Photography courtesy of djprybyl and UCinternational, Wikimedia Commons
We’re roughly a month into the Major League Baseball season, and the Cardinals just aren’t that good.
Many pundits picked the defending National League champions to repeat last year’s deep run into October, but that won’t happen if the offense can’t recover from its April funk. It’s like the bats still haven’t thawed after the frigid winter.
Sure, it’s early in the season. There are still five months and more than 100 games to go. Teams overcome bad starts all the time. (See the 2013 Dodgers.) But at nearly 30 games in, it’s not that early in the season anymore. So is it time for fans to start worrying? We’re not sure, and if our visit to Busch Stadium on Tuesday night is any indication, the Cardinals don’t know either.
This isn’t a bad team. Far from it. After losing a second straight game to the division-leading Brewers on Tuesday night—both contests decided in extra innings, after the Cards blew 3–0 leads—the team’s record stands at 14–14, the definition of mediocrity. But fans and players who wear the Birds on the Bat have come to expect more. “I think sometimes if they buy into some of the talk around here, they’d think we’re 0–40 right now,” manager Mike Matheny said recently, bemoaning the negativity surrounding his club.
To be sure, the mood at the ballpark turns subdued when the team isn’t living up to expectations. For the fans in the stands, it might be less noticeable. The grass is still green, with the Arch perfectly rolled into the outfield lawn. The Kiss Cam still makes you smile—or laugh, when the camera catches a pair of siblings or acquaintances. The nachos are still deliciously bad for you. The scoreboard still touts the “Best Fans in Baseball.”
The bat cracks and the glove pops and all anybody wants is a win tonight.
But before Tuesday’s game, the clubhouse was conspicuously empty during the 45 minutes it was open to the media, players having dressed early to get in some extra work and avoid the media horde bombarding them with impossible questions. One of the few players present was Peter Bourjos, the speedy center fielder acquired in a trade that sent away World Series hero David Freese.
So far Bourjos hasn’t been hitting, and lately, he hasn’t been in the lineup, as the team looks for somebody—anybody—to provide an offensive boost. After lacing up his sneakers, Bourjos said he felt good, but he lamented his lack of playing time and the effect it was having on his performance.
Out in the dugout during batting practice, Matheny looked like he’d just come from a funeral, not entirely uncommon for the no-nonsense manager. His answers were polite but brief, the jokes and smiles few. Occasionally, when an inquiry from the reporters crowded around him didn’t sit well, his serious eyes narrowed and his stout jaw tightened. One of the scribes asked Matheny, who’s known for taking losses personally, if they’re easier to deal with in his third year on the job. “No,” he said. “This was awful. All day long I felt sick… It was a tough loss. They’re all tough.”
Starting in center field would be rookie Randal Grichuk, called up from the minors to give the team a jolt, meaning Bourjos would be on the bench again. How is Bourjos supposed to break out of his slump if he isn’t playing? “It’s extremely difficult,” Matheny admitted.
It’s a catch-22 for the manager. In his two previous, successful seasons in charge, Matheny’s developed a reputation for sticking with floundering players too long. (Remember Mitchell Boggs?) But then, when he does make a change, he catches flak for not giving the regulars a chance to work through their struggles.
Tuesday’s game seemed like a good opportunity for the Cards to get back on track, against a Brewers team playing without its four best players. Things looked promising after Yadier Molina smacked a three-run homer in the first inning. Long bombs have been few and far between so far, and the team’s power outage has been a major factor in the slow start. The Cardinals’ 17 homers ranks 13th out of the 15 National League teams. Allen Craig is hitting .192. Matt Adams has one home run. Matt Holliday has two. Grichuk’s first career start began auspiciously, with a sliding catch and a single, but he finished with three strikeouts and grounded into a double play.
Things fell apart for starting pitcher Lance Lynn in the fourth inning. With the bases loaded, two outs, and one run already in, he surrendered a two-run, game-tying single to, of all people, opposing pitcher and former Cardinal Kyle Lohse. The Cards coughed up yet another lead, and after the teams traded runs in the seventh, the game went to extra innings, tied 4–4. “It wasn’t as good as it should have been, plain and simple,” Lynn said afterward, appraising his performance. “If you can’t put the pitcher away with two outs and the bases loaded with a two-run lead, you deserve not to win the game.”
On some level, it just seems like the Baseball Gods aren’t on St. Louis’ side right now. In the top of the 11th inning, with a batter on second, Milwaukee’s Lyle Overbay attempted to sacrifice bunt. He failed miserably on his first two attempts, so with two strikes against him, he decided to swing away—and smacked a game-winning single up the middle.
First, the pitcher drives in two runs. Then, a botched bunt attempt turns into the game-winning play.
“In these close games, it’s the little things that either help us or kill us,” Matheny said. “It’s something that we’ve had a lot of confidence in ourselves getting done. It’s almost a confidence issue now because they’ve seen the opposite side of it. We've just got to keep pushing.”
And stop digging. It’s only April, but the Cardinals, who trail the Brewers by 6.5 games, have already put themselves in a hole.
