Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - St. Louis Cardinals POWERLESS at Home as Brewers Punish Bullpen, OUTPLAY Team Again

Starting point is 00:00:00 Very similar to the loss in Chicago. One bad inning dooms the Cardinals against those dang Milwaukee Brewers. 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. The Cardinals fans. I'm Jaddy Hafford and today's episode is brought to you by O'Doo. Great organizations win because operations matter.

Starting point is 00:00:32 And that's why you should get O'Doo. for free today at odoo.com slash locked on. That's ODOO.com slash locked on. On today's show, an injury, an unfortunate injury to Max Ratchik helps open the door for one of my favorite relievers that we saw this spring. I'm excited for him to make his major league debut. So we'll talk about that. How bad has the power outage been for the Cardinals at home and against the Milwaukee Brewers. But let's go ahead and get into the game itself. Yet another loss by the Cardinals to the Brewers Monday where one bad inning ends up being the difference maker. And this is becoming a pattern for the Cardinals that they have that one one inning where things just kind of fall apart and get a

Starting point is 00:01:19 little tough and they're not able to able to overcome it. And the Brewers are, let's just get this out of the way. The Brewers are a better team than the St. Louis Cardinals. Okay. We know this, right? This is not rocket science. You know, the record says it, talent on the field says it. I've watched this Brewer's team quite a bit, a decent amount, even when they're not playing the Cardinals, who seemingly beat them like a drum every single game. And they do the same thing like over and over against teams around the league.

Starting point is 00:01:55 They take advantage of the other team's mistakes, capitalize on them, and they do it as well as any team I've seen in baseball this year. three of the four runs that they scored against the Cardinals on Monday, they were earned. But the way it happened, there's no other way to describe it except the cards got brewered. Like, I'm going to make this a thing. We just got brewered. Do you get yet another off the end of the bat squibber?

Starting point is 00:02:30 Similar to the one that you saw in Chicago with PCA. another squibber. I want to say so many bad words right now because I'm so fed up with it against the Cardinals pitcher, and that's what starts the seventh inning and gets things going for Milwaukee. Now, there's no official stat out there

Starting point is 00:02:50 that I can find that I'm aware of that calculates like crappy off the end of the bad spinorama infield singles. I looked it up. They don't have anything for that. Now, you can find like soft contact hit. but that doesn't count just on the infield. So if somebody else knows how to find that, let me know.

Starting point is 00:03:08 But I would venture to say that the Cardinals either lead the league or near the top of the league in a stat like that. It is so infuriating. And it seems like every single time it happens, the Cardinals can't work their way around it. It just starts to, you know, it's like an avalanche. Like as soon as that thing falls like other pieces and then domino style, it just, it all comes crashing down.

Starting point is 00:03:35 And because it's the Brewers who seem to always have Lady Luck on their side, late in games, you know, Justin Brule gets hurt on this play on the little squibber, the first one, and has to leave the game, one batter too early, because it was going to be him facing back-to-back lefties. So that forces Ollie to dip into the bullpen, and he's got to go to some guys who, let's be honest, they're not very good. he brings in Ryan Fernandez. And I know the ERA is small,

Starting point is 00:04:06 but we've seen Ryan Fernandez for a couple of years now. We know what he is. And he's got to face the lefty South Freelike, who hits a double off of him to make it second and third and nobody out. Brewers that hit another piece of crap, tapper in front of the plate. Fernandez can't field it cleanly.

Starting point is 00:04:24 It's ruled in error. I think the guy was going to beat it out anyway. I don't like, Fernandez tried. It's not like he fell over himself or something. They're like, he's trying to go as quick as he can to get the other first. Not an easy play. But it's another one of those piece of crap tapers.

Starting point is 00:04:39 And now you got the bases loaded and nobody out. Two hits that traveled a combined six feet. And had launch angles of minus 54 and minus 64. Somehow give the damn Milwaukee Brewers two base runners. It's infuriating. Again, when you got swinging mess guys, those kind of hits don't seem to happen as often. But because we don't have that yet,

Starting point is 00:05:06 we keep dealing with this. Fernandez then grooves a fastball right down Broadway and a three two counts of their number nine hitter, David Hamilton, through like four of the eight pitches, like basically over the heart of the plate. Wasn't nibbling at all? It was just all there, right, right, right down the heart of the plate.

