Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - CRITICAL STRIKEOUTS: St. Louis Cardinals OFFENSE Falters—Jordan Walker Extends Hitting Streak To 15!
Episode Date: April 21, 2026St. Louis Cardinals’ five-game winning streak ends as clutch hitting goes missing in a tough 5-3 loss to the Miami Marlins. Can Jordan Walker and Masyn Winn spark a bounce back? JD spotlights Walker...’s extended hit streak and the team’s struggles with strikeouts and runners in scoring position, questioning whether undisciplined at-bats are holding the Cardinals’ offense back. Michael McGreevy’s outing and bullpen woes also come under the microscope as the Cardinals look to rebound. The episode examines injuries impacting ex-Cardinals like Brendan Donovan, whose IL stint spoils a long-awaited Busch Stadium homecoming, and Sonny Gray’s latest setback for the Red Sox. JD covers updates on Nolan Arenado’s decline with the Diamondbacks, Ryan Helsley’s dominance in Baltimore, and how the NL Central race is tightening as the Cubs and Reds surge. Can St. Louis capitalize with Dustin May on the mound and reclaim their momentum in Miami? 00:00 Cardinals Offense Struggles 10:06 Three Stars Recap 22:25 Former Cardinals Injuries Update Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms… 🎧 https://lockedonpodcasts.com/podcasts/locked-on-st-louis-cardinals/ Locked On MLB League-Wide: Every Team, Prospects & More 🎧 https://lockedonpodcasts.com/leagues/mlb/ Everydayer Club If you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonstlcardinals.supercast.com/ Follow the show on Twitter/X: @LO_Cardinals Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! 5-Hour ENERGY The funfetti flavor is BACK on https://5hourEnergy.com or Amazon, crack open Confetti Craze 5-hour ENERGY®️ shot today! Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast Gametime Today's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply. FanDuel Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now new customers can bet just five dollars and get two-hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets if your first bet wins. Visit https://FANDUEL.COM to get started — Play Your Game. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) #ForTheLou #stlcards #mlb #lockedoncardinals #stlouiscardinals Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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The St. Louis Cardinals winning streak is snapped at five after the offense comes up short in what was a forgettable loss in Miami.
This is Locked on Cardinals.
You are locked on Cardinals.
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Hey there, Cardals fans. I'm J.D. Haffern and on today's show, quite a few former Cardinals are dealing with some injuries.
One of them is going to ruin some fans' plans for this weekend, unfortunately.
We're going to start with what we saw on Monday,
loss of Monday night in Miami where the Cardinals five-game winning street comes to an abrupt in
at the hands of the fish, the Marlins.
Cardinals had, I wouldn't say a lot of opportunities.
The offense really wasn't clicking on Monday,
but there were some chances to do some damage.
They failed to do so when those opportunities came up.
And it just seemed like they were waiting for that one big hit.
Like we just did one, one big hit in a key spot to really,
get things moving in the right direction again.
And it just never came.
It stayed elusive on Monday.
And ultimately, it led to their demise.
First inning was a perfect example of one of those missed opportunities where the
Cardinals get the first two guys on base.
J.J. Weatherholt gets hit by a pitch again, fifth consecutive game that he's been dinged
by an opposing pitcher, which sets a new franchise record.
Congratulations, J.J. Weatherholt, breaking records, breaking Cardinal records.
already. But he's doing it the hard way. Great to see the OBP continue to climb, but what a painful
way to keep going about getting on base. But he's young. He's healthy. He's good. It's fine.
Like I said, last episode, maybe invest in a little more of that body armor to wear up to the plate
if they're going to continue to pitch you inside the way that they have. But not to be outdone,
Ivan Herrera. He also gets clipped by a pitch in his first event to put him on board. And now you're
staring at first and second. There's nobody out.
You got this kid on the mound of Max Meyer who is seemingly on the ropes already.
Doesn't have a whole lot of control.
Mead of the lineups coming up.
So you expect to do some damage here.
Alec Berluson is your best contact guy.
And although he didn't get a hit, he at least pulled the ball to the first base side.
The upsetting part about his at bat was first pitch is a ball and then he swings.
Like let this guy bury himself.
I've never understood why.
when a guy can't throw strikes and he's hitting people and the ball's not even near the zone,
why are you helping him?
Like make him throw at least two strikes.
Like make him do it.
Make him prove that he can do it.
But Burley gets a little overly aggressive from time to time and pulls the ball over the first base side.
It moves the runners over, which was good.
