Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - Cardinals Show Intestinal Fortitude To Take The Series Against Arizona

Episode Date: April 25, 2024

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The Cardinals shook up the clubhouse after an awful game on Tuesday and then went out and showed some fight against their old buddy, Jordan Montgomery and the Diamondbacks to take the series. This is 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. Haffron and I'm a National Radio sports anchor born and raised in the Lou in a lifetime Cardinals fan. and I'm your host for Locktown Cardinals, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, covering your team every day.

You can follow me on Twitter, X at JD Sports Radio. You can follow the podcast at L0 underscore Cardinals. We want to thank those of you who make Locktown Cardinals your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get your podcast. You can definitely find us on YouTube. Make sure you stop by, like, subscribe, and comment,

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locked on MLB for a first deposit match up to $100. So I'm a really big movie guy. I love movies. My brain is full of, of useless information about movies and useless quotes. And when I was watching today's game, and I was watching their comfort behind victory, I immediately thought of the Rocky movies,

specifically Rocky Balboa. Because in that movie where there's a scene where he's with his son outside of the restaurant, and he gives a really good speech. and I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with it, where he's talking about how you know, nothing is going to hit harder than life. But it ain't

about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much you can take and keep moving forward because that's how winning is done. And Tuesday night, the Cardinals

got flattened. They got embarrassed. they got humiliated by the Arizona Diamondbacks. And you'd already heard the rumblings from the fan base if you're online at all, which obviously you are, if you're listening to this podcast. You know, people saying things like same stuff as last year. Nothing has changed. They still suck.

And there's the fan side of me that wants to tell, people who talk like that just over and over and over to go shut their pie holes, right? Like you're tired of hearing about it. Try not being so negative about everything that has to do with this ball club. But then there's the other side of me that understands exactly why these people are as mad as they are and are as discouraged about things that have happened over the last few years. I get it. I sympathize with you.

There are some things about this organization that I am very frustrated with. I completely see both sides of this whole case of, you know, being positive or being negative, what you should be doing right now or how you should be feeling at this moment. And one side will say, like during one show that I'm being too negative. And then there's the other side that will say I'm not holding the Cardinals accountable. I can't win no matter what I said. I had a guy in the comments section, yes, on Tuesday's episode, I think it was,

who said I talked too much. On a podcast, said I talk too much. On this podcast, which is a form of communication through speech, I was told I talk too much. I'll never make everyone happy. And I know that. And I get that. And there's no way that the cardinals are ever going to make everybody happy.

And when you get your nuts kicked in, 14 to 1, the negativity is going to soar, which it did. Despite that big win on Monday, which was a lot of fun, right? And it gave us a brief break from the gallons and gallons of haterade that have been dumped on this team last year and this year. And then you get a game like Tuesday. and it just leaves that nasty, dehydrated, white stuff in the corners of your mouth, bad taste on your tongue. And we were all very curious about how this team would respond on Wednesday. And of course, on top of all of this going on,

you've got to face former Cardinal Jordan Montgomery, who I think like 95% of the fan base wanted the Cardinals to try and resign. and it doesn't appear that they did. They tried all that hard. He's one of the top left-handers in baseball. So this was set up for an easy letdown game, you know? Not many people expected them to win. So the Cardinals decided before the game started,

they're going to shake this clubhouse up a little bit. Jordan Walker, been a shell of the guy that we saw last year after he came back from his demotion, which happened in April. last year. He's been optioned down to Memphis to get his swing back, to get his confidence back, to get his swag back. Manager Ali Marmal had this to say about the demotion. It made sense for him to go down and play every single day and get to the point where he feels good about his swing mechanically, pitch selection, and some of the things that he's trying to work on in a high-stakes environment.

And we tend to forget that Jordan is only 21, guys. It's going to be 22 in May. only 21. Like, he's still a kid. And I see people online accusing the Cardinals of, you know, not being able to develop players. They're ruining this guy's career. I don't think that's what they're doing. They're trying to get it back on track where it belongs. They did the same thing last year. And hopefully when he comes back, the results will be better like they were last year. Our girl, Brooke Grimsley, over a 101 ESPN, tweeted out, said it very well. well, he's a big part of this team currently and in the future. So they're doing the safe thing.

They're taking care of the guy and let him go figure things out at a lower level. And when he's ready, you bring him back. Similar situation with Zach Thompson. That's a very good possibility that Thompson could be in your starting rotation next season. And we've seen the good Zach Thompson. We know it exists. We saw it this year against the Phillies. But he's had back-to-bag brutal appearances out of the bullpen.