Starting point is 00:05:26 And that brings home two runs. Even the number nine hitters are going to, going to rip that crap eventually, especially when you do it four times in eight pitches. You still got nobody out. Fernandez doesn't get a single out. Ali brings in Ryan Stanick for some strikeout abilities. Like, dude, I need some swinging miss here, dude. This sucks. And that's, that's all he's got out there in the pit.

Starting point is 00:05:51 So he brings seven men to try to escape this. He immediately walks Christian Yelich on five pitches, which brings in Jackson Churio, the best hitter in the lineup for the Brewers, who he gets to ground out to third base to get the forced out at home. Truroo runs well so they can't double it up and get him at first base. That brings in Bryce Terang,

Starting point is 00:06:12 and he smacks a splitter, which was like above the letters. It's not a strike. It's not a good pitch. Bryce Tarrague swings at it, serves at the left field for a two-run single. Bam, four to three Brewers. That's how quickly it happened.

Starting point is 00:06:25 Two numbers, two doubles, a walk, an air, a single. and I said it yesterday, and I'll say it again today, and you're going to get sick of hearing it, but you cannot give good teams free runners or extra chances. They will burn you. I'm willing to say good teams like, you know, the brewers are going to burn you 95% of the time. You saw the Cubs do it on Sunday. You see the Brewers do it on Monday.

Starting point is 00:06:54 And, you know, listening to some of the other guys like Randy Carriker and guys talk about the Cardinals and stuff, they say they got a phrase they use called playing on the margins, which is perfect. It's perfect because the Cardinals aren't good enough to make those kind of mistakes and survive. They're just not. They got to play almost perfect baseball each night to win. And when they don't, they pay the price. Now, it's still just a one-run game, but it sucks because the momentum is just vop, because you were up three-nothing.

Starting point is 00:07:26 And one inning just drains everything. And the offense doesn't do anything against, which a very good Brewer's bullpen. The offense musters just one more base runner over the final three innings. They lose four to three. It's another frustrating loss because you have the lead. You're at home. The momentum is in your corner, but your bullpen's best arms, they weren't available. They weren't available.

Starting point is 00:07:48 And the secondary pieces just aren't good enough to beat the better teams on a consistent basis. Like, can you squeak by using guys like Fernandez? against, you know, lesser teams, you know, teams that, you know, I don't want to call any teams out for being that good. But you know what I mean? Maybe. Maybe he gets those people out. But not the Brewers, not the Brewers.

Starting point is 00:08:14 And when you just give them free base runners, like, it's going to happen. I think it's been the most frustrating part about the season is the bullpenets. another reason why building pitching depth for the org is so important so that, you know, you have this pool of players that you can pull from when certain guys don't pan out, which is what's happened. The back people, like, you know, your 10th, 11th, 12th kind of bullpen guys are just not good enough. I don't even know if they belong in the major leagues, to be honest with you.

Starting point is 00:08:50 But that's where we are. You know, you're rebuilding. So you got to hope that they can pull rabbits out of their hats, and so far they cannot. You know, all that's left in Memphis that they haven't used yet is Luis Gastilum. And now he's coming up. We're going to talk about him a little bit later. Justin Brule seemed to think he'd be okay after the game. Ollie said, yeah, turn the ankle, but we think he's going to be fine.

Starting point is 00:09:14 He seemed to think he'd be fine for today's action. So that's good news because you don't have like a bunch of lefties available. it's just him and Jojo. So I've talked about that being an issue all year. I'm like, how have we not done better than Justin Brule? Like, we don't have any other depth than that, but we don't. So we all know how ankles can swell up and stuff, though. If you ever turned one, you know how it is.

Starting point is 00:09:38 So double-headed today to worry about. We're going to talk about the offense, who once again struggle to score runs at home. They cannot hit home runs, apparently, against the Milwaukee Brewers. They are home-run proof. But they did have the lead before that disaster. to seventh inning. So it wasn't all bad on Monday night. But we'll talk about that. We'll get you your three stars as well. This is locked on cardinals. There we go. Running a business shouldn't feel like you're trying to connect a bunch of systems that were never designed to work together. One app for

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Starting point is 00:10:51 this rebuild. It's a coordinated effort across the entire organization to revamp the player development, add more coaching, add more eyeballs, add more scouts, allow the younger players to figure things out at the big league level and learn to succeed playing against the best of the best. And so far, it's worked pretty well. Great organizations win because operations matter. And that's why you should get Odu. Try for free today at Odo.com slash locked on. That's O-D-O-O-O-com slash locked on. Thanks for making a lockdown cardinals. Your first list of the day, thank you for making locked on the number one sports podcast network.

