Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - SILENCED: Cardinals Bats FAIL—Jacob deGrom Controls The Offense, Nolan Gorman SINKS Lower

Episode Date: June 2, 2026

St. Louis Cardinals' bats fall silent as Jacob deGrom dominates in a 2-1 Texas Rangers victory. Can the Cardinals’ sputtering offense recover before their playoff aspirations vanish? JD Hafron breaks down the offensive struggles that have plagued the Cardinals, spotlighting Nolan Gorman’s alarming slump and the lineup’s ongoing issues with runners in scoring position. Pitching surprises from Michael McGreevey and bullpen stability provide hope, but is it enough? The episode also covers top prospect updates, including Joshua Baez’s power surge, Rainiel Rodriguez’s adjustment to Double-A, and Leonardo Bernal’s breakout at Triple-A. Key highlights include Lars Nootbaar’s impending return and Hunter Dobbins’ strong bullpen case. The countdown is on for crucial roster decisions. Is it time for big changes, or will patience pay off for struggling Cardinals hitters? 00:00 Cardinals Offense Struggles 08:30 Nolan Gorman’s Slump 19:27 Prospect Updates & News 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 Bring on the sweetness with Cotton Candy 5-hour ENERGY®️ shots—available online now at https://5hourENERGY.com or on Amazon. Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at https://Indeed.com/podcast KALSHI For a limited time, download the Kalshi app and use code LOCKEDON to get ten dollars when you trade ten. Kalshi. Trade on anything. 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 one-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.

In the most caveman sense, pitching good, hitting bad, as the Cardinals offense gets silenced again this time by Jacob de Grom and the Texas Rangers. 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 on today's show, we'll take a look at the top five. prospects in the organization and how they've progressed so far here in the 2026 season.

We've got updates on Lars New Bar, Hunter Dobbins. We're going to talk about Nolan Gorman's struggles because they're trending towards Def Con won again. But the offense as a whole has a lot to answer for after one of the worst performances of the season on Monday night against Jacob de Gromma and the Texas Rangers. you know, after a hard-fought series victory over the rival Chicago Cubs, I thought maybe this would kick our boys into gear a little bit. But Cardinals' offense took the day off again on Monday,

which is unfortunate because it was a very winnable game, a game that they lost by a score of 2 to 1. And I've said this before. The Cardinals record in one-run games was eventually going to start evening out a little bit. They were 11 and 5 coming into this one before Monday. now they're 11 and 6 in one run games and that's usually not a sustainable thing that you can just rely on, that you're just going to keep winning these one run games because it doesn't normally work out that way. And it certainly isn't sustainable when your offense can't score more than one run over nine innings.

That's a problem. The Cardinals have now scored two or less runs in 14 of their last 27 games, and their record in those 14 games is predictable. ball one and 13 they won a two to one ball game over the Padres on may seventh it's the only one they've won the rest are losers you got to score in this league you got to score in this league that is built for offenses to be better shift restrictions pitch clocks bigger bigger bases challenge the bad calls. And recently, the Cardinals just are not scoring enough consistently to win ball games with the pitching staff that they possess.

Now, no offense to the rotation, which I think has done a much better job than many anticipated. Speaking for myself, they're doing better than I anticipated. Michael McGreevy and the bullpen were excellent on Monday night. Can't put any blame on them, but they take the L anyways. and this rotation and this bullpen, they just do not have the top-tier talent of the teams like, you know, that are winning more, like L.A. and Milwaukee and the Yankees and the Braves and Seattle, even Texas, despite the losing record,

they've got a really good pitching staff. They've just lacked the offensive punch, which is what the Cardinals are going through right now, where even when they get good pitching, they don't score enough runs to make it worthwhile. 14 strikeouts on Monday. 14. Season high.

Eight of those were by two-time-sye Young Award winner Jacob de Grom, who looked very much like his former dominant self, despite having an ERA close to six in the month of May. Now, April, he was really, really good in April. May wasn't so good for him. And Ali tried to massage the lineup a little bit, see if he could get something to spark, but nothing really worked on Monday. He had Brian Torres betting fifth behind Jordan Walker.

