Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - St. Louis Cardinals Season TEETERS as Pitching WOES and Losses To Weaker Teams MOUNT

Starting point is 00:00:00 With an extremely difficult schedule ahead, is this the beginning of the end for the Cardinals playoff chances? 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 Jady Haffron. And today's episode brought to you by Fanduel. The biggest stage in world soccer is here. Let there be goals on Fandle, visit fandle.com to get started now. On today's show, we got a new job for John Moseilock. Yep, he's back in baseball. Cardinals shake up the rotation a little bit, not for the reasons we thought it might happen, but it is happening all the same. But let's start with last night's game where

Starting point is 00:00:49 the Cardinals got shut out four to nothing against the Marlins and have slipped a third place in the division. And they are, as of this moment, out of the wild card spot. Right now, this is not a playoff team. Let's just be honest. Let's be blunt about it. It's not. It's not. a playoff team and they haven't really played like one in quite a while. Have they been embarrassingly bad? Of course not. I wouldn't say that at all. But you're starting to see the cracks. You're starting to see why this team wasn't expected to win more than they lose this year. And you're seeing them lose to teams that we thought they were better than in the Minnesota Twins, Kansas City Royals, Arizona Diamondbacks, at least on the road.

Starting point is 00:01:32 And now the Marlins, although the Marlins have been outstanding here in the month of June, they're 17 and 5. So they're mowing down everybody right now. You also ran into Max Meyer, who has yet to lose this season. He's now 9-0. So which is kind of insane to be at that point on the Marlins of all teams. Like if you had somebody like this on, say, Atlanta or L.A. or a big market team, you'd be like, okay, that makes a little more.

Starting point is 00:01:59 more sense. Not with Miami, but he looked awesome. And I don't want to make excuses for this team. The bottom line is they have hit a rut. They have been a 500 team since the end of April. And this is more on par with what we thought they were going to look like and what they were going to be. And life isn't going to get any easier for the Cardinals here in the near future. Not only are you dealing with the hottest team of baseball right now in the Marlins, but then you get the Braves, the Brewers and the Cubs who are all kicking the tar out of people. All of these guys, you have to play a few of them multiple times before the All-Star break. Both the Brewers are the Braves, you're going to have to play them twice before the All-Star break.

Starting point is 00:02:40 Well, the Brewers won is five games because of the rainout. So not twice, but might as well be with five games, right? And the Cardinal season, if things go really bad over that stretch, could be sunk before the midsummer classic. Not something I thought we'd be saying a couple of weeks ago. But being realistic, just being honest, certainly a possibility. And that's a very negative way to think, which is not something I like to do. I'm a cup, half full kind of guy.

Starting point is 00:03:08 But it's also the most realistic way to think about it when you look at some of the trends that are going on with the rotation, the bullpen, and some of the offensive weapons. You know, since winning five in a row against Texas, the Reds, the Mets, those were when they won the five in a row. It was the last, the one game against the Mets, no against Texas, pardon me, the one game against the Rangers, three against the Reds, a couple against the Mets. Since then, they've gone five and nine and have dropped three of their last four, if you count what we just saw with Arizona during that range short and series.

Starting point is 00:03:46 So you can count it, you can say, you know. But like, I haven't gotten to put on the ugly, we won a series shirt since the Padres. We haven't gotten to wear it very much. Twins and Royal Series seem certainly seem winnable, but your pitching got kicked around big time in both. You also lost one-run games against the Mets, two against the twins, one against the Royals, one against Arizona,

Starting point is 00:04:08 and the Cardinals were winning those one-run games in the early part of the season, and now they're not. And you say that about every team, like if they're winning a lot of one-run games, that's not sustainable. Eventually, the tides will turn and they'll start losing those games, and that's one of the things that's happening. with the Cardinals. Some nights, it's the rotation, sometimes it's the bullpen,

Starting point is 00:04:26 sometimes there's no offense. What we have here are the looks of a young and inconsistent team that was playing well above expectations and have now seemingly slipped back into the pack where they probably belonged in the first place. But you saw how they were playing early on and the energy and everything. So you had hope that, hey, maybe this is way better than we thought. And I still think that they are played better than most people thought they would. Like I don't feel like we're going out there and watching them laying an egg every night. And you give, you know, fans like us a little bit of hope. And usually we try and kick the door down for more.