Starting point is 00:11:38 Cardinals haven't had much luck scoring runs at home this season. They are 18th and batting average at home, 26th and runs scored, 23rd in home runs. Let's face it, Bush Stadium sucks to hit in like when you're doing it all the time. For whatever reason, other teams seem to, at least it appears to be eyeball. wise find more success than our own guys do in our own home ballpark. It just has not worked out for them. The pitching doesn't mind it so much. They seem to enjoy the cavernous areas that is Bush Stadium. But the offense, it continues to struggle at home. And on Monday, they had another slow night at the dish going seven for 33. They only walked twice, two for eight with runners in scoring position.

Starting point is 00:12:20 They left six guys on base. Second inning may get a lead off double, but Jose for mean, by Jose for me, which was great to see who's been hitting the ball quite well. I know he had his defensive hiccups on Sunday, but offensively, you got to be pleased with what you've seen from Jose Fermin in his utility role. But following the double, which is something like, again, you're playing a really good team. You get a lead off double. That dude has got to come around and score. You got to figure out a way.

Starting point is 00:12:47 But no, pop out, ground out, ground out, it's over. They get him over to third, but never can't get them in. And when you face a team like the Brewers, you got to take advantage of every opportunity and failing to do that in the second, this chance for sure. Third inning, Pedro Pahas, singles. Cardinals do take advantage of the rare miss queue, not only by the Brewers in general, but by Platinum Glove Award winning second baseman Bryce Terang. He doesn't fumble ground balls hardly ever. And he biffs one, which makes it first and second and nobody out. Once again, a harmless pop-up is next, which was a hell of a catch by David Hamilton. But still, another pop-up, which cannot happen.

Starting point is 00:13:30 You get your all-star, Jordan Walker, takes his second walk of the night, which loads them for Nelson Velasquez. He chops one over to third base, what should have been an ending, ending double play. Should have right around the horn, 5, 4, 3, bang, bang, bang, should have been done. But both throws were kind of crappy by the Brewers. Low throw to second, bad throw over to first base. Nellie's safe at first. He was hustling.

Starting point is 00:13:54 good for him. One and nothing lead. So they did take advantage of the miscues that inning, which is good stuff. That's what you got to do. Jose Fermin then singles makes it two to nothing. It's the Cardinals kind of outbrueuring the brewers at this point of the game. And that was nice for a change. Fourth inning, get a little off single by church. He gets gun trying to steal second base. Cardinals wilt away. They get nothing there. Sixth inning, you get another lead off double this time by Nelson Velasquez. Vermin lays down the bunt, moves him over to third base, little small ball, which I know Cardinals fans of appreciate. Mason wins singles him home. Beautifully, beautifully executed. You get them on, get them over, get them in. I know. You've heard it a million times, but you love that.

Starting point is 00:14:34 But after that inning, the offense had just one base runner. Like everything went silent, a single by wind to lead off that ninth inning and the Cardinals couldn't get him over to second base. Couldn't get him to do that. Church, stop me if you've heard this, pops up, sensing a theme here. That's three pop-ups in situations like that. Then back-to-back strikeouts by Burley and Torres ends the game and Trevor Miguel gets to like he just won the World Series, which I'm just annoyed because we lost. It's not because he's doing anything wrong. But Milwaukee's bullpen, one of the best in baseball.

Starting point is 00:15:09 And they dominated things after the sixth inning. No runs, one hit, four strikeouts over the final 10 hitters they faced. They have the most wins for a bullpen with 27. They've got the fourth best ERA as a bullpen at 3.45. opponents are hitting just 226 against them, which is fifth best in the league. They're also top 10 in strikeouts. I'm not saying that the Cardinals, you know, did anything wrong, but it's why you had to take advantage of those opportunities early on in the game because when you get into their bullpen,

Starting point is 00:15:37 it ain't getting good. Like the odds are you're going to fail because they are so good. It's the way it is. Brewers may not be considered elite in a lot of areas, but as a team, they are as tough as they come. So it makes sense that the Cardinals are now one and five against them this season. They're a better team than the Cardinals up and down the lineup, up and down the pitching staff. Coaching wise.

