Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - The Cardinals Will Continue To Hover At .500 If This Doesn't Happen

Episode Date: April 8, 2024

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The St. Louis Cardinals got blown out on Sunday, but there are a lot more positives than negatives to talk about, including why Kyle Gibson start yesterday should actually be applauded despite giving up seven runs. 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, they're Cardinals fans. I'm J.D. Hafford and I'm an national radio sports anchor, born and raised in the Lou and a lifetime Cardinals fan. and I'm your host for Locktown Cardinals, part of the Locktown Podcast Network, covering your team every day. You can follow me on Twitter X at JD Sports Radio as well as the podcast at L.O. underscore Cardinals.

We do want to thank those of you who make Locktown Cardinals your first listen every day. Free and available wherever you get your podcast as well as on YouTube, like, subscribe, comment, hit the notification button so you know when new episodes are posted. This is a show, serving Cardle Nation and giving the best fans in baseball, all of the info about the birds on the bat. Today's episode is being brought to you by Price Picks, the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports. Go to Pricepix.com slash locked on MLB. Use the code all lowercase, locked on MLB, for a first deposit match up to $100.

Sunday did not go as planned. I know, I know. We were all anticipating the sweep. Did you have your broom out yesterday? I bet you a lot of people had their brooms out yesterday when the Miami Marlins and the Cardinals met at Bush Stadium. Marlins hadn't won a game yet.

Hadn won a game yet. And you just kind of knew, really they're going to let Skip Schumacher get out of here without getting a W. You kind of felt like that was going to happen. But, you know, Kyle Gibson was coming off a very impressive performance in his first outing of the year against the Padres.

And the Cardinals are finding ways to win ball games. It's not the prettiest stuff, but, you know, who cares? Who cares, right? After being humbled last year, we'll take all the Ws. that we can find. So really disappointing to see the Marlins light up Gibson in that first inning for not one, but two, three-run bombs, Jazz Chisholm, and Nick Gordon were the ones who went yard. It was only the

second time in 113 games against the Marlins in St. Louis that the Cardinals allowed, six or more runs in the first inning. The only other time happened was when Miami scored seven on May 15th, 1998. Where were you in 1998? You know who started that game? Brady Raggio. Seriously, I have no idea who that is. I do not remember that name playing for the Cardinals. And I can pretty much name, or at least remember, I would say 95% of the people that since I've been around

and paying attention to baseball is like, you know, exclusively that I could go through the Cardinals, lineups to be like, yep, remember him doing this, this and that. I've never, I don't remember that guy whatsoever. Brady Rajio. So hell of a trivia answer right there. Put that one down in your back pocket, save it for something. In fact, the last time the Cardinals had allowed six runs in the first inning to any opponent was actually against the Dodgers back in 2016. So this isn't something that happens all that often to the Cardinals. As for Kyle Gibson, he hadn't allowed six first inning runs since 2022. You guys might remember that game. That's what he gave up the beginning as the

starting pitcher for the Phillies against the Cardinals. Jimmy Edmonds brought it up on the telecast yesterday for a consecutive first inning home runs as part of a six-run inning at Citizens Bank Park. The only other time Gibson allowed six runs or more in the first inning came back in 2014. And last year, he gave up six or more runs in four games total throughout the year. I know we like to think that Kyle Gibson is somebody who gets hammered a lot. Not really.

It just kind of happens once in a while. Gave up six or more runs. Let's see, I want to say, four times. So against the Royals, this is with Baltimore last year, by the way, against the Royals, against the Reds, nine against Seattle, seven against the White Sox. And then that was it. The rest of the year, it was five or under, most of the times three or four.

But from time to time, Gibson, he gets crushed. He has a stinker of a ball game. It's okay. It happens. You never know when they're going to happen. But just know what's coming eventually. So it shouldn't surprise you. that he gives up a big game once in a while.

It's what he does in between those starts that's really more important, and that's what we should focus on. And during those games, he's normally a very good pitcher, which he was for the rest of his time on the mound on Sunday. Now, last year, if you remember, let's go back. I know we try to forget 2023 as much as possible, but last year when something like this would happen,

when one of the starters, whether it's Wainwright or Flaherty, whoever it may be, okay? I feel like they all got shelled at one time or another in the first inning. A pitcher would get knocked around, and then Ollie would have to go to the bullpen, and they would burn through three, four, five arms just to get to the end of the game that they were going to lose anyway. And it would screw things up for the entire week. Like it just messes it all up. The bullpen would be exhausted, and then another pitcher would go like four innings two days later.