Starting point is 00:05:07 But it seems like that door is starting to shut rather quickly. And it's mainly due to the pitching issues. If you look at what's going on in the offense and then what's going on with the pitching, it's pretty bad on one side here. Team ERA over the last 15 days, third worst in the league at 5.73. Only the A's and Royals have been worse, and you lost two of three to the Royals.

Starting point is 00:05:28 This is in 13 games, by the way. Batting average against over that time, sixth worst of baseball at 275. They've given up 20 home runs, sixth worst. 77 runs against fifth worst. There are 79 strikeouts, lowest total in the league over that time.

Starting point is 00:05:45 We know they needed swing and miss. They're trying to develop swing and miss. It's not easy to find and easy to get. And we had a feeling that something like this was going to happen where eventually some of the guys who are pitching really well might fall back a little bit. Some of the guys that we were depending on have never fully developed. Hello, Matthew Libertory.

Starting point is 00:06:10 But what about the offense? Okay, how bad or how good have they been? Yeah, got shut out last night. I get that. Feels like they haven't been as good recently. but offensively they're batting 267 over those 13 games. That's the sixth best batting average in the league. 10th best in runs with 61.

Starting point is 00:06:27 They're ninth best in hits. Fourth best and on base percentage. 10th and OPS. Where have they dropped? Well, that's in the power category. Home run slugging, only 12 home runs, which is the third worst amount over that span. Slugging is 18th.

Starting point is 00:06:41 And the main culprit with the power outage at this moment is the missing power from Jordan Walker at this moment, who has had an outstanding season. This is not to pick on Jordan. This is not a knock against Jordan. He still leads the league in RBIs, I think. But it's a simple fact that he's got three home runs in the month of June and only one over his last 59 plate appearances.

Starting point is 00:07:02 Those are just facts. And he's got two total extra bases. Like extra base sits in that time. One home run. One doubles, only hitting 2.32, 15 strikeouts, just two walks. So he's in a bit of a bad spot right now. Teams and players are going to have ups and downs. We know this.

Starting point is 00:07:21 And this is another down cycle for Jordan Walker, who has repeatedly bounced back this season when things get tough. And we applaud him for that. So we're kind of waiting for him to kick back into gear. You know, when the going gets tough, hopefully he'll pull himself out of this yet again. That's what the good ball players and good hitters do. The other Jordan, Blaze Jordan,

Starting point is 00:07:44 has been a tremendous addition. He's been a lot of fun to watch. 12 RBIs over his first 50 plate appearances. And if we can get both the Jordans, getting them hot at the same time, the Cardinals' offense would kind of be rolling right now. Alec Berlinson's been great. J.J. Weatherholt's been great.

Starting point is 00:08:04 Nathan Church has been very good since he got off the I.L. Lars Newport looks healthy. But it really comes back to the pitching. you know and you know some of these offensive stats too i know that they've been scoring runs late in games when games were kind of out of hand already so i kind of get that but it really does come back to the pitching and when you have libertar getting sheled each start era close to 12 in his last three dustin may had a really ugly outing in kansas city we're going to talk about him in a little bit ryan stanick got blasted in minnesota romero sorriana o'brien all with eras over six in this

Starting point is 00:08:41 15-day, 13-game span. Gricefo's ERA is almost 13. Eight walks, no strikeouts and five appearances. It's pretty easy to see where the real issues lie. And some nights the offense hasn't been good, but for the most part, the pitching's been bad. And that's where the issues are. Cardinals fell 4 to nothing last night

Starting point is 00:09:03 and are going to make an adjustment to the rotation, but it's not for the reasons I was hoping for. We're going to talk about that coming up next on Lockdown Cardinals. It's amazing how quickly we've moved away from cash and checks, whether it's paying friends back, buying tickets, splitting a bill. Everything happens instantly now and being able to send someone money instantly. It's one of those things that really becomes so normal that you forget how much easier it has made everyday life. Cash app can do way more than you think to make your money work for you.