Starting point is 00:16:04 I mean, you have to be to keep winning 90 games a year the way they've been doing it the last few seasons. So Cardinals haven't scored more than three runs at any of the five losses so far this year. They haven't hit a home run in any of the six games. I get it at Bush Stadium because home runs are hard to come by, but in Milwaukee, nope, didn't hit any there. So that's something.

Starting point is 00:16:30 And we all know, like, you don't have to be like all home run or nothing type of team, you know, like the Seattle Mariners are. But you got to have some sort of pop from time to time. And when you have none against the Brewers, you're going to lose. You're going to lose. So we got to find, we got to find the power stroke somehow. we got to do some damage. And easier said than done when you have that pitching staff staring at you.

Starting point is 00:16:57 Three stars of the game, some love for our guy Dustin May, who, yeah, I mean, just the fact that he was on the mound after those two rough outings and then taking that line drive off his ankle in Atlanta. Like, I thought he was certainly going to go on the IL because that looked awful in the way he was limping afterwards. But got some treatment, came out, and he was humming. He looked fantastic. on Monday allows no runs four hits, strikes out seven on 81 pitches. Well done. Well done, Dustin May to see you bounce back. It sucks that it went for not. The other two go to Mason when, who had a couple of hits in this one and an RBI, Jose Fermin. Again, bad day on Sunday in the field, but comes back on Monday. You got to be able to move on from crap like that,

Starting point is 00:17:46 especially in baseball because of how many games you're playing. And he was able to do that. Goes two for three with an RBI, had the sack bunt, was over at third base again. So it's not like they took him out and hit him for the game. Like, no, they're like, get back out there. We trust you. So that was good.

Starting point is 00:18:04 Up next, the Cardinals first pitching arm injury at the big league level since 20, 24. Shocking, shocking number. But it has allowed the team to bring up one of my favorite relievers that we saw this spring training. So we're going to talk about that. Coming up next on Locked on Cardinals. Have you ever noticed how the second you search for something online like ads for that exact same thing,

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Starting point is 00:20:20 And thank you for making Lockdown the number one sports podcast network. Now, the Cardinals pitching staff has been able to stay extremely healthy over the years, at least recently, right? Like, it is, it's been nice. It's been nice. You know, a lot of teams worry about arm injuries a lot and have to deal with a lot of them. This day and age, 100 miles per hour is considered normal now, right? And so are arm injuries.

Starting point is 00:20:46 When you're throwing that much and you're throwing that hard that many times, your arm's going to give out eventually. And the Cardinals have been able to keep their guys on the field. Maybe it's because most of them don't throw anywhere near 100 miles per hour. But what the Cardinals are doing has been working. And when you don't have a ton of depth in the organization and pitcher, keeping the guys you do have healthy has been key to them being competitive. When we know that their pitching staff isn't nearly at the levels of some of these other teams.

Starting point is 00:21:19 Now it's not like they haven't had Armands. injuries. Like this isn't like what you know, the organization has dealt with a lot of them, right? Richard Fitz. We had high hopes for him this year. Gone. Cooper Jerpy, who is now back, has been gone for a couple seasons. Coe Robeys gone. Zach Thompson, Sim Robbersa. Tink Hens has dealt with injury. Like a lot of guys have fallen victim to arm injuries, but they weren't in the big leagues when those things happened. So when John Denton tweeted or tweeted out yesterday that the Cardinals hadn't suffered an arm injury since 24, I was like, holy crap.

Starting point is 00:21:55 That kind of blew me away. I was a bit shocked. But that streak has sadly come to an end because Max Ratchick has been placed on the 15-day-I-L with the right elbow issue and is reportedly seeking a second opinion. So that does not sound promising. When that's usually the case, you worry about like the UCL, stuff like that.

