Does That Sky Look Closer To You?

Last night, the Cardinals lost their third straight game, this one to the Royals by a 6-5 score that only got that close in the final frame. If you are online, you may have seen a shift from where the mood was last week (“They should get Joe Ryan, or Byron Buxton, or both!”) to where it is now (“Strip it down, this team’s done.”) Is that an accurate assessment of where this team is?

Maybe.

It’s true that there are some causes for concern. The Royals came into this series 30-45, yet have had their way with both Matthew Liberatore and Michael McGreevy. When you lose 14-6 in a Kansas City stadium, you’d think it would be Arrowhead rather than Kauffman. Losing a series to a cellar-dwelling team, especially the cellar of the AL Central, is going to get people thinking extistentially.

To be fair, as Cardinals fans we’ve kinda been waiting for the shoe to drop for a long time. A team that was expected to win 70 games on the season already has 40, so we start looking to see if there is a piano suspended that’s about the crash down on our heads. The pitching staff might be the fraying rope.

It’s probably telling that there were two articles in the Post-Dispatch recently discussing the rotation status of a certain pitcher. Benjamin Hochman wrote about why the Cardinals aren’t worried about Liberatore while Lynn Worthy penned down the team’s thinking about Kyle Leahy. Given the solid work of Hunter Dobbins when he’s been in the league, you’d be forgiven for thinking the club might be going to make a move. If they aren’t, it’s another sign that they are thinking less about this year and more about the years beyond.

Leahy, at least, is coming off a strong start against the Padres. It was the second time this season he’d gone six innings and while three runs isn’t ideal in those situations, if the offense had been clicking like it has been, he might have been able to get out of there with a win. He has struck out five or more batters in five of his eight starts since the beginning of May, including 12 over the last two outings. Nobody’s confusing him with Jacob Misiorowski or anything, but it’s a step in the right direction.

We talked last time about the third time around issue for both Leahy and Liberatore. His third time through the Padres lineup started off inauspiciously when Fernando Tatis doubled in the third run of the game, but he got the next five batters out. As the articles above indicate, the club is looking less at individual game results and more about whether the general direction of things is positive.

All that being said, Leahy is at 70 innings. He threw 88 last year, which was his career high in the majors. You have to go back to 2022 to find him throwing over 100 innings, when he threw 144.2 innings (his career high) spread over Springfield and Memphis. You’d have to think they’d not like to see him go much more than, what, 110 innings this year? I know Dusty Blake said in a recent in-game interview that they are looking at pitches more than innings, but even so that’s got to be about the limit if you don’t want to run a risk.

Forty more innings at an average of five innings a game would give Leahy eight more starts. At this rate, he’d have four starts before the All-Star Break (and not fun ones either: Arizona, at Atlanta, at Wrigley, vs. Milwaukee). Teams sometimes reset their rotation at the break so it’s not terribly clear how the Cards would come out of it, but three would come before the trading deadline of August 3.

If the Cardinals want to keep Leahy in the rotation, they are probably going to have to shift to a six man rotation at some point. It wouldn’t be shocking if the Cards found some veteran pitcher around the deadline that wouldn’t cost much for the rest of the year, less for trying to stay in contention and more about giving a cushion to Leahy.

Then again, as we look to another arm in the rotation, maybe they’ll keep doing what they are doing. After all, Liberatore pitched 86 innings in 2024 and went to 151.2 in 2025. Granted, Liberatore had a little more recent experience being a starter—he threw over 125 innings between St. Louis and Memphis in 2023—so that definitely plays a role in things. I expect though, in some form or fashion, we’ll see less of Leahy in the second half.

Liberatore is a different story. There’s no physical reason to limit his outings, as we noted he threw over 150 frames last year. Yet while the Cards are looking for the improvements, the overall story isn’t a pretty one.

Libby went six innings against the Padres on May 7, allowing just one run in Petco Park. Since then, his ERA is 6.82, his xERA is 5.92, and his FIP is a more reasonable 4.68. Those numbers include his 5 1/3 scoreless innings against the Cubs, which should have brought them down some. Of course, giving up seven in 1 1/3 against the Royals Thursday night had the opposite effect.

Interestingly, though, Liberatore’s K/9 in that same span is 11.27. He’s been tagged by the longball (2.08 HR/9) but perhaps that’s a function of upping his strikeout game. The home run per fly ball rate is over 20%, so at least some of that has to be bad luck. No matter how you slice it, though, it’s been a stretch of seven starts that has folks pretty meh on his future.

Liberatore doesn’t become a free agent until after the 2030 season (assuming the CBA negotiations don’t change that) so you can see why it behooves the Cardinals to do all they can to make Libby a passible starter. On the next Cardinal team that makes a deep run in October, Liberatore is probably your 4th or 5th starter even if he does get on track. There’s value there and I’m sure the Cards are willing to bite the bullet if it means they can find it.