And there was this endless cycle where they could never catch up. Like they were constantly, like the bullpen was constantly exhausted. And the starting pitching wasn't going deep enough into games to help them, like, be able to recuperate to be any good anymore. So I would like to give Kyle Gibson credit. I know, seven runs, six in the first, not great. But after that rough first inning, which, by the way, those pitches that the home runs were getting like coming to think of it. it's not like those pitches that they hit were like horrible pitches. They weren't like the worst pitches in the world.

They weren't exactly. They weren't like meatballs. It's not like you threw it in there at 91 right down the shoot. You know, first home run, it was a cutter. He tried to get it in on Jazz Chisholm's hands, and he just didn't get it in far enough. And Jazz has got very quick hands. He's got a quick back and just flip it and knocked it out. I'm sure Gibson would tell you.

He wishes that that cutter had gone inside a little bit more. And then the Gordon Dinger was a curve ball that, yeah, in a bad spot for lefties because they love the ball low and inside. I'm sure Gibson wanted to get it down more. He was probably trying to get him to chase one down and like closer to the shoot tops than at the bottom of the strike zone there. But it's not like he left it way up here hanging, you know? It was down in the zone, very bottom of the zone, and Gibson just golfed it out, just beat him. But the rest of the way, Gibson, I mean, he settled in nicely. He allowed only two hits after the first.

He struck out five, retired 15 of the last 16 hitters that he faced between the second and sixth innings, and did it on 94 total pitches. And this is the real hidden gem about the start yesterday because, sure, seven runs in the first two innings is very bad. But it could have gone really sideways for a gibson the rest of the way. But instead, he ends up sticking around. He figures some things out, calms down, and gives the team six innings of work. In fact, he's the only Cardinal starter so far to work six or more innings and each of his two starts this season. Nobody else has done that yet. So make fun of them.

Innings eater, you make fun of it all you want. But that was huge for the team yesterday. Instead of the scenario that I described earlier, where now we've got the bullpen wiped out, Ali only had to use two more pitchers on the day. And the guys he chose, lowest guys on the totem pole. He went with Ryan Fernandez and John King to get him through the rest of the game. So all of your big guns, all of your main arms are still fresh. They're ready to rock with the Phillies coming to town.

So yeah, you may have lost the battle yesterday. But the war, as far as how things are going to go this week, you're still set up nicely to take care of business and use the bullpen the way you normally would. And that's good. That's a plus. So yeah, Kyle Gibson got rock. but you should be thanking him for doing as well as he did. I think he should be applauded.

And I think knowing the Cardinals fans and how smart you are, most will probably realize that what he did yesterday was a good thing. A lot will also see the seven runs and just think this guy's hot garbage. And that's fine. You can think that. But looking past that, you see that despite that Gibson getting six innings was a huge plus for the team coming into this week. So now just because Gibson got creamed in the first, doesn't just let the offense off the hook. I mean, the game isn't over after you give up six in the

first inning. The cardal said nine innings to try and get some runs of their own with one slugger possibly ready to break out after yesterday's performance. Possibly, we'll be talking about it next on Locked on Cardinals. Baseball season is officially underway. Don't miss your chance to add your favorite players from the diamond and your prize picks entries, whether it's strikeouts, RBIs or first inning runs, take your pick of more or less and add them to your prize picks entry today. I always tell you. And I want Miles Michaelis to win every single game of the season, but he gives up a lot of hits. He gives up a lot of hits. So if you are onto the prize picks app, I would go check out what the over under is on how many hits Miles Michaelis is going to give up today.

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in the comments section there as well as on Twitter X anytime you want. We'll be watching the game together again tonight. Phillies and Cardinals, ready to kick off a new series. And your feedback is always welcome and encouraged. So be a part of it all. It's fun. Now, I think it's fair to say that the Cardinals' offense has been,

I'll use a nice word here, disappointing. That's a very nice word to use to describe it. Dog poop could be another way to describe it. They didn't hit all that much in the spring. And now here we are, a couple of, weeks into the season, and we still have not seen this offense live up to its potential to what we expect it to be doing on a regular basis throughout this season. A lot of slow starts for the offense in these games. You know, they've been falling behind early, not always like it was yesterday

with the Marlins where they're getting killed early on, but at the same time, the offense isn't really, you know, putting the Cardinals in a good spot ahead of their opponents early on in games. They keep falling behind yesterday. They didn't have a base runner until the fifth inning against Marlins Young right, and her Max Meyer. And I know he's a good prospect. I think he was the third overall pick in the year he got drafted. So it's not like he's just crap out there on the mound.

