Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - Cy Young For Sonny?

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Cardinals whip out the brooms in Cleveland. Does Sunny Gray deserve an El-Sai young consideration? Let's talk about it. I'm 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.

Starting point is 00:00:25 I'm J.D. Haffern and I'm your host for Locktown Cardinals, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network covering your team every day. Follow me on next to J-D Sports Radio and the podcast at L0-O-U-U-U-Sk. Cardinals. We're on YouTube. Make sure you like, subscribe, and comment, hit that notification button. Now available on TikTok and Instagram at Lockdown Cardinals. This is a show serving Cardinal Nation and giving the best fans of baseball, all of the info about the birds on the bat.

Starting point is 00:00:48 Today's episode brought to you by Fandul. Right now, new customers can get $150 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet win. So what a weekend. It was for the Cardinals who earned a series sweep over the Cleveland Guardians. is, whoopo. 7 and up and beat down on Sunday, which is why you get the ugly, nasty shirt that I'm wearing again today, which still has, I don't think I've washed it this year.

Starting point is 00:01:16 It's not like I wear this thing around all the time after I do the show. Like, it's not like I'm wearing it out to bars and golfing or anything like that, although I can get away with it, I'm sure. But the Cardinals, uh, an impressive, an impressive series in Cleveland. The win gives them the three-game sweep and wins in seven of their last 10. They're 47 and 38 overall, which puts them two and a half back of the Cubs and a half game back of the Brewers and the NL Central. They currently have the third wild card spot in the National League. It also extended their road winning streak to six in a row and moved them to 500 on the road at 21 and 21.

Starting point is 00:01:55 Who thought that would ever happen? I mean, that's a big deal considering how the season started. to remember they lost 11 of the first 13 games on the road. They lost. And now they're back at the 500 mark, climbed back into it, made up a bunch of grounds. So that's obviously a big deal. And while the Cardinals had this successful weekend, you had guys that are ahead of

Starting point is 00:02:22 the Cardinals, the match, lost three straights of the Pirates and the Cardinals are going to face now. That puts the Cardinals just one game behind them for the, the number one wild card spot with the brewers at number two, a half game ahead of them. So the cardals are there. They are there. And we're a month away from the trade deadline. So we'll see how things continue to go.

Starting point is 00:02:44 Obviously, the series in Chicago is going to be a big deal over 4th of July weekend after splitting with them at Bush Stadium. But got to worry about the pirates first. Don't look ahead. It's a big mistake when you do that. So don't do that. But the cartels are right here. all right and they took care of business this weekend and as much as losing the final two

Starting point is 00:03:04 games against the Cubs was a bummer, especially not being able to score any runs whatsoever. Seeing the boys take care of business in Cleveland against a struggling guardians team has to make you feel good about what the Cardinals are doing in 2025. So it's okay to be happy right now. You can enjoy what's going on with the Cardinals at this moment because nobody expected it. Let's start with the good stuff that we saw over the weekend. And starting pitching in games one and three were exactly what the Cardinals needed from their number one and number two pitchers. Sunny Gray and Matthew Libertor.

Starting point is 00:03:34 There really isn't an argument to be made about which two guys lead this staff anymore. Coming into the year, I would have said Sunny Gray and Eric Feddy were your ones and two. Matthew Libertor has exceeded every expectation that I had, just being honest. the decision to take a chance, move him to the rotation, something I questioned in spring training because he hadn't proven that he could do anything as a starter. That I was completely wrong. They made the right move. Credit to Ali and Moe and Hime and Dusty Blake and whoever else was involved with this decision making

Starting point is 00:04:11 because it has worked and it's worked huge. Since those games against the Royals and the Blue Jays where Libya was working through the fatigue issue when the mechanic issues. He had three starts against both Chicago teams, now Cleveland, and his 3-0. He's averaging six in a third innings per start, 1.89 ERA. He oddly had five walks on Sunday, which is not the norm by any means. He only the second time this season that he's walked more than one batter in a game.