And it sets up an RBI situation for Jordan Walker, who comes in writing a 14 game hitting streak.
but been very, very susceptible to the strikeouts.
And I'm not trying to be nitpicky here.
It's just an observation as all.
So many times I go into the comment section after a video is posted
and I'm being told like, dude, lighten up.
It's just, you know, oh, no, one strikeout.
You're being too harsh.
You're complaining too much.
These are just observations, all right?
I'm watching the games.
I'm telling you what I'm seeing, what I'm picking up on,
creating conversations.
That's the whole point of this.
I'm not trying to tear dudes down or talk bad about anyone.
I want them all the battle fouls.
It's going to be these perfect baseball machines for us out there.
But that's not realistic.
And for all the good that Jordan Walker has done this year,
if there's an area that still stands out is something that,
yeah, we could improve there.
It's the strikeouts.
It's the strikeouts.
Never stop trying to be better.
And that's the one area where Jordan has had some trouble with.
That's all I'm sorry.
saying and in this situation when you don't need somebody to strike out he does he goes down swinging
and i tweeted out after the particular bat that oh man that looked like old jordan walker hitting
there uh reel it back in bro and the reason i said that was because you know he was chasing and the
reaction to how he he struck out there uh four straight breaking balls low and away slider sweeper
sweeper sweeper and other than the first one none of them were particularly close to the zone and
The reaction from people was like, I was like, you know, oh, heaven forbid he making out.
And I'm like, no, I'm not saying that.
But the pitch that he swung and missed on and had trouble with and that at bad and was chasing was the stuff that gave him all of the troubles the last couple years.
And you don't want to see him fall back into bad habits by chasing breaking pitches, slow and away.
That's all.
That's all.
So that's what I was saying.
I'm not mad at Jordan Walker, you know, I just, and like, I'm, I'm weary that, you know,
because he wants to do so much. And you're, you're playing with that confidence too,
where, you know, you feel like anything you swing at, you're going to, you're going to do
some damage on. And he kind of got himself out in that at bat, in a situation where they didn't
need it. They just needed a ground ball or a fly ball or something just to bring one of the guys in.
So that doesn't happen. Ugly at bat. Now you got two down for Nolan Gorman. And he hardly sees a
strike either. And just one of the five he saw in the zone, he reaches for one, change up away,
harmless grounder back to the pitcher that ends the inning. So two of your big boppers can't get
it past the pitcher in a situation where it's second, third, and less than two outs. So that's something
you want to improve on. And what I saw from Jordan and Gorman were basically undisciplined
bats, you know, over-anxious, which it happens with the young guys. They want to add the ball.
They want to be the hero. But again, when you got a guy who's on.
the mound and he's kind of struggling and he's reeling.
Don't help him out.
Don't help him out.
The worst thing he can do is start swinging a crap when he's not anywhere near the strike
zone.
I didn't like Alec Burleson swinging at the second pitch he saw after what just happened to
JJ and Yvonne.
Obviously, Jordan Walker and Nolan Garman's a batts were not great.
You know, anything in those situations, you want to shrink the zone, make it even smaller.
because he's searching.
So don't help him out.
You can be pickier about what you swing at knowing that he's having a tough time out there.
But alas, it doesn't happen.
Cardle squander, a good opportunity there to put a hurting on Max Meyer early
and kind of set the tone for this game.
Instead, he gets out of it.
Momentum flips back over to Miami.
Meyer makes quick work of the team over the next couple innings.
I was really abusing them with that sweeper.
And again, easy for me to say to lay off these bitches from my couch at home.
Right. There's a reason why Max Meyer was the first round draft. I think he was sixth overall in his class. He's got some wicked stuff. He's got some swing and mess.
Mentioned that at the end of the show yesterday. I'm curious to see how he does because the Cardinals, you know, this guy's got a lot of swing and mess. Okay. And the sweeper was working and the Cardinals were falling for it.
sweeper.
Fourth inning, you got Mason Wink coming up again,
gets the RBI sack fly,
makes it 1-0-0 Cardinals, which is great,
who until this game hadn't lost the game
when they scored first on the season.
So they go up 1-0, and you're thinking,
all right, we're probably set up pretty good.
Urius gets a generous single, generous,
because I feel like it should have been an error,
but he gets a generous single after wins RBI.
It's first and second, two down,
but Thomas and Jacey goes down swinging.
So another opportunity to do more damage doesn't work out.
Sixth inning, it's first and third with one out.