I'm assuming it's just because he puts the ball in play more than the other lefties, like Gorman and Crooks, who have higher strikeout percentages. But Walker had an awful night, something we haven't seen a whole lot of so far this year. It was bad. He was over four with four strikeout. So it didn't matter who was behind him because he wasn't on base anyway. ways to make a difference. They had Gorman down in the number seven spot. Jimmy Crooks right behind him in the number eight spot. So you had back-to-back power guys, but also a lot of swing and miss right

there. They went one for five with four strikeouts. Three of those were Gorman, who looks completely lost at the plate again. We're going to dive into his struggles here in just a bit. But not being able to hit DeGrom is nothing new for the Cardinals. According to Rob Rames's, research. They have not defeated DeGrom since 2016. It is 2026. 10 years. 10 years. They haven't beaten this dude. The win on Monday night improved his records since then to 5 and 0 with one no decision. So six starts, five wins, one no decision. In his last five starts against the Cardinals dating back to 2017, DeGrom is allowed a total. of five runs in 37 and a third edicts.

They cannot figure this dude out. And Monday's win, congratulations to Mr. de Grom. 100 wins in his career. And when healthy, he's always been really, really good, just had to deal with a lot of injuries over the year. So, but yeah, I mean, when you see a guy coming in and you're like, yeah, it's Jacob de Grom, but it's still 37, 38 year old Jacob de Grom. And he didn't have a good May.

So maybe we can get to it. him. Nope. Didn't happen. And the Cardinals had some opportunities against him. It's not like, you know, there wasn't chances. They, they had two on in the first inning with one out. The Walker and Torres both strike out, inning over. Second inning, Gorman walks and Victor Scott rips the two out double down the line of right field. Gorman, you know, it just, it's just not fast. And they held them up at third base. And I saw a lot of people online were like, why are we sending that runner right there? Why, not? not make the Rangers make a play there and throw them out at home plate.

And I get that, you know, I understand why you'd want to test the defense there, but you do have J.J. Weatherholt coming up. Lefty versus a righty. J.J. has been hitting pretty good recently. Base hit would knock in two easily. But unfortunately, he hit the ball hard, but he lined out right to the second basement to end the threat. Fourth inning, Torres has a lead off single, but then it's strikeout, strikeout. You get a single by crooks.

but Victor flies out to end that one. And that was really it, other than the Mason win solo home run. Just couldn't come up with that one base knock that, you know, would really make this game look a whole lot different than what it does right now when you see a two to one loss and only five hits in the hit column. But, you know, that's been the problem for the Cardinals this year. This is nothing new. They're dead last in the league in batting average and on base percentage with runners in

scoring position. They're batting just 222 and a 306 on base percentage. So not only are they not getting hits, they're not walking or doing anything. They're making outs. And when the top four guys are the only guys that can do anything and you got nobody really doing squat from the number five spot down, that's what happens. And the one guy that is sticking out like a sore thumb right now is Dolan Gorman. And I hate feeling like we're picking on Nolan, but the stats are what they are, man. And it is, it is bad.

And I knew it was bad. Like, you know, you could just get a sense of it. I'm not somebody who just studies the stats day in and day out. I don't. But you knew things were not good recently, but when I went to the stats, I had to chuckle a little bit at how truly awful Nolan Gorman has been, not only recently, but just this season overall. It's bad.

It's really bad. And we're going to get into that next coming up online. locked on cardinals. If you've got a sweet tooth like I do, you know how tough it is to find that perfect treat without all the sugar. You want the good taste, but you don't want all the bad stuff that comes with it. And that's why cotton candy, five-hour energy shot is one of my favorite go-to flavors when it comes to drinking a five-hour energy. I just had this one in the car yesterday. It's awesome. It's got the classic cotton candy taste that you remember, but with that tasty caffeine boost, which is always nice to get you motivated.

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get closer to your team without those interruptions. Just click the link in the show notes or go to Lockedon, scel cardinals.supercast.com to claim your free trial. All right, let's get into it. Nolan Gorman continues to be a sore spot for most fans. I know there's some people that still back him and bring up the fact that, well, you know, when he's playing third, he's a good hitter, when he's D.H and he's a bad hitter.

You know, maybe we should just let him play third all the time. whatever. I'm not telling you that you need to quit Nolan Gorman, but people who are over this have every reason to feel that way. Monday night he goes over three with three strikeouts at a walk. He's now two for his last 33. That's a 61 batting average. He has zero home runs over that span. He has zero RBIs.

over that span. He has 19 strikeouts, and he's only walked three times. In the month of bay, Nolan Gorman is hitting or had hit because now we're in June, but hit 192 with two home runs and six RBIs and 30 strikeouts in 25 games played.