Starting point is 00:04:41 And then you got Sonny, who had that incredible effort on Friday night, one of the best games of his entire career, complete game shutout, 89 pitches, 11 strikeouts, just a thing. of beauty. Sunny had the rough game against the Milwaukee Brewers where he got popped for six earned and eight hits and four in a third. Didn't like that. But in his other three starts in the month of June, he's gone 20 in the third innings, Warner to run and has 21 strikeouts. And I got a text from Chuck from Locked on Brewers who was like, Sunny Gray, saw Young Boats. And I chuckled. I chuckled at Chuck. I laughed a little bit because I don't think anyone is thinking

Starting point is 00:05:20 about such things when it comes to Sunny Gray. I certainly was not. I don't know anybody else who's like, yep, Sunny Gray and L. Sa Young, he'll think about it. Who's been talking about that? Nobody. And I text back to Shao. I go, you're cute, Chuck. And then I was like, you know what? He's been pretty consistent. Obviously, been the Cardle's best pitcher overall so far. So let's look into the numbers real quick. Sunny Gray is eight and two on this season. Those eight wins are the most in the National League. Bet you didn't know that. Side with a slew of people,

Starting point is 00:05:55 Clay Holmes from the Mets, Freddie Peralta from the Brewers, Brandon Fott, from the Diamondback still has eight. Nick Povetta, Robbie Ray, good pitchers. None of them, I would think,

Starting point is 00:06:08 are like superstars by any means. Robbie Ray's got a side young already. But then you go to strikeout leaders in the National League. He's well behind the pace there, but not like embarrassingly far back. McKenzie Gore leads the way with 12. Sunny's in 101. That puts him 12th in the National League, so he's got some work to do there. But he's got a respectable 9.70 strikeouts per nine.

Starting point is 00:06:31 And this is where he really shines. Strikeouts to walk ratio. He's got the second best strikeouts to walk ratio among starters in the National League at 5.94. Spencer Schwellenbach of the Braves is the only one who's got a higher one. Then you've got the ERA, 3.36. Put some 16th. among starters. The Pirates, Paul Skeens, who the Cardinals will see in game two of the series against the Pirates, leads at 2.12. So should Sunny Gray get votes? Probably not. A lot of work to be done, as I mentioned, to be spoken of among some of the great pitchers that are in the National League, you know, for him to even sniff consideration that ERA has got to be lower. But really what his problem has been that's making things look.

Starting point is 00:07:19 worse than they actually might be is the big blowout games that he has suffered. He's had three of them. Milwaukee, Philadelphia, where he gave up seven runs. And then he gave up five against the Angels. You remember way back when in that grand slam by Logan O'Hoppy. So those three games alone had made the numbers worse. They count all the same. I'm not saying you can just delete them and go, well, this is who he really is.

Starting point is 00:07:45 Oh, those games count. And I tried to do the math again. and if my calculations are correct, if you did take those three games away, just for fun, just for fun. Let's say they never happened. They never existed. According to my calculations,

Starting point is 00:07:59 Sunny Gray's ERA would be 1.92. 1.92. Think about that. Three games have made that much of a difference. And the Cardinals still won two of those games that he took a beating it. Won that Angels game. That was the Yvonne Herrera,

Starting point is 00:08:18 three home run game. And then you got the Phillies game where they just clobbered Aeronola. Remember, that was like a 14-7 win, but neither pitcher could do anything right. The ball was just flying that night. So, and in the starts that Sunny Gray makes for the Cardinals, he's had 16. The Cardinals are 13 and 3 in those games. So, Syong, probably not, probably not. But all starworthy, I think so, for sure because people were asking me is there what were the all-star guys for the cardinals and i'm like i don't know bren donovan is that like the only one really don't you know they're not loaded with superstars by any means but i think now looking at sunny gray deserves consideration to be at the all-star game in Atlanta uh we're going to talk about the offense next because cardals bats