And the Cardinals have another one, push another one across the plate.
Thanks to that wild pitch, had a few of those in this game.
To tie the game up at two, wind goes all the way around to third base.
He looks, he's running well.
You see that later in the game, too, on his triple, how well his legs are working.
So that was nice to see.
It gets all the way around a third base with one out, another prime spot, though,
to bring in another run home.
And they can't get it done.
doesn't work.
Rias goes down looking.
So Jacey grounds out to end the threat.
It wasn't like the Cardinals had like this absorbent amount of different,
you know,
different opportunities.
But the ones that they did have,
they didn't do all that much with.
And they missed out.
But when you're in offense,
and that's what's tough about this Cardinals team this year,
is that when you are an offense that isn't expected to score a lot of runs,
although we've seen them do much better than most people thought,
including myself.
they almost seemingly, though, have to capitalize on every chance to win.
You know, you've heard Ali talk about this.
We've got to find different ways to win.
We've got to be aggressive in these situations.
We've got to take advantage of other team's mistakes because their offense isn't set up to be this juggernaut.
And when you miss out on those, this is what you get.
This is what you get.
So letting a couple of those get away proved to be very costly in this game.
Team finished over six with runners in scoring position.
They struck out 13 times.
That's way too much.
and they left Sixman on.
Once again, it's not a complaint, but put your pitchforks down.
I'm just observing, and that was a game where they were striking out way too much in key situations.
And there was a lot of people doing it.
It wasn't just Jordan or Gorman or Sajie.
It happened to a lot of guys.
So, you know, you're hoping for better discipline to bats coming up in game two on Tuesday.
Not every game is going to go to the boys' way, and this was one of them.
So snap the winning streak at five.
We got our three stars of the game, which they're not really.
stars, just guys that did better because there wasn't a lot of stardom going on in this game.
But the number one guy, he certainly deserves a star. Somebody we just talked about here in this
first segment. So we'll get to that coming up next on Lockdown Cardinals.
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All right, number one start of the game is going to number 18, Jordan Walker, as it should.
Walker, despite that rough first at bat, looked so much better.
And this was the beautiful part of it.
It looked so much better in his second and bat when he laid off that first breaking ball.
They tried to get him to chase again, didn't fall for it.
And then he drives a single up the middle, 112 off the bat on a sweeper to get the rally going in that fourth inning.
He then takes off and swipes second base.
His fourth stole a base in the season and then scoots over to third on a wild pin.
and eventually scores on the Mason Winsack fly.
Stolen base number four, Jordan, if he keeps this up,
and we hope he does because the speed is real.
Hopefully the power remains.
It's been a little bit since he got a hold of one,
but hopefully that remains.
He's on pace for like a 30-30 season.
Like, when's the last time we had a Cardinal to do that?
Ray Langford, is that how long it's been?
I don't, honestly, I don't know.
I didn't even look it up.
But it's something that hasn't happened a whole lot.
And Jordan Walker's doing it.
And when he's getting on base, he's causing some havoc.
Like he's stealing bases.
He's moving around.
He takes a walk in that third at bat in the sixth inning.
They attacked him with changeups and sweepers.
And again, great job by Jordan Walker here.
He wasn't biting.
He was like, nah, nah, you got to bring it up.
Bring me the heat, bring it up, or I'm not swinging.
And that walk once again gets a rally going for the birds,
which had Walker scoring the tying run on a wild pitch to make it two to two at this point.
His fourth and final at bat, not so good.
He went back to the, they went back to the sweepers away to attack him.
And they got Jordan fishing again, probably a little overanxious, probably a little too aggressive.
And he started chasing again.
So first and last at bats, not so good.
The middle guys, though, beautiful stuff from Jordan Walker.
Because that last one, he wasn't even close to, I mean, the pitches weren't even close to being strikes.
And he was chasing him anyway.
But in the game, he scores two runs.
