ST. LOUIS – Momentum has been hard to come by for the St. Louis Cardinals of recent. Over the last two weeks, the Cardinals have slid from the National League’s second Wild Card spot to four games out of the postseason picture.
Four teams have jumped the Cardinals in the National League standings since that time: Arizona Diamondbacks, San Diego Padres, New York Mets and Pittsburgh Pirates. A fifth team – the San Francisco Giants – could pass the Cardinals by the end of Tuesday.
The Cardinals are 7-10 since the All-Star break, 4-8 in their last 12 contests and 1-4 in their last five games, a prolonged slump which has them only one game above .500 for the season (57-56) one week since the trade deadline.
If the Cardinals hope to salvage the 2024 season, there are two areas offensively where the team will need fast improvement: Hitting against lefties (.227 team average) and hitting with runners in scoring positions (.232 team average). St. Louis ranks among the bottom five league-wide for team averages in both splits.
There’s certainly some room for improvement within the pitching staff as well. Starting pitchers are only averaging around one quality start every three games. The bullpen has blown four saves since All-Star Break and has also been hit hard in pitch counts and results during a few blowout losses.
The Cardinals attempted to address some shortcomings last week by acquiring outfielder Tommy Pham and starting pitcher Erick Fedde. Pham has delivered key hits in the few Cardinal victories since rejoining St. Louis. Fedde had one rough inning in his first start, allowing five earned runs in five innings against the rival Chicago Cubs, with all damage done in the second inning.
As FOX 2 Sports Director Martin Kilcoyne and 101 ESPN’s Randy Karraker discussed on last weekend’s edition of Sports Final, the Cardinals continue to sputter around .500 without gaining much ground, even with new additions.
“The Cardinals are better after the trade deadline. I think trading Tommy Edman and getting back what they got in return [Pham and Fedde] improves them, but does it make them a team that can handle the [Los Angeles] Dodgers or Philadelphia [Phillies}? No.”
Karraker contends that someone like Pham is good for clubhouse culture, though having that align with team improvement and a standings jump is another step.
“You and I have been around a lot of winning teams. One of the common denominators for teams that win a lot is that they hate losing,” Karraker told Kilcoyne in their conversation. I don’t think the Cardinals really had that guy, well [Willson] Contreras, but I think adding Tommy Pham to this mix and helping those young players that it’s more important to hate losing than to like winning, because everybody likes winning. I think that’s really an important aspect to have and hopefully some of that will permeate throughout the clubhouse.”
The Cardinals have around 50 games left in the 2024 regular season. Their latest skid has them on pace to only win 82 games this season, which would be difficult to make the playoffs unless several teams that have passed them hit a slump soon. FanGraphs gives the Cardinals a 16% chance to clinch a spot in the postseason.