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Starting point is 00:11:56 Thank you for making it locked on the number one sports podcast network. Get your daily Cardinals coverage completely ad free by joining the everyday or club. You can start your seven day free trial right now. Get closer to your team without the interruptions. Click the link in the show notes or go to locked on SGL cardinals. Dot supercast.com to claim your free trial. Not a whole lot going on for the team on Friday night. Last night, the offense, poof, nothing.

Starting point is 00:12:21 Undefeated Max Meyer allowed only a pair of infield hits. one was a blunt single through the, through the first seven innings and the Marlins broke up that scoreless game with two runs of the eighth inning against the bullpen. They went on to win this one by a score of four to nothing. Jordan Walker beat out that infield single was running really well on that play. So maybe the extra time off. He got a chance of the age the other day, then the day off.

Starting point is 00:12:43 So because of the rain out, maybe that helped the legs out a little bit. But he was running good. So he got the infield single. Unfortunately, that happy moment was instantly taken away when he was thrown out, trying to steal second had a tell on the pitcher broke went for it a little early they spin and throw get them out at second base seems to happen a lot to the cardinals but they've also stolen a number of bags that way so you know live by the sword die by the sword trying to take advantage of something and it didn't work out uh the bun single was by a large nupear in this one in that fifth

Starting point is 00:13:13 inning the only other hit for the cardinals until uh hose fermine ended up doubling with one out in the eighth inning after mire was already done for the night max myer is impressive he is very impressive. There's a reason why he's nine and no so far this year. They did have Meyer on the ropes at one point, though. They loaded the bases without a hit in the seventh inning. Stop me if you heard this before. Yvonne Herrera got hit by a pitch. It was a breaking ball. No intention. But 22nd time this season that he's been bumped by the baseball. Then you get two walks and you got the bases loaded and one out of the infield. It's a new old foresight at the plate. And then Nathan Church laces one down the line in left field. I thought I was going to get down off the bed. I was like, yes. No. That was my exact reaction because the Marlins were placed perfectly and their left fielder, got right over there, made the catch into the threat. That's where the momentum kind of turned back to Miami in this one. Michael McGreevy, what can you say? He was excellent. Had a roughout in his last time out, but I bounced back and was on his game. Five hits against him, one walk, four strikeouts, not a whole lot of stress going on in that one. So you can't really blame Michael

Starting point is 00:14:21 McGreevy for anything. And after the Marlins escape, that base's loaded situation, the bottom of the order is the one that jumps up and bites the Cardinals. They're the ones that get them on the board, single, stolen base, then a double by the number nine hitter. Then we had the 27-minute rain delay. And then Soriano comes back

Starting point is 00:14:39 onto the mound and he ends up walking a couple of guys. And that sets up that play at the plate where you get the ground ball to first base. Burleson makes a nice play on it. Tags first, throws it home. Looks like we're going to have a devil play there. It would have been really nifty, but calls out, but it gets overturned because slide beat him. Couldn't get the, Yvonne Herrera couldn't get the tag down.

Starting point is 00:15:03 So it gets overturned. Marlins go up to nothing. And then again, it's walks. They hurt the ballpen later on. Ratchet comes in and the ninth inning puts two won. And then it's Marcy, who brings them both in on that line drive. The church was, what, six inches from catching? and he traps it instead and makes it four to nothing.

Starting point is 00:15:22 And then the game kind of feels like you're screwed. You know, fifth shoutout loss for the Cardinals this year was not a whole lot of fun to watch that game last night. Pretty, pretty dull, pretty boring. And that's something we haven't seen a whole lot of this year of boring baseball, but it's got a boring baseball last night. In the first 40 games of this homestand, the Cardinals have been a boring offense,

Starting point is 00:15:43 scored a combined five runs through the first eight innings, a lot of their run production coming at the end of games when these games have already been decided. So that's not fun. Bases loaded, one-out situation is the spot where you need to get at least one. At least get one. You need a fly ball. And they just could not get that big hit, especially when it's against somebody as good as Max