Starting point is 00:09:10 came to life thank god in ohio plus we're going to dip into um this pirates preview because they just had a heck of a weekend against the New York Mets. So we got all of this and more coming up on Lockdown Carpies. Summer sports are in full swing and whether you're all about baseball under the lights or golf on the green or high-stakes soccer action. Fanduel is the best way to make every game even more exciting. You're already following the action. You wouldn't be listening to a baseball podcast right now if you weren't somebody who followed

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Starting point is 00:11:02 I love hearing all the positivity coming out about the Cardinals right now. A lot of the trolls have, have quieted down a little bit. I think they're starting to turn as we get closer and closer to the halfway point where they're like, all right, maybe these guys aren't so freaking bad, you know? Maybe they're not. We know the Cardinals' bats fell into a coma over the last couple of games against the Cubs. Didn't score for, what, two and a half games.

Starting point is 00:11:25 And with Cleveland starting a couple Ritey's in games, one and two. I was hoping we'd see the bats wake up a bit. And that's exactly what happened. They got home runs for Pedro Pahas and Alec Berlison in that first game to get the offense moving again. And then Nolan Aronado had a pair of two out hits, drove in runs to win that first game, five to nothing. Cardinals only got seven hits in that game, but they made the most of them, right? They made them count. They go three for seven or thurners in scoring position. They played winning baseball in that game. And of course, you're riding off of what Sonny is doing on the mound and, you know, everybody's just in a good mood when that's happening.

Starting point is 00:12:02 So a lot of fun in game one, mostly because of Sunny Gray, not so much because of the offense, but still five runs on seven hits. If you score five runs a game, normally you're going to win. Game two, they had to come from behind after grabbing that early lead first pitch home run for Brinand Donovan, which was awesome. It's always cool when you can get off on a good foot like that. Has it really, when you look at Brennan Donovan, hasn't really thrived at the top of the order since moving up there. Hitting just 231 in the leadoff spot with an OVP of 305. Not great leadoff numbers.

Starting point is 00:12:34 Things were better with him in the three hole and Newt at the top. But Ali had to make some adjustments when Newt was scuffling along there. So that's where he's at. I don't think he's going to stay there as soon as Newt gets going or gets healthy because he's dealing with a bunch of stuff per usual, All-Star Break. Probably couldn't come at a better time for Newt with the things he's dealing with. But the Cardinals, they're down six to one, you know, after Michaelis got clobbered in the one inning. But they roar back thanks to you get the two-run blue pit by Alec Berluson, who's had a tremendous June,

Starting point is 00:13:14 cuts the lead to six to three. And then in the six, they get the five straight hits, which starts to come back. Eventually, they take the lead eight to six. But as great as the hits are, and I love them, don't get me wrong. But also I want to point out the, in that end. anywhere you got the productive outs that were made by Brin and Donovan and Mason when to drive and runs. They brought in the seventh and eighth runs to give the Cardinals the lead, which they would never relinquish. Villan Willie adds a mammoth home run late and the Cardinals score nine

Starting point is 00:13:43 total on 14 hits. Great offensive showing in that one, especially when you're down six to one. And they talked about it on the telecast where this is a team that even though they were down six to one, you're like, there's a ton of ball game left. And this is not. a team that just rolls over. This is not the Cardinals from the last couple of years. It's different. There's a different vibe about him and they fought back. It was also milestone day at the ballpark apparently. Rookie Max Vonson got his first major league win. Phil Mattson records his 500 strikeout in his career. Wailsa Contreras, notched his 900 hit. Ryan Helsley recorded his 100 save of his career. Another comeback win gives him 21 on the season. Last year, the team had 33,

Starting point is 00:14:28 all year. Got 21 already. 33 all year last year, which is why people feel the way they do when they watch these games and they get down and they get behind. You're probably still feeling some PTSD from last year where you're like, well, we're screwed. This team's not going to come back.

