“I mean, come on.” That’s all I found myself saying multiple times during last night’s St. Louis Cardinals game. A day after an energetic team win with an injured Brendan Donovan saving the day with a pinch-hit, go-ahead single, the Cardinals flopped.
The 2025 Cardinals are riding a rollercoaster with the most extreme slopes up that quickly drop off into terrifying falls straight to the earth. Tuesday’s game looks like another one of those incoming death drops. Entering Monday 3.5 games behind in the Wild Card, the Cardinals were gifted the miserable Colorado Rockies to end a nine-game home stand. Donovan’s heroics salvaged what would have been a massive gut punch to momentum after back-to-back series wins against the Dodgers and the Cubs. Late game victories should be events that energize and motivate the ball club to keep the good vibes going. However, the Cardinals wasted that opportunity yet again.
The Cardinals continue to struggle in game two of a series
Again? Yes. This is the fifth time since the All-Star break that the Cardinals have lost the second game of a series after winning the opener, the first of which coming against these same Rockies. Unfortunately, this trend of uncompetitive second games have all come after emotional team wins that looked to spring the Cardinals back into legitimate playoff contention.
In those five games, the Cardinals have been shutout twice and scored a total of 11 runs to average a measly 2.20 runs per game. Even if the pitching was phenomenal in those games, the offense still may not have pulled through. How was the starting pitching the day after a win? Not great.
Fedde – 3 innings, 6 runs
Gray – 5 innings, 3 runs
Mikolas – 3 innings, 5 runs
Pallante – 1.2 innings, 6 runs
Liberatore – 4 innings, 3 runs
That’s a 14.49 ERA as Cardinals starters alone gave up double the total amount of runs the offense mustered in these games. It’s impossible to keep or create a streak when the starters fail to keep the game competitive early in the game. Offensively, things were not much better. In total, St. Louis was outscored 37-11 a day after a victory, thanks to a collective .231 batting average with two total home runs and 32 strikeouts.
Looking at every second game of a series since the break does not do much to help matters. Since the second half began, the Cardinals are 2-6 in game twos, again making it difficult to string wins together. These tough second games put more pressure on the third (most of the time rubber matches) game of a series. Going into the final or third game in a “must-win” scenario to salvage a series could put extra stress on the team and also force manager Oli Marmol to make aggressive lineup or pitching decisions that he otherwise may not make.
The Cardinals enter play today against the Major’s worst team four games out of the final Wild Card spot. If they want to make an improbable run, the team is going to have to pick it up in the middle game of a series.
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