The St. Louis Cardinals have had an incredible May, there is no denying that. They began the month near the bottom of the National League and now find themselves three games behind the Chicago Cubs, who have been taking advantage of a weak schedule while the Cardinals continue to battle against playoff hopefuls.
With a 13-6 record in May that was bolstered by a nine-game winning streak in the middle of the month, the Cardinals have started to regain national attention and fans are slowly starting to trickle back into Busch Stadium. While the attendance is still well below where it has been, and in my opinion should be, there is a noticeable difference in the attitude from fans on social media. Coming into the season, if you spent five minutes on Twitter/X, you would see that fans would be calling manager Oli Marmol the worst decision-maker in baseball, star third baseman Nolan Arenado washed up, and expecting the Cardinals to complete for the worst record in the division. Of course, all of these statements were overblown then and look even more ridiculous now after this amazing month. And those fans are starting to realize that this team could be a legitimate playoff contender.
As a lifelong fan, I always expect the Cardinals to field a competitive team with the players that they have on the roster and this season was no different in my eyes. While the offseason did not play out as anticipated, that was a good thing to me since the roster was made up of guys who want to win. The only losses from last year’s team were Paul Goldschmidt, who is having a nice season in New York, and Andrew Kittredge, who was just activated off of the IL to make his first appearance for Baltimore. That meant guys like Masyn Winn, Willson Contreras, Arenado, Brendan Donovan, and Lars Nootbaar, would be returning to an exciting offensive lineup. Add in young pieces like Ivan Herrera, Victor Scott II, Jordan Walker, and Nolan Gorman and this team showed the potential to be good.
Of course, the team is still waiting for Walker and Gorman to turn the corner but they have to be ecstatic about the lineup’s performance to this point while also giving credit to new hitting coach Brant Brown. The pitching was always going to be a question for a rotation full of pitch-to-contact veterans and two relievers-turned-starters in Andre Pallante and Matthew Liberatore but the starting staff has held their own. The bullpen, after being last year’s strength, went through a rough patch early in the year but breakout Kyle Leahy has shored up the backend of the bullpen and allowed the Cardinals to shorten the game.
All of these positives set up for an exciting series against the Detroit Tigers, who came to St. Louis as the best team in baseball. The good vibes continued when the Cardinals dominated game one with a decisive 11-4 win on Monday but had to face 2024 Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal in the second game. While the end result was a 5-4 loss, the game itself had plenty of positives, including knocking Skubal out of the game in the 6th and mounting a late game comeback after being down 4-0 early. Scrolling social media after a loss is always a risk but the fans were actually excited about how well the team played and the amount of fight they showed. With the series finale being a bullpen game for Detroit, the Cardinals looked poised to steal a series against the league’s top team.
It was not meant to be, however, as the Cardinals struggled to get anything going against the Tigers’ opener or the rest of the relief corps throughout the game. With a lineup that saw all of Alec Burleson, Walker, Gorman, and Herrera, I admit I was excited to see what the young guys could do. Unfortunately, those four combined to go 3-for-13 as the season struggles continue for Gorman and Walker, who went 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position.
Yes they were playing the best team in the majors but it still felt like a disappointing game against the Tigers who admitted that they were using two bullpen days to look forward to what they deemed a more important next series. This seemed like a time that the Cardinals could have scraped out a couple wins and kept the positive momentum going as they finish the month with the Diamondbacks, Orioles, and Rangers. The fact that this felt disappointing, though, could be a sign that fan expectations have shifted since the beginning of the year.
At the start, there was little excitement around Busch Stadium outside of an opening weekend sweep but the attendance took a steep drop off as the Cardinals tumbled down the standings. Unfortunately, the fan sentiment from the offseason was ringing true and the 2025 season looked to be one where the team fell out of contention quickly and the organization would decide to sell of their valuable assets for pennies on the dollar.
Since the May surge, though, fans are now getting into fun discussions about if the team should buy at the deadline, lineup discussions that do not involve the runway for the struggling Walker and Gorman, and which minor league arms could take this team to the top of the division. I personally love those types of baseball discussions rather than passing blame onto billionaire owners or to managers who do not throw a pitch or take an at-bat for the team. Fans should want their teams to win and the disappointing feelings after a series loss to a playoff team shows that shift may be happening.
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