Starting point is 00:14:45 It ain't them. It's different. Things are different around the scheme right now. So 21 comeback wins, which is what, like top six in major league baseball this year. Then on Sunday, the Cardinals struck early again. against the lefty, no less. We know about those struggles that they've had against the left-handers. Talked about it last week.

Starting point is 00:15:04 Mason Wynn gets the walk, Willie singles, and with two wouts, it was Nolan Gorman. Lefty on lefty who squats won 428 feet away from home plate. A missile for his seventh home run of the season to make it three to nothing. Only hit of the day for Gorman, but you're seeing with regular playing time and more consistent at bats, he's shining here in the month of June. let's break it down from the start of the season through the end of May. So basically in the first two months,

Starting point is 00:15:33 Nolan Gorman appeared in 32 games. 32. That's it. Had 106 plate appearances and hit 189 with one home run to nine RBIs. So everybody's down on them. Everybody's like, ah, he sucks. Other people are asking, where the hell is this runway? Problem was the Cardinals were winning and there wasn't a spot to get him into the games.

Starting point is 00:15:55 in June, now that you've had some injury issues and you've had to move some people around. In June, Nolan Gorman has appeared in 24 games. So almost as many as he's appeared in in the first two months of the season has 89 played appearances, almost as many as he had through the first two months, and now was hitting 267 with six home runs and 16 RBIs. This is the runway that they were hoping to give Nolan Gorman at the beginning of the season. the inability to make any deals and move some people, hello, Nolan Aronado,

Starting point is 00:16:31 prevented that from happening. So now that there's been those adjustments and you're seeing him, you see a confident Nolan Gorman at the plate, you're seeing him take better at bats. Again, the strikeouts will always be there, get over it. That's just who he is. But I will always say, as long as he's producing with the power,

Starting point is 00:16:50 you will take those strikeouts, six home runs, and 89 plate appearances. Yeah, you're going to take that. This home run was also significant because although the Cardinals threatened plenty in this game, they never scored again against Logan Allen, the left-hander. They got, they jumped on him and then Logan Allen kind of figured them out. Again, they threatened a few times, but they never got anybody across the plate. It wasn't until the seventh inning when Victor Scott struck for a two-run shot off of

Starting point is 00:17:17 the right-hander, Hunter Gaddis, that the team would score again. Victor Scott, awesome, a guy who had struggled mightily over the last month, a major 23rd, our guy, Victor, we love them, was batting 283. And then from that point, up until Saturday's game, he was hitting 146 with 33 strikeouts and 97 played appearances. So it was good to see him get that big double on Saturday. And then the two-run home run on Sunday, he ends up with four hits over the weekend after only getting four hits over his previous nine games. The Cardinals tack on two more late. You get another sack fly from Pahey's love productive.

Starting point is 00:17:54 And in the newest favorite punching bag, Garrett Hampson gets his first RBI with the Cardinals with a rocket smash single in the eighth inning. Kidding. It was 68 miles per hour. It was a flare. But it worked. It got down. It drove in a run.

Starting point is 00:18:15 And it wasn't what? One at bat earlier, or maybe it was two at bats earlier when he failed to get the bunt down and stuff that I was like, not impressed with this Garrett-Hampson guy. And he ends up coming through here. He's playing a lot more recently, and that is because Jordan Walker is out. And they need a right-handed bat

Starting point is 00:18:35 to be able to play against some of these lefties. And that's why you're seeing him play more. I do wish Jose Barrero was still around, and I would rather see him in this spot. But he's not. So there's no point in bitching about it. It is what it is. Garrett-Hampson's their guy right now.

Starting point is 00:18:50 And he's filling in. and has looked fine defensively, which is what he's supposed to be good at, but offensively kind of stinky. But he gets that head there. So an RBI, good for you, Garrett Hampson. Shout out to the bullpen for the Cardinals as well,

Starting point is 00:19:06 who got the night off on Friday, thanks to Sunny. But Saturday, after Michaelis got mugged by the Guardian's offense, that inning was so fugly. They hit for the cycle in the inning against Michaelis. You don't see that every day. but the bullpen comes in and does what they need to do.