Starting point is 00:16:03 Meyer has been like, you can't waste those opportunities because you're not going to get many. And they didn't get anymore. And the Marlins turned the tables on them the next inning, took that momentum and won the game. Cardinals have only hit one home running their last seven games at Bush Stadium. Is it time to move the fence? is in, or at least talk about it. So many of the Cardinals fly balls die at the warning track. And like, I know it's going to be worse on the pitchers, but I mean, my God, I was like, why are the Cardinals the ones that have to play in a cathedral and make it more difficult

Starting point is 00:16:39 on their office? Like, would they even consider that? Other teams have done it. They're like, let's bring them in a little bit. I'd be on board with that. And I think the Cardinals would just have to start drafting guys and producing guys that get more swing and miss, they don't have to worry about it as much. The Marlins stole two more bases off Yvonne Herrera. That's 46 in a row since he lasted around a base dealer in 2024. How was that even humanly possible? That is beyond me how that could even happen.

Starting point is 00:17:09 Like not one guy who's tried to steal against Herrera like slipped or had a bad jump or was just slow that Herrera can gun one dude out. September of 2024. Come on. 46 in a row, 46. Like when he does do it, and believe me, he is going to do it. Will he keep the ball?

Starting point is 00:17:33 Will he ask, can you throw that in, please? Will he salute the crowd? I did it. I love him in the batters box, but the catching thing, still leaning towards him learning to play something else at some point. Renio Rodriguez, Leo Bernal,

Starting point is 00:17:49 They're coming. Will Jimmy Crooks be around for that? I don't know. We'll see. Somebody's going to have to get traded from the catching stable. It's going to happen. Cardinals also announced that Dustin May will not be pitching today. Instead, it's Andre Palante, who will be on normal rest.

Starting point is 00:18:05 So no issues there. But May is apparently dealing with some lower back tightness, which I guess bothered him in that awful start against the Royals and stems from his complete game against the Padres. So now we're dealing with that. Thanks to the rain out on Thursday, the Cardinals will continue with the rotation in its normal order, and May will make his next expected start in the series finale in Atlanta. Hopefully we aren't trying to avoid a sweep at that point, but hopefully Dustin May isn't like pushing towards having any sort of injury injury, like a little lower back tightness.

Starting point is 00:18:37 I think we can live through that, but we know how the injury bug has bitten him over the year. So giving him an extra day off, you know, week off in between the starts to get right, I'm cool with that because he's going to become important down the line, whether the Cardinals are keeping him or trading him. He's going to be a big deal for this team. John Moe-Zalc is back. He's back, baby. Mo is coming.

Starting point is 00:19:00 Not with the Cardinals, but back instead out west in L.A. The latest news and notes from that transaction and other stuff, like a little trade talk, too. We'll get into that. Coming up next on Locked on Cardinals. The biggest stage in world soccer is here in every match feels like it has the potential for a memorable moment. One goal could completely change the energy of a game, shift the momentum, alters the outcome in an instant. And that's what makes tournament soccer so exciting from the opening

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Starting point is 00:22:04 Thank you to everybody who reached out. Apparently today is my fourth year anniversary of being with Locked On, which is wild to think. It does not feel like it's been that long. But, you know, I was here when we went back to 2022, when Poolhole's and Molina said goodbye. So it's been four years. So I appreciate you guys.

Starting point is 00:22:25 coming in each time. And I appreciate all the growth we've had on the channel. The Los Angeles Angels announced something yesterday that blew my mind. John Moseilock is back and is serving as their interim GM and has also been hinders their baseball operations consulting. And I loved how last night during the telecasts when news broke about this, they were joking on air that like, oh my gosh, Mo's wife is already kicking him out of the house. She's already had enough after stepping down from the car. They're like, okay, go back. to work. We don't want you around here. All in good fun, obviously. We're all joking with Mo, but Mo is back in baseball, man. I did not see that coming this quickly. In an official statement,

Starting point is 00:23:06 the team said Mosellock will serve in the GM role through the end of the season and assist in the search for the clubs next. General manager, kind of wild that he just comes off the street and gets that gig right away. Like, would any other franchise have done that? Only the angels, right only the angels. There was also an article that got dropped about 10 trade candidates on the bubble teams. Cardinals are obviously a bubble team right now. So they brought up Dustin May said that signed to a one year, $12.5 million deal with the Cardinals in December may look like an obvious candidate to get