He extends the hit streak to 15, which is the second longest of his career at a 17 game
hitting streak back in 2023. During this hitting streak, he's batting 339 with seven dingers,
13 rivers, rivers, ribees. But he also struck out 23 times, which like I mentioned earlier,
you know, that's an observation. If there's one thing that you'd like to see him work on and
cut down a little bit is the strikeouts. But as we've said before, if you're going to produce
in the in the bats that you do put the ball in play, you're a little more lenient when it comes to
the strikeouts. But again, if there's a place he can improve on, that's it. He also got to run
down at third base to get his third outfield assist of the season, which I believe is tied for
the most in Major League Baseball right now. Don't quote me on that, but I thought I read that somewhere
that maybe that's the number one amount. So he's got a cannon in the outfield. He's making the
smart throws. He's playing defense better. I know he didn't look great on that one triple from
Taylor Tremel in Houston. But overall, you've got to
to be extremely pleased with what you've seen from Jordan Walker so far in 2026, both offensively,
defensively, and what he's doing on the base pass. He's been fantastic. Second start of the game
goes to Mason win. Two for three had that sack flight RBI. The triple in the ninth inning,
as I mentioned, looks like his legs look healthy. Like he's scooting around there pretty darn good.
I was very impressed with the way he's moving like on that one wild pitch where he went from
first to third and then, you know, on the triple, I like it, considering all of the different things
that have, you know, dinged him up so far this year, it's all been lower body stuff to see him
running the way he is, is very encouraging. Got his average up to 242 now, like out of nowhere.
Out of nowhere. The guy was hitting under 200 when he went into that series against Houston.
And now he's third on the team and batting average during this seven game hitting streak.
So kudos to you, Mason, win. And glad to see him joining the, the, the, the,
offensive brigade that the Cardinals trek out there each and every night. It was nice to see.
Third star, it's not really a star, okay? This is more of, I just want to talk about the pitching
because we got to. Michael McGreevy, and this is my opinion, maybe you don't agree with it,
but Michael McGreevy, I thought wasn't that bad. All right, he was really good early on in this
game, obviously, retired the first 10 hitters. Nobody can argue with that. It was breezing.
and through until that fourth inning when a one-out walk occurred.
And then he gets the two-out RBI doubled the left field off of him that ties the game up at
one.
I'm not exactly sure what was going on with Thomas Adjacy on that particular play.
Because when you saw it, you were like, why is he so shallow?
And it was a long run for him.
He wasn't even close to catching it.
I don't know why he was as shallow as he was against Xavier Edwards at that point.
but I mean, he's probably not catching that ball anyways, but still, that was really awkward.
Look, it looked like he was when they panned out there, there was like, wait a second,
why is Thomas and J.C. at shortstop? Like, he was, he was closer to Mason win than he was to
the warning track when that play started for whatever reason. Maybe their scouting said that
he likes to dunk bloopers in that direction on certain types of pitches. I don't know.
Either way, it was an RBI double. I don't think he was going to catch that ball anyway,
but at the same point, it was just kind of awkward looking that he was at shallow.
Gives up the one home run to Ramirez, just caught too much of the plate on a breaking ball.
It was low in the zone.
It wasn't like he left it up, but it was center cut.
It was right there.
And it got smoked, which does happen.
Ramirez put a good swing on it.
And then in that ill-fated sixth inning starts off by piping a cutter that gets hit for a single.
So, you know, in this location there, Otto Lopez actually hits a tough pitch.
and the next hit bat, it was a sinker up and end,
and he somehow pulls his hands inside
and yanks it into the corner for an RBI double.
I don't really blame Michael McGruevy on that pitch whatsoever.
That was just a good piece of hitting by Otto Lopez,
not an easy pitch to hit, and he somehow kept it fair.
I was like, what?
How did he just do that?
Then you get Liam Hicks, who burns him on a pitch away
while Mason Wynn was playing up the middle.
And Hicks being the left-handed batter,
and I would assume they were trying to pitch it more inside there because that's where the defense was set up on a bit of a shift there.
And instead it went outside, outside corner.
And Hicks just took it that way and put it right in the spot where Mason Winn would normally be playing.
If he was playing straight away at that point, that's a routine ground ball.
But Hicks finds the hole to make it four to two.
And I just, there wasn't anything where I was like, gosh, McGreevy, you're killing me here.
I never felt that way.
I really didn't think McGreevy pitched that badly.
He goes five and two thirds.
They try to get him through six innings, four runs, five hits, two walks, three Ks.
I'm sure he'd like to have a couple of those pitches back where he missed some spots.
But when you're a pitch to contact guy, things like this are going to happen.
Sometimes the balls are going to find holes, and especially on turf in an indoor area.
So I think it's turf there, isn't it?
But that's just the way it is.
That's the way it is.
It was good to see Matt Fonson work out of trouble in his inning.
He did get the last out in the sixth inning.
got a little bit of defensive help in that one.
When Jose Fermin, who was in center field,
buddy looked like a seasoned veteran on that one, didn't he?