But at the same time, this Cardle's office is supposed to be really, really good. It doesn't matter who's out there. You're supposed to be hitting at least a little bit. And to not have a base runner until the fifth inning is pretty embarrassing. They had only five hits in the entire game. Hell, Marlin's second baseman, Louisa Rice, had four hits by himself yesterday. The Carls-Lail had one more hit than Luis Arise did yesterday. That's a problem.

First base runner wasn't even on base all that long because, you know, it was a home run. That boy, no one. Gorman trotting around the bases after he got the assist from Jazz Chisholm in center field. In that fifth inning, the first long ball of the season for Gorman. And watching it, like I, I, I was like, Jazz going to catch this. Just the way he was setting up and he just, you could tell. He had a good beat on it.

That ball was in his glove. It was in his glove. But when he hits the wall, it squirts out and rolls into the first row to give the Cardinals a run. Finally on the board, first thing of the season, as I mentioned for Gorman, they had only two more hits before the rain delay in the ninth inning. Jordan Walker followed the home run with a double, Nolan Aronado, single with two outs in the sixth inning.

But that was it, dude. They were shut down yesterday. After the rain delay, you got Michael Ciani getting his first hit since, oh, gosh, since he was with the Reds in the major league. So that was a cool moment. And then Gorman hits his second of the day. Did not need an assist by anybody on that one. This one was an absolute missile to center field.

They got out in like 0.2 seconds. That thing was crushed. 108.8 miles per hour off the bat just over the center field wall. The Cardinals as a team would finish the day with just three runs on five hits. And for the most part, look pretty dead at the plate. But you got to be happy to see Nolan Gorman's power starting to show up a little bit, you know, because he's a streaky guy. He's a streaky guy.

And to see him knock not one but two to get it out of the park probably felt really good, a little monkey off his back, considering he's the guy that many expect to lead this team in home runs like he did last year. But Cardinals' offensive numbers this season just are not good. Let's roll through some of them. Paul Goldschmidt's hitting 200. he's got 11 strikeouts. You know, three hits in that opening night against the Dodgers. Not a whole lot since.

Nolan Arnato, Zitton 268, he's got a few singles here and there, but zero home runs. Just four RBIs. Hasn't taken a single walk yet. Not one. Not one. Talk about a stat that shows that a guy is pressing too much. Right there. Nolan Arnado, not walking at all.

You know, it's not like people are just laying in cookies to him and he's missing him. Like they're throwing things all over the place. And Nolan who just wants to do so good is chasing stuff. And he's just got to calm down. He's got to get out of his own head. And it's easier so I've been done. And I'm sure they're having discussions about this.

But he's just got to get out of his own head. And he's just got to be patient. Just kind of relax. Let it come to you. It'll get there. You're too good of a hitter for you to be doing what's going on right now. Jordan Walker, another guy, hitting 194, no home run. one RBI.

One. He's got one. We love Victor Scott the second. We all do. But he's getting abused at the plate right now. O for his last 17, just three for 36 on the year. The batting average is at 83. 83.

And the other thing that's a problem is he's only walked twice. So he's swinging at everything too. And you can't use that incredible speed when you're not on base. Now he looks great in the outfield. Don't get me wrong. I love him out there. He looks fantastic. The little skip that he does.

we catches a ball. Yeah, yeah, it's cool. But not much going on at the plate there. So that's been an issue. And we knew he'd struggle. I mean, he's coming straight from AA. Nobody was expecting him to get up here. And all of a sudden he's going to hit, you know, 300 and be on base and stealing four or five bases a week. Like, we knew it was going to be a little bit of a struggle. This is why he needed to go to Memphis, but because of the injuries, he had to be here in the major leagues. And when everybody gets healthy, because Newfars come, coming back and when Carlson gets back, which seems to be a little further away than we were hoping, still hasn't resumed those baseball activities yet. But when they get back,