So he's out. And he wasn't going to be able to pitch this weekend anyway. So they're going to send him down to Memphis. He's going to start down there. And, you know, they'll get whatever is going on with him. They'll try to get him back on track too because he's somebody that the team is going to need this year and, of course, in the future. I mean, hell, if you could do it with.

Goldie, they probably would have done that by now, right? But that's not an option. You can't do that with them. But watching these young guys who are who are supposed to be keys to what you want to accomplish this year and for the next five, six, seven years, watching them fail drastically at the major league level, it's not doing anyone any good. So I like these moves. I like that they are like, look, we recognize there's a problem. The major leagues is not where we're going to get this fixed right now. Let's get you down and get you all straightened out at them. and when you're ready, you come back. Coming back up to the big club,

veteran left-hander John King, who we know pitched very well last year. So we know that he's got some, but he's not going to be a guy that, you know, they're going to bring in in high leverage situations. At least you hope not. That's not a spot that he is put in, like he was earlier this year.

You hope that doesn't happen. In-field or Jose Fermin was raking at AAA, hitting 350, four dingers, 10 ribbies, OPS of 1.108. I don't know how much playing time he's going to get. That's the real question. There's not many spots available on the infield at the moment. But if, you know, if Donnie's going to be playing a lot more left field,

which is, which appears to be the case with what's going on with Walker. It's nice to have another infielder along with Crawford on the bench and he can swing it from the right side. So we'll get into what happened in the game next because the first five innings, man, it wasn't looking so good, was it? And then things, things blossomed for the Cardinals later on. So we'll get into all of that next on Lockdown Cardinals. I've been told I'm a competitive person. And it's true.

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You get the news and it's streaming 24-7 on YouTube or you can watch it on the free Amazon Fire TV channels app. It's part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team, every day. And a reminder, when the Cardinals are at home, you can catch every pitch of the Cardinals hometown broadcast with Sirius XM. Just download the SXM map and search the word Cardinals. So in Wednesday's game, it was early on, it was a lot of same old Cardinals, right? And we all feel that. I can be the most positive guy on the planet and be watching these games through my, you know, red Cardinals colored glasses. and even I, you have to at least point out the obvious that is,

it wasn't looking good early on. There was not a lot of action on the bases for the offense against Jordan Montgomery. Monty was dealing and he was, he was shoving, man. It wasn't good. He was really kind of making us look weak and which has been pretty easy to do so far this season. On the other side, though, Kyle Gibson, the pitching staff of the Cardinals, were doing their job as they have for the most part this season. Kyle Gibson, you know, you got that first inning where things could have really gotten

on a hand easily. Bases loaded, nobody out after a couple of singles and then a hit batter. And I even tweeted it. I'm like, off to a roaring start. Like, you're just waiting at this point for everything to just cave in, right? I get it. I understand. And that's exactly what the Cardinals didn't need, right?

After getting blasted just a few hours beforehand, letting the D-backs like strike early and with a chance to like really crush your soul with a big first inning. Not ideal. Christian Walker hits a sack fly, which was what, like 10 feet for being a grand slam? Like when the ball went and you saw Siani turn around, you're like, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no. And it dies on the warning track. Siani makes the catch. Sack fly runs scores.

So it's one to nothing. And then you've got the evil E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. Urenaio Suarez, who's not an evil person, but he's evil against the Cardinals because he hits them very well. And he steps in and Gibson's able to get the pitcher's best friend. It's that 643 double play, something the Cardinals pitchers and the defense have been quite good at so far this year. And when you compare this year and last year, because those comparisons are flying around right now because of the record the Cardinals currently have, you have to admit that that is

an area that the team has improved dramatically. the defense, which in turn helps the pitching staff be better as well because they had been better. So Gibson escapes with that one run. Then he and Monty kind of go back and forth in a pitcher's duel until the sixth inning, not that Gibson didn't have, you know, people, you know, people on base. It's not like he wasn't in trouble during this game, but, you know, the Diamondbacks, I mean, they had guys on base plenty. Second inning, fourth inning, fifth inning, like, and Gibson had to wiggle out of some

situations, but he did it. Did his job. Kept it at 1 to nothing, gave the Cardinals a chance to come back in this game. Then in the sixth inning, the Cardinals, they finally break through against Monty. You get the one-out single from Donovan, who finished this game with two hits, bumped his average up to 217. Contreras rips a double into the right center field gaps, scalds it at 105.6 off the bat. Look, I don't know the severity of the Wilson Contreras hand injury, the bone bruise thing that's going on, because there's some games where it looks like it's killing them. And then there's other games where it doesn't look like it's bothering him at all. But you got to admit, one tough SOB being out there every day

