Gateway to Baseball Heaven: A St. Louis Cardinals Podcast

GTBH 3/31/24: Are We Having Fun Yet?

Every week, two of the Best Fans in Baseball (TM) bring you all the news and analysis you need about the St. Louis Cardinals. Daniel (@C70) and David (@iPopEditor) recorded at their normal time, which happened to coincide with when John King came into the game, so you can hear the tone of the show shift in real time! Actually, there's plenty of issues with this team already and a tough series coming up. Come listen in as the guys try to make sense of it all!

Duration:: 31m
Broadcast on:: 31 Mar 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Good evening, welcome to another edition of Gateway to baseball heaven. I'm your host, Daniel Shumptah at C70 with me as always, David Jones and I, pop editor. I'm into you as the Cardinals are hopefully finishing up a split with the Dodgers, although this game getting a little bit tighter than any of us would like, but David, I'm glad we're recording this show tonight and not say Friday night when I was recording Meet Me at Mutual. The tone's a little bit different after yesterday's game and how this game has gone so far to that. - Yeah, speaking of tone, I think we need to kick up. Here comes the King as John King enters right now as the game was going on. But yeah, I got it, man, after the first two games, I was just, I don't want to say I was like depressed or anything from it, but it was kind of like confirmation bias. Just, I was like, yep, this is exactly what I expected. Pitching's been terrible. Just is not going well, you know, I'm not going to say this team's going to lose 162 games, but I was coming out of that thinking this team will be lucky to get to 500. And this is baseball that I don't want to watch. I was already frustrated because to watch the first game you needed MLB TV, if you're out of area. To watch the second game, you needed Apple TV. Then to watch the fourth game, you need ESPN. It's like, come on, can we not get just a regular game? So anyway, after I had paid my money for Apple, I was frustrated to actually pay and watch that mess. Yeah, after those first two, it just felt like this team was going nowhere and, you know, that whole definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. It just felt like a repeat of last year. Yeah, it really, like I said, you go into LA and lose the first two games, but you lose them two to one. You know, even four to two, something like that. Then you're like, okay, doctors are a tough team, but they've, you know, they've played them pretty well. And, you know, even if you win a, even if you lose a seven to six game, at least you're like, okay, well, you know, we kind of thought the pitching would struggle, but the offense is going to be there. And, but to go in and lose, you know, just be down so quickly, both games, you know, behind quite a lot. And then even last night with Lance Lynn trying to do his dardest, he just wound up getting out of the jam. But it just, you're right. It just reinforces that whole idea that this pitching staff isn't good enough as the pitching staff gives up more runs. So I don't know. I feel better about getting a win out of there. And it's going to be really hard to get to now. But I don't know, I mean, can we say, can we take a lot of any optimistic methods? I think we should. I mean, we're fans. We don't want to be depressed all season long, but it still feels like they haven't like flipped a switch and everybody's just awesome now. - Yeah, well, one thing we can take out of this is that I think your feed is about 20 seconds ahead of mine. And so when you said that, I thought, what's coming? Now I know what just came. So great. Here comes the king, there goes the ball. Yikes. Yeah, you know, winning last night was great. That was fantastic. For them to pull that off, I saw some, I think it maybe was Ben Fredrickson that said that Blaster's team wouldn't have been able to win that game. It showed some toughness. I don't necessarily agree with that. I think it was a lot of luck. And tonight they got up for nothing. And I thought, okay, if you walk out of here with a split with the Dodgers, playing as poorly as the Cardinals have, you have to be very, very happy about it. Because to get a split when they have not played well is huge. What we're seeing again, with the exception of tonight, we're seeing the pitching staff give up early runs, the team's getting down early and you feel like the game's already over, especially when you see who's pitching for the other team. You just feel like this is not going well. You look at the way the Cardinals have started games. It's like, you just know, everybody's going to strike out in the first inning. They can't even put the ball in play. Opening day, I felt like they were going to set a record for foul outs. It just was terrible. And you never want to be that team where the announcers are starting to say things like, this team hasn't hit the ball out of the infield yet. This team hasn't put the ball in play