despite how good he's been in the outfield, Scott's got to go back down. He's just got to. Unless he turns it on here and figure something out. Alec Berlinson, wonderful spring, right? We were talking all highly about him and how look, there he is. He's trimmed down. He's looking good. He's got just two RBI. So here we are again in a spot where we think he's supposed to be a good header and it's just not showing up at the major league level yet. Nolan Gorman, as I mentioned, popped his first two home runs yesterday. So hopefully that gets him going. It really kind of bumped his numbers up to make him look a little bit better than he's been. But he's at 22. Seven RBIs, but 17 strikeouts. Third most in the league behind

the Dodgers, Max Muncie and to Oscar Hernandez. Now, Muncie and Gorman, and people have asked me who I, who I compare Gorman to it. He's a very Max Muncie type of hitter. A lot of power. A lot of power dude. Good glove, but he's got to strike out a lot. Batting average is not always going to be up there. They've got very similar numbers, but Hernandez has got four home runs and 14 RBIs to go along with his strikeout total. And that's where you're hoping Gorman will be at some point that, you know, if he's going to strike out a lot, which he is, he always has. This isn't anything new. But if he's going to strike out a lot, then the power and production still has to come in those other at bats. If he's going to go one for four with two strikeouts, he needs that one hit to be like

a two run double or a home run or something like that. And up until yesterday, that just, it just hadn't happened yet. But Brightside, maybe yesterday was that breakout performance to get him going. The Cardle's pitching as much attention has it gotten this offseason and as much as we still talk about it today really hasn't been the reason why they are five and five. It's been the offense, not living up to their end of the bargain so far. Now, it does. doesn't help that Wilson Contreras has been out a couple of days, although Herrera has been good in his place, but no Newpar, no Carlson, no Edmund. I understand that, you know, those injuries are a big deal. I mean, your two-thirds of your starting outfield is not available. I get

that. I know they've run into a couple of pretty good pitchers. That's been a thing, too. But before yesterday, you had one home run between Paul Goldschman, Nolan Aronado, and Nolan Gorman. So you're heart of the order. You're meat of it. The supposedly scary part of your lineup for opposing pitchers just isn't getting a done. They're just not. And to win more ball games, to not be just a random 500 team in this league,

those three dudes got to get cooking. I mean, Tyler O'Neill, I hate to twist the blade inside everybody right now, but Tyler O'Neill has five home runs by himself already with the Boston Red Sox. He's already hit five. and you've got one between Goldie Aronado and Gorman going into yesterday's game. Now you got three. Way to go, Nolan Gorman. But it's not enough.

It's just not enough production from the heart of this order. The Cardinals outfielers combined have one home run. And he's not even a full-time outfielder. Brennan Donovan is the only one that's got one. As a team, the Cardinals are 20th in batting average. 22nd in on-base percentage. 22nd in slugging. 22 in OPS. They've got seven home runs on the year. A third lowest total in the league. Pitching

wise, and this isn't good either. 17 they've given up. So the start of the staff itself, the pitching staff has given up 17 bombs. Carlos has only hit seven. That's not a good ratio. That's not where you want to be. The offense isn't walking either. It's not like they're trading in getting base hits to be on base by, you know, walks. They only got 28 of those, bottom third of the league. and they've struck out 95 times, which is seventh highest in the league. Their batting average on balls in play, 286, 16th, middle of the pack.

Not great, but not garbage. But because they strike out so much, they're not even putting any pressure on the other team's defenses to make any mistakes. I mean, the Cardinals win the first two games against the Marlins because of defensive mistakes by Miami. They get some lucky catchers interference calls against the Dodgers in L.A.

They've had 10 guys get hit, by a pitch to have runners on base. I mean, a lot of fluky stuff is happening here to get people on base to keep rallies going. It hasn't really been that the cardals are hitting at all. The offense has been really rough, so we got to get that going. And now you've got Philly coming to town, and they're not going to make life any easier for the offense. So we're going to preview what the Phillies bring to the table next on Locked on Cardinals. Game time is now unauthorized ticket marketplace of Major League Baseball, which makes getting to tickets even faster and easier, which we like.