And overall this season, he is one of the worst hitting third baseman in Major League Baseball. He has got the third most strikeouts among third baseman in the league behind Austin Riley in Atlanta and Kazuma Okamoto in Toronto. His strikeout percentage is second worst.

His walk to strikeout ratio is fourth worst. His OBP is sixth worst. His batting average is third worst. Shockingly, Mani Machado has the He lowest batting average among third baseman. Manny Machado, future Hall of Famer probably, is hitting 174 this year, which was shocking. Nolan Gorman, his slugging is third worst.

His OPS is fourth worst. He is tied for third worst in total bases. His 10 extra base hits are tied for the worst among qualified third baseman. He is undoubtedly a black hole in this lineup. that features another black hole in the lineup in Victor Scott, who is batting just 190 on the year, even though he had a double in the game on Monday. He's batting 190,

just a completely empty spot in the order. And it sure makes winning ball games tough when you've only got seven guys going to the plate each night while the other team gets nine. And I would love to sit here and tell you that, hey, you know what, we just need to wait it out. Let him ride this cold streak out. He's going to turn it around, man.

It's going to happen. But guys, this cold streak has lasted three seasons. OPS plus of 87, then 89. And so far this year, he's at 80. When do we make the call that this just is what it is? I have preached patience with Nolan Gorman, said it all spring, said, look, I'm not giving up on this dude yet.

Like, let's, let's hold on. Let's give him another chance here. Now there's no Nolan Aronado. Nobody else is in his way. There's nobody else to take your bats from him. Then they signed Ramona Rias and he started taking playing time away from him here and there. For whatever reason, I don't know why they do it that way. But it, okay.

But it's not like Gore, is not hitting, like they're still, if he's not playing 30s, de-aging. There's very rarely are they sitting him out. And I would love to see him break out of this funk. I would love to see him start putting up power numbers again. And I said the same thing to my mom. We were in the car coming back from the game on Saturday. And she's like, why do we still use him? And I'm like, well, you know, he's 26. He's still relatively young. You've seen some power, you know, just haven't seen him get hot yet. She's like her exact response, have we ever seen him get hot? Has that ever happened? And I'm assuming it did at one point. It's just been a long time since it's

happened. And when is a funk, not just a funk, and it's simply the reality of who this player is? That's the question we're kind of dealing with right now. And I know it's a long season. and the Cardinals have been winning despite him for the most part. But you got to get something out of your third basement. Like that's one of the premier offensive positions in baseball, and you're getting nothing, just nothing. Just strikeouts. You're not even getting the ball and play anymore.

So we'll see how long this continues. You know, all it takes is one game where he goes like three for five with a dinger. And we're all like, all right, here we go. We're back. That's kind of how we are. At least I am, I'll be honest. But, you know, and it wasn't all on Gorman on Monday. Like, him and Jordan Walker both just were terrible.

They had horrible at bats, seven strikeouts between the two guys. So the whole offense stunk, though. There really wasn't any bright spot other than Mason Wend hitting the home run. So pitching was actually very good on Monday. Michael McGreevy got the start. And he was. was excellent. Nothing to complain about with Michael McGreeby. Pitch quite well, although the one thing he doesn't do very often is what ended up being the game winning run. And that was when he walked

a guy. Down one to nothing at the time. He walks the eighth place sitter, Danny Jansen, after getting sweeper happy and Jansen just wouldn't chase anything low and away out of the zone. Jansen walks. And then Jansen steals second base, the catcher, who had one other. stolen base in his whole career. Hatton stolen a base since 2022. It's the only other one he's ever stolen, successfully steals second base against McGreevy and Herrera. That just cannot happen.