Starting point is 00:19:26 They reel off five scoreless settings on Saturday. Mayton working out of that two-out pickle, very stressful, but no harm done there. I tweeted it out. I was like, if Phil Maeton, if it got released, if Phil Maiton became a serial killer, it wouldn't shock me. The guy has no emotion out there. He is just stone cold, focused. And I meant that as a compliment, he is just focused. no emotion.

Starting point is 00:19:54 Then on Sunday, bullpen, three more shutout innings. They have a clean series. They don't give up anything. Offensively for the series, I mentioned Victor, four for 12 with the home run.

Starting point is 00:20:04 Alec Berlison got the day off on Sunday. Nice to get him off his feet, give him a day, a breather, three for nine with a home run. Wilson Contreras, four for 12 with a home run. Gorman, three for 12 with a home run. Mason win was five for 13.

Starting point is 00:20:16 Pedro Pah has two for six with a home run. Nolan Aronado, five for 12, reached that 1900 hits mark and 400 doubles for his career on Sunday, Hall of Fame career for sure, although he had to leave for precautionary reasons due to a GM finger. And you saw that he was like messing around with his finger after a play at third base said he thinks he initially did it when he tripped running around the bases. I had a couple of stumbles there, but hopefully he'll be okay. He just got a lot of contributions from a lot of different parts in this lineup, which is

Starting point is 00:20:47 what makes this team when they're going well, makes them a very big. very annoying team. You can't just focus on two, three guys and think that you're going to beat the Cardinals that way. When they can release a lineup that's got, you know, you break them up into segments, you got the first three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. When you have threats in all three of those segments of the lineup, it's, it's annoying. It's pestering. It's, it wears people allow it. And that's what the Cardinals need to do to get wins. And just about everything they did this weekend outside of that one bad inning for Miles Michaelis, there wasn't a whole lot to complain about. I know the base running and the one inning on Sunday was disgusting where Pius was,

Starting point is 00:21:35 wasn't it Pius, I think that like tippy toad around second and got gunned to third and then victory gets picked off. And you're like, what in God's name just happened this inning? There's so much hope and then it just fell apart. You don't want to see that stuff all happening, but, you know, there's going to be mistakes from time to time. They are going to happen. And luckily enough, the Cardle's pitching and, you know, the offense later on were able to overcome that stuff.

Starting point is 00:22:00 All right, need to keep it going because we're heading into Pittsburgh to face the Pirates team that just swept the New York Mets and then just sweep them, like embarrassed the New York Mets. We're going to talk about it all. Coming up next on. Locked on Cardinals. Thanks again for making Lockedong Cardinals. Your first listen today for your second list and check out the all new Lockedon MLB Game Night every game every night all season long.

Starting point is 00:22:31 Get local analysis on a national scale. You can find MLB Game Night on Locktown. MLB on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. Myself and John Frisch from Locktod Angels will be hosting the next three nights. So if you get a chance, come on by. Say hello. Pirates sweep the Mets. And as I mentioned, they do it.

Starting point is 00:22:48 like beat the snot out of them like like these games weren't even close you guys nine to one on Friday nine to two on Saturday 12 to one on Sunday 12 hits on Friday 12 on Saturday 16 on Sunday good grief it sounds like offense that you would see like in Colorado type of stuff so yeah great time for the cardals to show up at P&C and have to face them after they just did that to the New York Mets. And you know the names. There are no secrets about who the pirates are. Key Brian Hayes, Brian Reynolds, O'Neill Cruz, Andrew McCutcheon,