Starting point is 00:22:16 So, and Jeff Jones just tweet. it out. Max Ratchick will travel to Dallas for a second opinion with Dr. Keith Meister, though that may not happen until next week. There is a real concern that he suffered a serious elbow injury, as evidenced by the 60-day move that just happened. So he goes to the 60-day, and that sucks. That sucks for Ratchez because he just got called up. You know, he just made his major league debut. I'm going through these as we are live. The Cardinals have selected the contract of Bruce Zimmerman. from Memphis. Ryan Fernandez has been optioned to Memphis. Hunter Dobbins will serve as the 27th

Starting point is 00:23:00 man for today's double header. And then Ratchik has been transferred to the 60 day IL. Now, something that we have heard, but I haven't seen it officially made yet, was that Luis Gastilum was supposed to get called up. So I'm excited if that is the case, although again, I'm not seeing anything officially yet, but they were talking about it this morning that, you know, he was going to get called up and make his major league debut. So we hope for a quick recovery for Max. But I am excited about Luis Gastilum if he is indeed called up. So now I'm worried that he might not have been called up.

Starting point is 00:23:40 Well, here he is. This is what it looks like. As you may have seen in the spring, Gasolume, as one of those nastiest changeups you'll ever see. It absolutely baffles hitters. our buddy Jeff Jones reported that he is sitting on a stretch of 18 consecutive scoreless appearances from Memphis, 2.27 ERA, 49 punches in 43 to two-thirds innings. He said if you take one ugly appearance on May 13th where you got two outs and allowed six

Starting point is 00:24:05 runs, if you wipe that out, the season ERA is at 1.05. And he described Luis's best pitch as a disgusting whiffle ball change-up. And every dayers know that I've been beating the drum for a gas to limb since last year. I just think with everyone looking for Velo out of the bullpen, and you got all these guys coming in pumping 98, 99, and 100 that you bring a guy like Gastilum in who throws a, it throws a little wrinkle at them, something different. And I think that can throw teams off and it makes them that much more effective. All of Famer Trevor Hoffman had one of the best changeups you've ever seen,

Starting point is 00:24:42 was a closer with it and rode it all the way to Cooperstown. And I'm not saying Gastilum is Trevor Hoffman, But I'm just saying the change up can be quite effective if you're able to place it right. If it looks just like your fastball coming out of your hand, the shape of it doesn't change. And then all of a sudden it just falls and guys are way out in front. And then it makes him throwing 94, 95, 96 look like 100, 1002. So I'm pumped to see him winning if he gets called up. Hunter Dobbins also coming to pitch in today's double header, as I mentioned.

Starting point is 00:25:15 And with another loss in Milwaukee, the Cardinals are now eight and a half back in the division and barring some collapse by the Brewers, which isn't likely unless they just get ravaged by injuries. The division is realistically all but done. I know we've seen some crazy comebacks from the Cardinals as well as other teams in the past, but for me, the Spruers team isn't likely to magically get worse. So the Wild Cardinals really the Cardinals only shot at making the playoffs this year. And after the loss, they have now fallen behind the Maril's.

Starting point is 00:25:45 and our half game out of the wild card. Losing on Monday sucked. It sucked because you still got four more games against these guys. And you've got to face Mizorowski today in game one. Kyle Harrison tomorrow on Wednesday night. So to win the series, you're going to have to beat one of them. Now, the Reds knocked Ms. around in his last start, five runs, although only one of them was earned, on five hits, two home runs.

Starting point is 00:26:10 He also struck out eight and five innings. He's going to get his strikeouts. You know that's coming. You got to accept that. But clearly he is an unbeatable. He's not a machine. If I can steal from Rocky 4, he's not a machine.

Starting point is 00:26:23 He's a man. And you saw the peak of his powers when the Cardinals had to face him earlier on this season. And may, I think he struck out 12 Cardinal sitters neck. He looked unhittable, absolutely unhittable. But you got to watch him firsthand for seven innings. And I hope they learned something from that and can at least make a game of it.

Starting point is 00:26:45 this afternoon before the night game, the double header at night. So we'll see. We'll see. Thank you for making Locked on Cardinals. First listen every day. If you haven't already, give us a follow on X at L.O underscore Cardinals, TikTok, Instagram and Locked on Cardinals, like subscribe on YouTube.

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Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - St. Louis Cardinals POWERLESS at Home as Brewers Punish Bullpen, OUTPLAY Team Again

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