And then you get back-to-back singles from Nikki Lopez and Jack Peterson to make it two to nothing. The Rangers ended up stealing three bags in this game. Yvonne Herrera has now allowed 37 consecutive stolen bases, 15, of them this year. Last time he threw out a runner was September 1st of 2024. And I know he didn't catch a whole bunch last year. But come on, man. Like to not even, nobody just slid past the bag or got a bad jump, nothing. Just no matter what, doesn't matter if it is Danny Jansen with one career stolen base or not, they just take second base against

Herrera and whoever's pitching. And again, a lot of these guys can steal. bags off of the pitcher and it's not always Herrera, but it's pretty weird that that's 37 in a row with him behind the plate. That's a problem. But that was all the Rangers could muster. It's not like that lost the game. It wasn't like, you know, hey, you know, you just like this massive inning took place. There's only two runs. You know, you should be able to win when you give up two or less runs in a game. Look at the Cardinals record when it happens recently. One in 13. And this was the one. Cardinals couldn't win. Offense does virtually nothing. So McGreevy gets the tough loss loss, he falls to three and five on the season. Respectable 2.980 RA. But in McGreevy's last three

starts, the Cardinals have scored one run. And not one run in each game. One freaking run in three. when McGreevy has started. Yeah, shut out by Pittsburgh and Milwaukee. Now you get one against Texas. McGreevy deserves better. He's pitched good enough to have a better record. But, man, whatever case is, man, the offense just does not show up

when he's been on the mound recently. Shout out to the bullpen holding Texas to those two runs. Justin Brule, fine. Stanick, fine. George Soriano got in a little bit of trouble. Had first and third nobody out. thanks to two infield singles and a Gorman throwing error. Just a really bad night for Nolan Gorman.

But Soriano weasled out of it. Gave the Cardinals a chance to stay in it, but it wasn't meant to be. They lose two to one. Up next, we're going to talk about something that's a little more brighter. And that would be the top five prospects of the organization. We'll get you up to date on how things are going for them next on Lockdown Cardinals. Thanks again for making Lockton Cardinals.

on the number one sports podcast network. Let's start with these prospects, man. Liam Doyle, currently your number one prospect in the organization, according to MLB pipeline. That's where all of these rankings are coming from. And an argument can be made that maybe it should be Rodriguez, maybe it should be bias, but it's not. It's Liam Doyle.

It is what it is. Who cares? But he's currently, and you're not going to like this, he's 0 and 3 with a 5.82 ERA and 9 star to double A. And I know that sounds terrible because it is. but there has been progression. In his last four starts, he's had strikeout totals of 8, 7, 7, and 8.

Three of those starts, he's given up two earned runs or less. So that's the good news. The bad news is he's got walk totals of six and four in his last two starts. And I don't think, and I should have checked for sure, but I do not think he has made it

into the fifth inning of a game yet. I don't think so. I think they usually cut them off around the fourth. Maybe he has got it in the fifth. But either way, he's not pitching like deep into games by any means. But that happens with strikeout guys. You know, they throw a lot of pitches usually. And if you're walking six and four guys on top of that,

it's going to get your pitch count up there pretty high. But he's a work in progress, but signs are all pointing up. So positive stuff for for Liam Doyle, despite the record and the ERA. We've got to remember like the first couple of games the year, he got crushed and has really turned things around recently. Your number two prospect, catcher, Romano Rodriguez. As you know, he got promoted to AA near the beginning of May.

And at Peoria, he was hitting 311 with four dingers and 21 ribbies and just over 100 at bats, scorching the ball, had nothing else to prove there. So got promoted to AA. Since then, hasn't been so great. 175, one home run seven ribbies at almost 60 at bats. There's an adjustment period when you move levels. So no need to freak out. Reminder, Rodriguez is only 19 years old.

All right, everybody relax. It's okay. But hopefully we start to see him getting used to what double A pitching is like. And he's able to start putting up numbers again here real soon. Your number three prospect, but number one in your hearts, Joshua Baez. First out of the scene last year, as you remember, after a couple of not so great years after first getting drafted. but last year he was a monster. Then he had that really nice camp,

was sent to Memphis to take his shot at AAA pitching for the first time in his career. Got out of the box a little slowly, but my lord has he turned it on recently. Last 10 games hit in 333 with five home runs and 11 RBIs and three stolen bases, slugging 833, the OBP at 429. On the season now, batting 249 with 16 bombs,

39 rivis, and 11 stolen bases. Now the strikeouts are still. there. Seventy-two of them in just over 200 at bats. So surely that is something they are working on. But it's hard not to get excited about what this guy can be one day for the big league club. But they're just putting it out there. There was also a guy who used to hit a lot of home runs at AAA, but he also struck out a lot. And his name was Nolan Gorman. And we see where that's gotten him. So I like, Jimmy Crooks before him. I'm sure they're going to be like, look,

you need to cut down on the strikeouts a little bit before we think about bringing you up. And I know people are starting to talk about that. They're like, when is it time to bring bias up? Look at the power numbers and stuff. But again, I'm not interested in rushing anybody to the show this year. I'm not.