for this team. I just hope everyone is recognizing what Wilson Contreras is doing. Next stop, you get Nolan Aronado. First pitch, E.C. serves it in the left field. Ties game up at one. Nolan Aronado, now hitting 295 on the air. Just an FYI. First and third one out, Montgomery spikes a change up that goes to the backstop, Willie, scores, and just like that, two to one, Cardinals have a lead. And then in the seventh inning, we get some fun baseball by the Cardinals. This was my favorite play of the entire day. The new bar, it's common.

But this was my favorite play of the entire day because the ending starts all because of Mason wins speed, all right? It's a line shot up the middle. Dback shortstop, Blaze Alexander, great name, by the way, knocks it down. but because he knows that that is Mason Wend, whose hauling balls down the line has great speed. He rushes his throw a little bit, short hops, two-time gold glove winner.

Christian Walker over there at first base. He can't scoop it. Burns got a runner on. Put it in play. Things can happen. Nolan Gorman steps in and the Cardinals do something, which was very reminiscent of, see this jacket I'm wearing?

Whitey ball air. A little of some witty ball shenanigans going on this sitting. put win in motion and Gorman lines one beautifully in the left field and win never breaks stride. Plays in front of them because Gorman served it in the left field, plays right in front of them. He sees what's going on on. Turn second, doesn't slow down even a hint. Pops third base, scores all the way from first. Just beautiful baseball, beautiful baseball, which is something we haven't seen a lot of.

And when was cooking around those bases, guys? When first to home 8.66 seconds per statcast. That's the fastest first to home time by a Cardinals player in the stat cast era, which 2015, I think is when that started. Previous High Harrison Bader did it at 9.05 back in August of 2019. So you'd love to see more of that type of stuff. But the way this team strikes out, I'm not sure how much you're ever going to get of it. But it was awesome to see on Wednesday.

Then in the eighth inning with the bases loaded, you're looking for a little insurance now that the score is three to one. And you're able to get that two run double by Lars Neupar, which scored Nolan Aronado, Paul Goldschmidt. And that was all she wrote. That was all she wrote, man. Cards win this one. It's a big one for them, too, five to one. I'm going to give you my takeaways from Wednesday's game. And why let's hold off on patting each other on the back just yet, just yet, okay?

Let's hold on. We'll talk about it next on Lockstone Cardinals. This Mother's Day gets something thoughtful for Mom on DoorDash. Surprise her from wherever you are with fresh bouquets. You've got the latest tech. You got gift cards. You got self-care treats and a whole lot more to make her day that much better. And you can use the code locked on MLB to get 50% off your next order.

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Green Bay Packers, Pick 25, Cooper DeGine, so I'm rooting for, from Iowa. could use his help in the secondary there. But anyway, back to baseball. Let's get my takeaways up here. Kyle Gibson. Kyle Gibson, you guys. Now, you can say what you want to say about Kyle Gibson.

You can say he's a number four, he's a number five, whatever, whatever. But he was outstanding today. He battled, he fought through a bumpy six innings. Again, it wasn't easy for him today, but he did it. And once again, six innings of work. six innings of work. Remember, we talked about how important that number was when it came to the starters during the offseason, that that's what the Cardinals were targeting. Everybody wanted them to spend money on guys like Blake Snell, who doesn't go six

innings very often. They wanted people who can go six innings. And that's why they targeted Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn and Sunny Gray. But Kyle Gibson is gone six or more in every single start so far this year for the Cardinals. Every single one of them. And he's got quality starts and three out of five of his starts. According to Rob Raines at STL Sportspage.com, he's the first cardinal to do that since Michael Waka and Mike Leak in 2017 to have six innings or more in his first five starts. Mike Leak, man, that was the guy. I thought he was going to work out for the Cardinals. That I was wrong there. Number two. Offense coming to life late with contributions from my favorite part.

It just about everybody. You know, it was a solid team effort. They didn't have to rely on like one three run home run by one guy or anything like that. It was the whole lineup, working counts and taking walks and using their speed and situational hitting. It was great baseball after the fifth inning. Leading up to the fifth inning, anyways, there wasn't much going on there. but after that it was awesome. It was awesome to see.