Like, he was, whoof, took off and tracked it down.
Great line to get to the ball, to get to what was a line shot off the bat of Pauly.
That was not an easy catch.
And for me, made it look somewhat easy.
So impressed there that he was able to cover that much ground in center field.
And then Svanson loses command.
walks a couple guys at a wild pitch before he got to pop out.
But again, you're trying to rebuild these guys when we're talking about Svonson
and you're talking about Stannick and guys who have had a really tough time out of this
bullpen so far.
And people are like, why did they keep going to these guys?
They're terrible.
You have to.
You've got to use everybody at some point.
You can't just use the same people over and over and over.
It just isn't going to work.
Those people's arms are going to fall off.
So these guys got to figure it out.
Matt Svonson was a big part of the bullpen plans this year.
And for him to come out of the gate struggling the way he has was not a part of the plan.
He was supposed to be a lot better than this and they got to get him right.
They have to.
So he's going to get more opportunities.
And to see him, I believe this is back-to-back games where he's worked out of some situations.
And that's good.
That's probably really good for his mental side.
And hopefully they're figuring out what he's doing with his mechanics where he loses control just randomly.
But it's something they got to get right because they're going to.
going to need him. Same thing with Ryan Fernandez. I saw people like, why is he up on this roster?
Because they need arms. You've got to have somebody up there. Remember, it was Chris Roycroft before him.
Somebody's got to take on these roles and be those last couple arms in the bullpen that aren't around for high leverage situations.
Fernandez got himself in hot water again. And he was pitching good at Memphis. So they were like,
all right, let's see if he can do it. So far, not the best results of the major since he's been back.
But he was in hot water again when walks became the problem. Walks the first two guys,
he sees, couldn't escape without giving up that fifth insurance run on another RBI single by
Liam Hicks, who now is 21 RBIs on the season. He had 45 all of last year, and he's almost
halfway there here in the month of April. So Liam Hicks, not somebody that you won up in a situation
where there's runners in scoring position because for whatever reason this year, he's coming through.
Cardinals lose the game five to three. They miss some chances. Marlins found the holes. I'm not
overly worked up about this loss, it's going to happen.
But you hate to lose to teams that, at least at this point in the season, seem beneath
you, right?
Like when you put these teams together, you kind of feel like the Cardinals who were playing
really, really well are a better team than the Marlins at this point.
So you hate to have that happen.
You weren't playing all the, you know, then the Marlins weren't playing all that while
coming into the series.
So it's a bummer.
It's a bummer.
But you got to pick yourself up and try again today on Tuesday.
Dustin May is on the mound against the veteran Chris Paddock.
First pitch will be at 540 St. Louis time.
Up next, we're going to check in on some of our former cardinals who are dealing with some injuries, guys,
and one of them is ruining what would have been a really cool homecoming for Brennan Donovan this weekend.
We'll talk about it next.
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Now we never root for injuries here at Locktown Cardinals, even our exes, even the guys that, you know,
we're not big fans of, you know, like any of the Cubs,
without rooting for injuries, right?
We want to beat those guys fair and square.
And we also don't want to see guys that used to wear the birds on the bat,
dealing with injuries in other places.
Like, that makes us sad.
We don't like that.
And the Cardinals made, as you know, a number of offseason moves,
and they got rid of some veteran talent.
And when they traded these guys away,
one of the things was, is like, look,
you don't fit what we are right now,
which is a younger team.
team and that's the direction we're going into.
We're growing.
We're not on the downside anymore.
So they shipped out all these guys who were the veteran dudes.
But you know, you knew that they were older.
A few of them were quite older.
So the possibility of injuries for these guys pretty strong.
And we are seeing the injury bug bite.
A few of them all rally this already this season.
Now the one that's going to upset everybody is the one to Brendan Donovan.
And this injury is.
it's a bummer because you don't want to see Donnie hurt,
but at the same time,
he was coming to town this weekend.
The Mariners are going to be at Bush.
And the beloved former Cardinal got placed on the 10-day IEL.
It's got a left growing muscle strain,
which is retroactive to April 18th,
got removed from Friday's game due to what was deemed a left hip issue.
It didn't play on Saturday or Sunday,
had previously dealt with a right growing issue earlier this season.
And Donovan believes that it was possible
that his earlier growing this comfort may have been related to the sports hernia surgery that he
underwent back in October. You guys remember us talking about that. So it really just couldn't be
worse timing for the Cardinals fans who were hoping to see him at Bush this weekend when Seattle comes
to town. I think we were all looking forward to the standing ovation that Donnie was going to get when
he took that first at bat. He's been batting lead off for the Mariners. So it would have been the first battered of the game.