So you just brought up Crooks. You got Belasquez. New Bar's coming back. church will be back. So you're going to get some dudes back in this lineup. But for now, led by as be your number four prospect pitcher, your Angelo Sanja. Let me get a picture. There he is. Part of that Britain Donovan trade with Seattle. He's now three and two, the area of 5.2, 1 and 10 starts. He has also seen an uptick in strikeouts recently. Totals of 7, 10, 7 and 6 in his last four games, although he's primarily throwing right-handed these days.

Every once in a while he does bust out the lefty. On Saturday, he struck out the same hitter, one-time left-handed, one-time right-handed. So clever little trick there. Finished May with a 4.68 ERA faced 107 batters during the month. Struck out 35 of them, walked 12th, improved his K-to-walk ratio to 2.92 after sitting at 1.71 with an ERA of 5.82 in the month of April.

So April was me. May has been better. So hopefully things will continue to go up for St. Jha as well. And finally at number five, we've got catcher Leonardo Bernal. And he's having an excellent year at AAA. I know they dropped him out of the top 100 prospects, but I guess other people that maybe are just having good years.

And that's why. But it shouldn't be because he's doing anything wrong. He's batting 272 with five home runs and 23 RBIs in 158 at bats. The highest average he's had in the minors for a full season up to this point was 265. And that was when he was at Palm Beach, which is, you know, A ball. So to see him hitting 272 right now at the highest level of the miners is pretty darn encouraging. He does have six hits in his last night at bat, so that's helped. He's hitting 344 over his last 10 games.

And now that Jimmy Crooks is gone and is in St. Louis. he's got the backstop position mostly to himself. Joel Pozo's down there. Andy Yerze, who we saw in the spring, is also down there, his backups. But this is Bernal's position in AAA, Memphis right now. And so far, since Crooks has been called up, he's answered the bell.

Again, six hits in his last nine at bats. So good stuff there for Leo. And I do want to point out one thing, just because we're talking about the offense at third base not being exactly what we want. Blaze Jordan, who's ranked number 25 in the org, he continues to put up massive numbers at Memphis this year. He's now hitting 328 with nine home runs and 30 RBIs

and just under 200 at bat. So keep an eye on that. Lars Newbar, update on Lars Newbar. He has gone from Springfield to Memphis to finish off his rehab. have assignment. So somebody obviously that the Cardinals would love to get into this lineup and help this offense. It is likely, according to Rob Raines, that they'll be activated before the weekend series against the Reds, which means we're going to see some roster shuffling of some sort.

Hunter Dobbins, who most people thought was going to get sent right back down to Memphis after pitching so well on Sunday, remained on the big league roster after the three and two-thirds innings of relief against the Cubs. And they're saying now that he'll likely get another bullpen outing later this week. So we'll see if he sticks around any longer or whether or not he does end up getting sent down. But, you know, it's kind of a kind of a jerk move, right? And I get it because it's a numbers thing.

But, you know, after he does so well for you against your rival, helps you win the series, then you're just going to ship his butt back down to Memphis. So I think it's cool that they kept him around like, you know, no, no, no, no. You should stick around. Let's let's get you another game in here at some point. point whether it's Texas or whether against Cincinnati. We'll see what happens because, you know, New Park coming up, like, we'll see. We'll see what they decide to do. It'll all be happening here over the next couple of days. Dustin May gets the start on Tuesday night.

Nathan Evaldi, I believe, is getting the start for the Rangers. So again, another pretty good pitching matchup. So I wouldn't suspect a whole lot of scoring in this one either, similar to what we saw on Monday. I kind of warned you. I didn't think the Carls would get completely shut down. but I kind of warned you. Texas pitching is pretty good. Thanks for making a Lockedong, Cardinals. First listen every day if you haven't already. Give us a follow on X at L0 underscore Cardinals on TikTok Instagram and Lockedong Cardinals.

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