yet. Stuff like that, like that's just not good to hear. And that's where we are. And yeah, I don't want to water down a win. I don't want to be that negative person who's just saying, well, they won, but look at how they won. But they got a lot of help. They got a lot of help from the Dodgers. And what it reminded me of is when I play like a game with my five-year-old and you kind of got to work hard to let him win, it almost felt like the Dodgers were working hard to let the Cardinals win almost like it was an adult with the five-year-old. Now, I don't think they were. Now, if you want to bring in some betting allegations, sure, I could see how things went so crazy with catcher's interference hit by pitch as a box, you could. But the Cardinals got lucky. It's not good when your best offense is the other team screwing up and doing things that are out of your control. And I feel like that's where we're at right now. Even tonight, they're just not hitting the ball well. You're having to rely on the other team to make mistakes. - Yeah, I mean, they have, excuse me. You know, last night, you had Donutman hit a double in the right spot, but again, he wouldn't have been up in that spot had it not been for all the weirdness that went along, which I mean, again, if you're having a game that has a rain delay in Los Angeles, maybe you're expecting the weird stuff, I don't know. But there was a lot of things that went right all at the right time for that kind of stuff to happen. And then tonight, you know, it's a little bit of the same. We still haven't seen the Cardinals hit a home run, except for Paul Goldschmidt on opening day. We still haven't just seen just anything. I mean, no one are out of finally got his first hit. I guess in his last bit back, 'cause last time I looked, he was over still. So the offense still hasn't fully clicked. And I don't know, I don't know what you do about that. Honestly, unless you just, to some degree, chuck it up to the fact that the Dodgers are have some really good pitching. - Yeah, and that's one element of it. I mean, Glass now, yeah, he looked really good. Miller was hitting triple digits, but that's part of it. Yeah, so, but you got to face other guys. You're facing their bullpen. You're facing their other pitchers. Not everybody that's throwing for them is an ace. Now they have guys that are much better than what the Cardinals have. But in a four game series, you have to hit better than this. It's early, you hope this turns around, especially when they start playing other teams, especially once they get home to play, but it hasn't looked good. Arnato to get that hit tonight, he probably should have two hits. They gave an error on the third baseman the other night when he absolutely ripped one at him. So I think that's just the official score messing up on that, but still two hits is not very much. At this point, I mean, maybe Paul Goldschmidt, Mason Nguyen and Matt Carpenter have the numbers that you might expect or hope for, but we're seeing the same power issue that we saw in spring, which is not good whatsoever. We're seeing some of the bottom of the order get on base. However, they need to do it, but Nolan Arnato, Nolan Gorman, Wilson Contreras, these guys are not driving them in. They're not taking advantage of the opportunities in front of them. And so yes, some of this has to do with the Dodgers being that billion dollar team, but some of this just has to do with the Cardinals not executing because we can look at this, like you might look at a college football matchup at the beginning of the year when one of the big dogs plays the local community college and whoops them. But we're talking about two teams in the national league. The Cardinals are competing with the Dodgers for a playoff spot in a sense because of how the wildcards go and everything like that. This could be a team that if you make the playoffs, you play in the first round of the playoffs. So I felt like going into the season, a lot of us had this pessimism, like look at the start of the season, this is gonna be really tough and that's true, but you also heard it from the coaching staff. And that's not something you would hear from the coaching staff in the front office. Like almost accepting defeat and how it was going to be tough at the beginning, making it sound like that the Dodgers are just in such a different level than the Cardinals. I don't like that and I don't like what we're seeing so far. - Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I mean, it's really, again, it's such a, I mean, it's four games. You take this four games and you put it in the middle of May and maybe you're not really even thinking much about it. It's just the first four that we see. And what was that? It reinforces some of those issues we thought the Cardinals had and maybe adds on a few that we didn't necessarily know. I don't know, maybe they go to San Diego and win two of three and feel a lot better when the actual "Here Comes the King" plays on Thursday, but I don't know. I mean, it's