Of course, we’ve gotten used to Leahy and Liberatore not meeting fan expectations (though not to the extent of Thursday’s game) but I think what has folks starting to raise their personal white flags was a rough start by Michael McGreevy last night. That’s the guy that has been making sure that the struggles of those two starters doesn’t extend too far, but last night he looked more like them their their antidote.

There’s no doubt that many of us have been expecting a McGreevy crash. You look at the underlying numbers and you wonder exactly how he’s juggling everything. He’s in the bottom 4% of MLB in xBA and xSLG, and while he’s not that bad with the strikeout rate, it’s nothing to write home about either. His current expected ERA is 5.67 whereas his actual is 3.35. Last year, those two numbers were closer to equal.

That being said, the man’s been effective. Before last night, he’d had three starts of six innings, two runs. He had two bumpy outings at the end of May, but before that he had three six innings starts, two of which were no run and the other he allowed just one. He’s going to have a similar road as Leahy between now and the All-Star Break, so it might be harder to bounce back from this blowup with a run of goodness like he did after the last one. However, he was the only one to tame Minnesota and was able to put six scoreless on the Dodgers in early May, so who knows?

I’ve come a long way from our initial premise, I realize, but that’s also pretty much par for the course around here. Allen and I discussed on Musial the tougher slate of games between now and the break, which lends credence to this idea that it’s been fun but now we’re going to see the club start to slide into irrelevance, making this upcoming trade deadline less of an angst-filled one for Chaim Bloom.

I also realize that Dustin May goes Sunday, which could result in a Cardinals win. The Diamondbacks come to town for four games (hello, Nolan Arenado!) and they’ve been dealing with injuries, though it sounds like Michael Soroka might be OK after leaving last night’s game early. That series will have Andre Pallante (who has been going well) as well as McGreevy on the end of it. It’s possible that you get through the next five games winning four of them and suddenly there’s less negativity around the team. I mean, it’s not like the issues we’re talking about are new—they’ve been around all year and the team has been able to overcome them. But there is a reason why we’ve called them overacheivers as well.

It’s hard to say that this team isn’t a contender when it sits in the first wild card spot in the NL, but it’s also fair to note that come Monday, it might not be all right and they could be out of the playoff picture. If McGreevy struggles again or May winds up getting hit around, there’s going to be a lot more looking at the upcoming draft and the trade deadline than scoreboard watching.

I think this is a bit of a blip on the radar and the coming week should be pretty good for the team, but it’s hard to imagine them getting through the Braves/Cubs/Brewers/Braves gauntlet in a good position. They are seven games over .500 now so getting to the break above break-even is still reasonable, but it’s definitely not a guarantee. There’s no help coming, most likely, unless they go ahead and plug Dobbins in soon (and, with that Brewers series being five games, that’s a possibility). Even that taps all the depth available, with Quinn Matthews still not quite ready for prime time it seems.

That doesn’t mean that all is lost, for sure. Blaze Jordan has been quite a nice addition to the team. Granted, it was a low bar to clear when you are replacing Nolan Gorman (who the team is also not giving up on, but you have to figure it’s August before he returns honestly, since he’s just now getting started in the lab in Jupiter), but not only has Jordan held his own at bat but he’s been better than expected with the glove as well.

I thought it was big for Oli Marmol to let Jordan take his turn last night in a situation that wasn’t huge but still a good testing ground nonetheless. Hitting with two outs, two on, and the team down three, Jordan put together a good at bat and then singled in the two runs. It would have been an even bigger moment had the comeback continued, but even so it was great to see the kid come through and it was a symbol of what this season is all about—giving players more and more opportunities and responsibility and seeing what they do with it.

Jordan Walker still doing Jordan Walker things and will definitely be in Philadelphia one way or another next month (most likely player/manager selections—I doubt he is able to make up the ground in the fan voting). Depending on need, you could see Dustin May, Alec Burleson, or JJ Wetherholt join him. I think the Cards probably get multiple representatives this year, though it depends on how the roster matrix shakes out.

I always got frustrated with Anthony Rizzo, feeling like he basically stood on the plate and got plunked all the time. I wonder if other teams feel the same way about Ivan Herrera. He’s close to the plate, though I don’t feel like he crowds it the same way Rizzo did. Of course, Rizzo was a Cub, so that didn’t make me predisposed to like him much anyway. Anyway, it feels like a rare game where Herrera isn’t standing on first with a bruise, feeling like meat after being tenderized.

Lars Nootbaar has looked good in his return, adding to the lineup as well as the defense. He misplayed a ball last night, but he also beat out a double play that helped lead to that three run ninth. That said, it still makes a lot of sense for him to be in play at the trade deadline, especially if Joshua Baez keeps making strides. Even if the team is still contending, making that switch would be interesting.

As noted above, Allen and I got a new Musial in yesterday morning. Not sure if we’ll get a Gateway in this week given some circumstances, but if you are subscribed you’ll get it if we do!