Article: Why The Cardinals Aren’t That Scary

[Jake McKibbin]

After seeing the Cardinals match up and take the series against a playoff contender such as the Blue Jays, in the manner they did may appear slightly frightening. However, once you look deeper, you can see the underlying cracks have already shown themselves, and their performance looks unsustainable.

Image courtesy of © Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports

Pitching
The Cardinals were widely expected to be far greater at run scoring than run prevention and their pitching looked particularly fragile. On a weekend that should have spear-headed their crème de la crème, they had Mikolas first up, going 3.1 innings with ten hits allowed. They lost 10-9, and although starting pitching usually takes a game or two extra to warm up (I’ll come to this in a bit), Mikolas is due for some regression from career numbers last season. Also, in this game, Jordan Hicks, a player the Cardinals expect to be dominant with his extreme velocity, and Helsley got hit for four earned runs across their two innings.

In game two, Flaherty may have a zero ERA. However, he gave up seven walks, with only four strikeouts, and was down a few clicks from his dominant seasons, making him eminently more hittable last season. On top of this, Jordan Hicks achieved just one out while giving up three walks, forcing Helsley into a five-out save.

Jordan Montgomery looked sharper but still gave up six hits and a walk across five innings, with the Blue Jays showing minimal patience at the plate, one reason for only six strikeouts all game. There were also three different pitches hit over 370 ft by the Blue Jays and a ton of high exit velocity contact off Montgomery. He showed several inches less vertical break on both his sinker and his change-up, which could result from a slight increase in velocity, but could also make him far more hittable if this continues throughout the season.

This Cardinals pitching staff, both bullpen and starting rotation, looks eminently attackable if they can stay vaguely healthy this season. The Brewers hitters should be licking their lips at the prospect of facing them next weekend. Flaherty vs Woodruff, Montgomery vs Lauer, and Woodford vs Peralta are the likely matchups.

Hitting
The other thing everyone knew about the red birds coming into the season was the depth of their lineup. In the three games, they mashed 22 runs, but anyone watching the video will see how the Blue Jays fed into this. They were all over the place in the field, with Manoah and Bassitt looking like they were dusting themselves off a little.

Manoah struggled to get anything in the strike zone, falling behind with regularity; this was different from the dominant Alek Manoah we saw for Toronto last season. Here’s his pitch map for the season debut:

He struggled to hit the edges of the strike zone compared to many uncompetitive pitches or pitches over the heart of the plate.

Bassitt, on the other hand, was averaging 1.5 mph less on his pitches than last season and seemed to hang a lot of his off-speed options, appearing very unthreatening on the whole and not at all the player the Blue Jays will likely see throughout the rest of the season. One of Nolan Gorman’s home runs yesterday came off a 68 mph hanging curve that was as center-cut as they come. Many of their hitters have struggled far more against the high strikeout kinds of pitchers than the “location” experts, and the lack of velocity over the weekend played into their hands. Even then, Gausman performed much better, conceding three unearned runs due to a throwing error from Chapman and striking out more than one batter per inning.

This is a quality line-up, make no mistake about it, but don’t expect Gorman, Walker, O’Neill, and Donovan to be replicating this over the course of a season. Gorman will still struggle up in the zone with Woodruff’s heaters, O’Neill is still a strikeout merchant, and Donovan doesn’t have the type of power that will continue to dominate. Then you have Walker, who had a strong start vs. the minor pitchers in late games at the start of Spring Training but faded when tasked with the stronger pitchers; he can’t be expected to produce when he’s never played above AA until he made his debut in the majors. Quality pitching can keep them quiet, and the Brewers ' headed hydra of Peralta, Woodruff, and Burnes is perfectly formed to sit them down repeatedly. However, there would be concern over the likes of Lauer or Miley if pitted against this heavy-hitting bunch of sluggers.

Overall Pitching Performances
Over the opening weekend, we’ve seen a lot of aces not show up with their best game, from our own Corbin Burnes, Chris Sale (3 IP, 7 ERs), Aaron Nola (3.2 IP, 5 ERs), Jacob deGrom (3.2 IP, 5 ER’s) that it’s easy to see pitching improving considerably over the next few starts. In contrast, the hitters seem far more locked in toward the end of the weekend. In short, the Brewers' pitching has some fine-tuning to come, but the Cardinals hitters can’t say the same, and their pitching has far less room for growth with the talent levels it has on offer.

Final Word
A quick start is important for the morale of both teams, trying to make their mark on this season early, but especially for the Brewers. This upcoming week of Mets and Cardinals will be fun and a real test of the rookies, but the environment at American Family Field will show what the Brewers have offensively; expect to see some big home runs and some dominant performances.

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