And now that's gone. So that stinks. Donnie on the season, doing Donnie things.
He's in 304. He's got an OPS plus of 180.
Wouldn't expect anything less, but the injuries have popped up on him.
And that's a bummer.
Sunny Gray got the start on what is Marathon Monday in Boston,
but got removed from this game early on.
Two and two-thirds innings due to right hamstring tightness.
If you remember his time with the Cardinals,
had hamstring issues, particularly in 2024,
that, you know, Gray has dealt with for a number of years.
He's set to go, undergo an MRI today to determine the severity.
but according to reports, the Red Sox are going to place him on the 15-day IEL is 36 years old.
So they want to give him time to heal.
He's two and one's got a 4.43 ERA and four starts with Boston.
But the one number that is really shockingly different than from what his time was with the Cardinals is his strikeouts per nine.
He's not striking out hardly anybody.
He's averaging 4.9 per nine this year, which is way low.
Like he is two years with the Cardinals.
He was at 11 and 10.
and he's down to 4.9 this year with Boston.
So not striking out nearly as many hitters as he was while he was wearing a St. Louis uniform.
Phil Maeton, who is with the Cubs now, he's been down with an knee issue for quite a while now.
So he's still working his way back late, but he's still out since pummeling the Cardinals.
Sonny's teammate Wilson Contreras, healthy, but he's cooled off quite a bit,
hitting just 200 with one RBI in his last five games.
Stephen Matt's is still undefeated.
Three and O in four starts for the Tampa Bay Rays.
Nolan Aronado hitting just 205 at this point of the season.
He's got three home runs and 11 RBIs had a two home run game recently.
But his OPS plus, 53, 53 for Nolan Arnato.
Now the Diamondbacks are still winning.
They're having a good season, but Nolan Aronado's offense continues to decline drastically.
also defensively, he's at zero.
Defensive runs saved and minus one and outs above average.
So that's something that we didn't see much of a decline in when he was with the Cardinals.
But so far, you're seeing that, you're seeing him decline everywhere.
Big time at the plate, a little bit on the defensive side.
So, you know, that's what happens when you get older.
Ryan Helsley doing quite well with Baltimore.
How about this?
Ryan Helsley hasn't been scored upon in his last six appearances, 1.93 ERA with six saves and an ERA plus of 226 on the season.
So good stuff there for Ryan Helsley.
The Cubs re-signed out the other Dylan Carlson to a minor league contract after he got designated for assignment and elected free agency last week.
And the Diamondbacks sent first baseman Lucan Baker outright to AAA Reno after he was DFA'd when they welcomed back Lordus Correel Jr.
from the IL on Saturday.
So that's really all the transactions and issues that are going on with former Cardinals.
None of them, you know, Willie's doing fine.
Matt's obviously doing good.
Halsley's having a really good year for Baltimore.
But some of the other guys, you know, the injuries and just age catching up with people.
You know, Central-wise, the Reds went again in Tampa Bay on Monday night.
They're now 15 and 8 on the year.
Winners of four in a row.
So Stewart continues his.
Offensive on slot.
It is eighth home run of the year.
I have no idea why people keep pitching to him in a lineup that's got so many guys who aren't hitting.
Cubs beat the Phillies 5 to 1.
They've won six in a row now.
They're now tied with the Cardinals and the Pirates in the division at 13 and 9.
And the Brewers were off.
They're in the cellar, if you want to call it that at 12 and 9.
So it's not like they're bad.
Looking around the league, the Dodgers still have the best record at 16 and 6.
Braves right on their heels at 16 and 7.
And the worst records belong to the Kansas City.
which is a little shocking. They've lost eight in a row and are now seven and 16. The Mets still
falling apart. They've lost 11 straight and are seven and 15 on the season. Other surprises.
The Phillies are struggling at 8 and 14. That's a worst record than the Colorado Rockies right now.
Rockies are 9 and 14. Giants, Blue Jays, 9 and 13, Seattle, just 10 and 14. The American League side
of things has not been great. NL is really beaten up on them in interleague play. So,
far, Cardinals have a little something to do with that. They've had a good start to the year.
So Dustin May back on the mound tonight. Let's hope for better things and some more clutch
hitting to get a get a victory here in Miami. Thanks for making a lockdown cardinals.
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