Starting point is 00:23:36 flipped at the deadline when the season began after all St. Louis seemingly signaled its plans to rebuild when it traded Wilson Contreras, Sunny Gray, Brita Donovan, and Nolan Aronado in the offseason. But St. Louis, a strong start for strong first half, has made it more of question whether the team will end up moving may. However, if the team starts to fade before the deadline, we expect the right-hander to be dealt as president of baseball operations, Heinblum, continues to lay the groundwork for the future in his first year at the helm. 28-year-old May gave up six runs in his last time out that had a 2.54 ERA and a 2.69 fifth

Starting point is 00:24:10 in the 12 starts before that. I'm still of the belief that they're going to sell, even though things might be right where they're like on the bubble still. I still think that they're more interested in what's going to happen after the CBA is done. And then they'll start making their claims on veteran pitchers. And I don't, I don't think Dustin May is going to be part of this future. I just, I just don't. I think they're going to trade them.

Starting point is 00:24:37 I would love to see the Cardinals go in a run and make it impossible to trade them where they are in a playoff spot and it would make no sense whatsoever to blow that up. But I'm just being realistic with you. The way the schedule is set, the way they've been playing over the last. like 30 some odd games makes me believe they're not going to make it and that they're going end up training a bunch of these guys. So I'll hope for the best, but I'm prepared for the worst. On the other side of things, though, if things do go well, all right, let's play that role. Things do go well. Cardinals are winning. We're in the playoff hunt, whether it's in the division,

Starting point is 00:25:11 whether it's in the wild card, they decide, you know what, let's go after some people. There are two names on this list that had, you know, the 10 trade pieces on bubble team, that I would be interested in. Number one is Sandy Alcantra. I would love to get him back in the Cardinals uniform, but the Marlins are one of the hottest teams in baseballs we talked about. But they said, if like, hey, say the Marlins hit the skids again, they could try to move on from him who has a $21 million team option for 2027.

Starting point is 00:25:37 Miami fielded offers for him last summer, ERA over six last year. So things weren't looking so good. Value one wasn't as high as they had hoped, and they decided to hang on to him. but he's got an ERA of 4.01 this year, and a lot of that was done early on when he wasn't having a good start to the season. But since, what, the end of April,

Starting point is 00:25:59 he's 5 and 0 with the 2.60 ERA in June. So 304 ERA through the end of April, 5 and 0, 2.60 through June. So he's been awesome. Luckily, the Cardinals don't have to face him in this series, but he's been really good. We'd love to have him back. And the other guy, and I brought him up before,

Starting point is 00:26:16 is Trevor Rogers from the Orioles. Now, the Orioles aren't too far. This is what they say about them. Not far from a large scale rebuild. So they'll probably stay the course with their current core rather than tear it all down. However, they've got some pending free agents like Rogers. ERA has ballooned from 1.81 last season to 5.30 here in 2026. But he has pitched well in June, 2.22 ERA with a 3.06 FEP. I'm of the belief he's closer to being the guy that was around a 2ERA than he is this guy that's above five. And I think the Cardinals could use another left-hander in the rotation, not named Matthew Libertor.

Starting point is 00:26:52 So he would be somebody I'm interested in. Right now, I don't see the Cardinals buying, but if they wore, those are the two guys that I would hope they would target. But leave your comments down below. Let me know what you think. Thanks for making Lockdown Cardinals first listen every day. If he haven't already, give us follow on Axonelm underscore Cardinals, TikTok, Instagram, and Lockdown Cardinals, like, subscribe on YouTube.

Starting point is 00:27:11 If you never miss an episode, check out the Everydayer Club. locked on STL Cardinals. That supercast.com to join there. And on video, we're going to send you to the first ever 24-7 National Lockdown Podcast Network YouTube channel on audio. Make sure your second listen is locked on MLB. You're the best fans in baseball for a reason. We'll see you next time on Locked on Cardinals.

Starting point is 00:27:30 And Andre Palante, we trust. Go get us that win, brother.

Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - St. Louis Cardinals Season TEETERS as Pitching WOES and Losses To Weaker Teams MOUNT

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