Goldie, 24 today. Back up to the 200 mark. Way to go. Mendoza line, baby steps. Baby steps. You got RBIs by Lars Newport, Nolan Aronado, Mason win.

Pedro Pah has gotten this one. Had a big it back because he got to walk to load the bases after being brought in as a defensive replacement for Yvonne Herrera, who we all know has had a very tough time throwing runners out this year. And Ali mentioned it in the post game that he wanted to make sure that if someone got on for Arizona late in the game,

that they didn't get an extra 90 feet for free. You know, they had to earn it. And so far, throwing runners out at second base has not been something Yvonne Herrera has been very good at. FYI, Cardo's now out of the seller as the worst hitting team in the National League. Yeah. Raising the roof or doing the blues power play. I don't know what the hell that was. Anyway, the Marlins have that honor now.

Skip Schumacher and Company now, six and 20 on the year. Only the White Sox have a worse winning percentage right now. They're 3 and 21. But Carlos are out of the seller. Moving on up, right? How about this bullpen? Takeaway number three. Legit with a lead so far here in 2024.

The combination of Romero, Kitchard and Housley has been fantastic. Fantastic. Now there are going to be bumps in the row. We saw Housley have an issue at the beginning of the season, but since then, not a thing, right? But there will be bumps in the row, but it'll happen. It happens to every bullpen at some point during the season. But I've got to admit, you got a lot of confidence with those three with the lead

late in games right now. Jojo-R-R-A is down to 1.46. Andrew Ketridge down to 0.90. And then Helsley, 2.08. Kind of nice. Kind of nice. Because you know how it is when you face those teams and you get to the 7th,000. inning and they're up by a run or two and you're like,

we can't hit these guys. They basically got down the final three innings of a game. And so far, I'm not trying to jinx anything, but so far, the Cardinals have some of that mojo going. Also, got to point out, you got to appreciate the fight after Tuesday's just fugly game. Like I mentioned earlier,

they could have rolled over on Wednesday. They could have. They could have let Arizona steamroll them again and then try and regroup during their off day on Thursday. And that's not what happened. They played with energy. They played with purpose. And they played the way that this team was built to play.

Like we can bitch and moan about things that John Moselle does. You can complain and say that Ali isn't a good motivator. You can say those things if you want to. But if the guys aren't hitting, like the guys who are supposed to be really good hitters that everybody in the league recognizes as very good hitters when they're not doing that, hard to win baseball games,

no matter who you are. No matter who's managing, the matter who the general manager is, makes it very, very difficult. And today you saw a glimpse of what the Cardinals can be. Now, before we start getting too excited about it, let's pump the brakes, right? It's a series when?

against the NL champions, first series finale win of the year. It's great. Don't get me wrong. But I need to see more games like this on a consistent basis, right? That's what we're looking for. And that's really the goal of the whole team is to be able to play the way they did on Wednesday, as well as on Monday.

We flush Tuesday. but to have games like that, to be able to win close games like that, on a consistent basis, that's what we're looking for. That's what the whole team's looking for, get the bats going a little bit, get some of these guys, Donnie, Gorman, Goldschmidt, hopefully Walker won't be down in Memphis too long,

we'll get things figured out, he'll come back up, noodle get moving again. We've already got some good things going on with Mason Wynn. Wilson Contreras is hitting. Nato's hitting. Ciani's contributing, not offensively, but defensively. You know, it's a combination of things. So you do that.

You keep getting solid starting pitching, keep pouring in those quality starts. You keep playing at the top level defense that you're doing already. Things are going to work out. They're going to work out. But you've got to be able to do it on a consistent basis, which is something they haven't proven they've been able to do yet. So off day on Thursday.

Then they're in New York against the Mets for this weekend. I know you're going to be upset about this, but Friday night is an Apple TV game. Miles Michael is set to take the bump against Jose Budo. Although spell butt. Anyhow, good win, good vibes on Wednesday. Enjoy the off day on Thursday. We're back at it on Friday.

and I hope that at least taking two or three from Arizona help relax some people a little bit. They still got a long way to go. I know this. They got a losing record. They're still in last place, okay? Let's not be blind to who they really are right now. But hopefully, hopefully things are getting better.

Thank you for making locks on Cardinals your first listen every day. If you have it already, give me a follow. Twitter acts at L.O underscore Cardinals and at JD Sports Radio. Please like and subscribe on YouTube. Help our channel and love for the Cardinals grow. You guys are the best fans in baseball for a reason, and we will see you next time on Locked on Cardinals.