Starting point is 00:23:30 even our old friend Tommy Fam, all did a lot of damage in this series against the New York Mets. But for the season, if you didn't look at the last three games, for the season, this hasn't been a very good offensive team. It just hasn't. Before this series against the Mets, the Brewers took two out of three. three from them. The Mets have been reeling, by the way. So it's hard to trust whatever's happening to them. We don't, crazy to see how the Mets have fallen off recently. But you had the Brewers took two from them. The Rangers took two out of three from them. Tigers took two out of three from

Starting point is 00:24:06 them. Cubs took three or four from them. Like the pirates were in no way, shape, or form looking like somebody who was even a threat to the Mets. This was supposed to be a get right weekend for the Mets. and the pirates turned it on them and just pommeled them, just creamed them. But normally the pirates are a very beatable bunch. But after seeing what they did this weekend, you know how it is. They got momentum. They got, you know, they have positivity going on. They believe in themselves right now.

Starting point is 00:24:38 They think they're a really good heading team right now. And that goes a long way. It makes them a much more dangerous team than you would expect. tonight's starter is lefty Andrew Heaney. You know how the Cardinals struggled with lefties for most of the season. Hopefully they built a little something off of that inning against Logan Allen. But, you know, it wasn't, they didn't have a ton of success. But they did put some hits together, string some hits together.

Starting point is 00:25:06 So hopefully that'll get them on the right track. Heaney has not really been that great. Three and seven on the year with a 4.48 ERA and has gotten hammered in back-to-back games. by the Tigers and the Brewers, gave up seven earned in both of them. But before those two games, his ERA was in the threes. Like he wasn't having a terrible season,

Starting point is 00:25:26 but the last two games have been really, really bad for him. Cardinals did not face them so far this year, but he's got an odd split to be aware of where lefties are the ones hitting better off him, 286, while right he's hitting just 223. Doesn't strike out a whole lot of people, not like he's got above average stuff.

Starting point is 00:25:46 likes to get ahead in the count. If he gets ahead of you, like he's kind of in control. I think I saw that were like batterers are hitting 190 against him after falling behind against him. So if you see the Cardinals swinging at the first pitch, trying to not let him get ahead of them.

Starting point is 00:26:03 You'll know why. But hopefully, hopefully the Cardinals with all the lefties that they can provide in their lineup can give him some trouble. If they're all hitting 286 against him so far this year, Got a few lefties in the Cardinals lineup that hopefully can continue with that trend. Eric Fetty for the Cardinals faced the Pirates earlier this year.

Starting point is 00:26:29 Remember, he threw a no hitter for six innings before coming out of the game because his pitch count was off. Coming off a terrible, just terrible start against the Chicago Cubs has not won a game since May 9th. And I pointed that out last time. And I do want it to be known that it doesn't mean that he's pitched bad in every game since May 9 because that's not the case. He just hasn't picked up the win in those games. But it hasn't been great for Eric Fetty this year. So hopefully he can conjure up whatever magic that was that he had going against the pirates earlier this year in May.

Starting point is 00:27:03 And tonight's as good as any to get right against them. So why not? Why not, right? As far as the other pitching matchups go for the series, you got Palante against Paul Skeen's on Tuesday, although the Cardinals hit Paul Skeen's just fine. so I don't know if they're even afraid to actually take on him. And then there's Sunny Gray and Mitch Keller. That's going to be a good pitching matchup on Wednesday,

Starting point is 00:27:26 especially with Sunny doing what he's been doing. Mitch Keller is still a very, very good starter for the Pirates. So a little scarier than you normally would think going into Pittsburgh, considering what they did against the Met. So hopefully they get out to a good start again tonight and continue this trend. Again, six road wins in a row. let's make it seven why not let's make it seven thanks for making locked on cardals first listen every day if you haven't already please give us a follow on x at l-w underscore cardinals at jd

Starting point is 00:27:56 sports radio uh tic-tok insigranton cardinals like subscribe on youtube you guys are the best fans in baseball for a reason we'll see you next time on lockdown carterls

Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - Cy Young For Sonny?

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