sox, when you're expected to win at least two of three, heck, you should have swept. That's the expectations going into a series against the team like that. And to lose two of three is just awful. And it makes you wonder, if you can't beat them, who can you beat? Who should you be beating if you can't beat the White Sox? They got the Mets in town out. took two of three from them in flushing, New York, 16 and 18 on the year right now are the Mets.

They're fourth place in the NL East. They just got swept by the race down in Tampa, so they're not feeling all that hot about themselves either, which is a good thing. Let's hope that their confidence is very low as well. Let's keep it down there. They got lefty, Sean Minai on the hill tonight against Kyle Gibson. Jose Budo. I think it's Jose, right? I know it's Budo.

And Miles Michael is on Tuesday. former Cardinal, Jose Cantana against Sunny Gray on Wednesday, which should be a pretty good pitching match up there. Manaya, as far as what tonight's game is going to look like, he's been excellent this year. He does not go deep into games because he walks a lot of dudes. So he's only made it past the fifth inning once so far here in 2024. He just walks a ton of guys. So if I'm the Cardinals, enough of this swinging at the first strike you see stuff. I've never agreed with that. I don't understand. There are situations where you do want to jump on a first pitch.

When you've got stats that show you that this guy likes to get ahead in the count by throwing a first pitch fastball right away, that's his thing. I get it sometimes. But they're not hitting it if they are trying to jump on one of these pitchers, like just trying to get a fastball over early in the count. They're not hitting it. So why are we swinging at it still? I want you guys to work counts again. I miss the Brennan Donovan and Lars Neupar, 7, 8, 9 pitch at bats.

That's what made you guys good hitters, not swinging at the first and second pitch that you see. We're tired of hearing the word be patient. At the plate, I do want you to be a little more patient, all right? Until you guys get hitting again, I don't want to see that. I don't want to see them jumping at the first and second pitch anymore. And Sean Manaya is a guy that you've got to let get himself into trouble.

because outside of a really bad game against the Royals where they hit him pretty good, he's been very good outside of the walks. So let him get himself into trouble. Don't press anything. Don't go up there and just hacking away and things right away. Be patient at the plate. You want us to be patient? You'll be patient at the plate.

But it could be another low hit total tonight for the Cardinals. So just be prepared, okay? Have the coffee ready to keep you away so you don't doze off in the middle of their bats. All right. wrapping it up. Thanks for making Locked on Cardinals your first listen every day. If you haven't already, do me a solid. Give me a follow on Twitter, X at L.O. underscore Cardinals at the JD Sports Radio. Please like and subscribe on YouTube to help our channel and our love for the St. Louis Cardinals grow.

Appreciate each and every one of you being a part of today's show and shows in the past and hopefully shows in the future. You're the best fans in baseball for a reason. And I will see you next time. Hopefully a little bit happier on Locked on Cardinals.