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in the GameTime app with code first pitch. That's code first pitch, F-I-R-S-T-P-I-T-C-H for $20 off, until April 14th only. Terms apply. Download the game at the game time app today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. Locked on has launched the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube and now it's also available on Amazon Fire TV and the free Fire TV channels app. Lockdown Sports Today is here for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local experts of locked on plus our national shows covering every league. Find Locked on Sports today now available on the free fire TV channels app. Philly's and Cardinals at Bush tonight and they'll be doing that for the next three days. Philly comes in with just a four and five record, but took two of three over the weekend against

Washington. Offensively, Trey Turner is off to another cold start, hitting just 222, no home runs, 12 strikeouts so far. The Phillies are hitting only 229 as a team. Cardinals killer, Nick Castellanos is still without a home run this season. He's got just two RBIs. Hopefully he and Turner can stay in their slumber for just a few more days, just a few more days. No need to get hot against the Cardinals. And it's not like the Phillies don't have other offensive people. Bryce Harper is still there. Kyle Schwerber still there, both Cardinal killers.

They're both off the decent starts along with their catcher, JT, Real Muto. They got a lot of firepower in that offense. We know this. Got to try to keep the ball in the ballpark. All right, that's really, you know, the Cardinals pitching staff so far, as I mentioned earlier, 17 home runs they've given up. And Harper and Schwerver are guys that like to hit home runs against the Cardinals. And so does Nick Castiano.

So try to keep it in the ballpark. That's my best advice to the pitching staff. As far as your matchup tonight, Miles Michaelis against Spencer Turnbull. You'll remember Spencer Turnbull from his time with the Detroit Tigers was really good in his one start for the Phillies so far this year. Cardinals have only faced him once in his career. Let him up pretty good. Five runs and seven hits. including two home runs. Nolan Aronado does have a home run against them. Maybe we see one of those from Nolan.

Be nice, who hasn't hit a home run since August 19th. Let me check my clock here of 2023. August 19th of 2023. It's got to end, right? It's got to end. We need to get that monkey off of Nolan Aronados back. I'm sure he's thinking a little too much about that. Tuesday's matchup. you've got Sonny Gray set to make his return on the mound. And great, he gets to face Zach Wheeler, who dominates the Cardinals pretty much anytime he sees them. So that won't be fun as far as the Zach Wheeler side of things, but it'll be great to have Sunny Gray back on the mound,

said yesterday that it's probably like about 65 pitch limit is what they're going to be looking at. So three, maybe four innings if he's doing well, you'll get out of Sunny Gray. So we know the bullpen is going to be needed at least on Tuesday, which is another thing that's great about what kind of, Gibson did yesterday, even though we got beat up pretty good in the first two innings, that he was able to go six and save the bullpen's arms. And then you got Lance Lynn set to roll on Wednesday.

Philly hasn't announced their starter yet in that one. Also, some ratings news here. I was a little surprised by this. Cardinals home opener on Thursday was seen in 7.5% of homes in the market, which is the lowest figure for a Cardinals home opener since the 2001 game, which drew a 7.2 rating and is below the, 10.6 figure from last season. So not a lot of people tuned in on that one compared to usual.

Also, at the ballpark, if you've been looking around, decent amount of empty seats still there. So season opener on March 28th in LA, 4.2% of the market watched that. That is below the rating BSM average last year for its Cardinals telecasts, which was 5.2. So low as full season figure on record. So, you know, This is the way that people are voicing their displeasure with what's going on with the Cardinals. On the field, I don't think you can be overly disappointed with what you've seen so far. Outside of the Dodgers series, this Cardinals team has done a lot of good things.

The defense has been great. Finally had their first two errors of the season yesterday, one by Mason, one and one by Brennan Donovan. But for the most part, they've looked fantastic in the field. You're getting decent pitching. The bullpen has been outstanding for the most part. you get this offense rolling and you're talking about a pretty good baseball team. I know it's early. So I'm just giving you my thoughts, giving you my thoughts.

All right, we got to wrap it up. I'm excited for the game today. Thanks for making Locked on Cardinals for us to listen every day. If you haven't already, please give us a follow on Twitter X at L.O. underscore Cardinals and the JD Sports Radio. Like, subscribe on YouTube to help our channel and love for the Cardinals grow. And if you're going to watch the eclipse today, put on the right sunglasses, make sure they are the right sunglasses.

don't put on some stuff that you bought from a secondhand place because you need your eyeballs. You need your eyeballs so you can watch more of these YouTube videos from Locked on Cardinals. You're the best fans in baseball for a reason, and we'll see you next time. Enjoy the game tonight, everybody.