a, I mean, I don't know. It's really where we're at, right? I mean, it's just a situation where we can't really get a handle on this yet or at least if we are getting a handle on it, it's not the one that we want. - Yeah, I completely agree. I think if someone told you prior to the series that the Cardinals would come out of the series, we're winning one of four, most people would say, yeah, that's probably what we expected. If someone said they would win two of four, people would probably be a little bit surprised and would take that. Now, we still have three outs to go. I don't know how that's going to turn out, but right now things are just not turning in the right direction. And what worries me is that they're not going home after this. They still have two more series before they get to actually go home. You hope that they haven't gotten themselves in a hole where they can't get out of it by that point. I know it's a long season, but sometimes you start off bad. You just continue that the rest of the way. We saw that last year. You hope that they can just kind of keep, even if it's 500 baseball until they get home. And then something maybe clicks, guy start hitting. But the bats are going to have to come out. Stephen Metz did enough tonight. They should have gotten the win from him alone. I mean, when you're up four nothing, you've got to win those games. But I'm also a little concerned because Romero did not look good. Hellsley looked really off in his appearance. The Gallegos did get the save, but he did not look great either. You know, that win, it was a win, that didn't feel like a win in some ways. So thank goodness they didn't start off 0 and 3, but I'm just, I'm not loving where we're at right now. Now had they ended up winning tonight's game for nothing, I'm a little more optimistic, although again, catcher's interference playing a role, walks playing a role, but right now this team is just kind of slowly coming along and maybe something will happen and a switch will be flipped. But it feels like we're just seeing spring training continue to this point. - Yeah, I do think if you come out of LA too into, no matter how you do it, you just, you know, you count it as a blessing and you keep going, right? I mean, you know, these games count the same. I mean, even if you win, you know, with four home runs or you win because, you know, the catcher can't find the ball, that counts the same and standing. So if you can get out of LA into it too, you're good shape. And that's where the Cardinals were today until the bullpen kind of blew up on them. And, you know, part of that's because it's probably blew up on them a little bit last night. Part of that's, you know, just some people not being available. And part of that is, as you talk about spring training, continuing, Riley O'Brien, who looked very, very good in spring, has pitched once and now is on the injured list, which is why John King was in the game tonight to perhaps pull up his first loss of the year. It's after this many, and I know we get some good, positive information on some of the other injuries, but just the fact that this team is continuing, you know, this is not what this team needed, almost everything to go right. And now it continued to have injuries and it's going to be even harder to dig out of any holes. - Yeah, and I'm looking at the box score right now for tonight as this game's in progress. Brendan Nott have been two strikeouts. Paul Goldschmidt, two strikeouts. Nolan Gorman, four strikeouts. Nolan Aronato, no strikeouts at the plate currently. Wilson Contreras, two strikeouts. Alec Burleson, two strikeouts. That is a lot of guys right there in a row who have not put the ball in play. Now, Jordan Walker, none. Siane, he hasn't batted, but none. Victor Scott, none. Mason Nguyen, one. You got to expect more from top of your lineup. One through six has to be better than that. They cannot be striking out 50% of the time or 80% of the time in some of their cases. Sometimes you just got to put the ball in play. You put the ball in play, things happen. It's the most basic thing in baseball, but that's what you got to do. They're not even doing that. This team is not making contact. And when they're making contact, it's not good contact. - Or it's with the catcher. - Yeah, exactly. Yeah, more catcher's interferences in the series than home runs from the Cardinals. That's how sad that is. Same number of box is home runs. So, yeah, something's going to have to turn around. And I don't want to overreact because it is only four games, but kind of like I talked about last week, it feels, or maybe I said this on Twitter or something, it feels like it's not just four games. It feels like it's a continuation from last season, that it feels like we saw it last season. We saw it during spring, we're seeing it again. We've never gotten a chance to not see it since they were in the playoffs, which seems forever ago. So, hopefully something happens and turns around. I'm just not overly optimistic at this point as they just dropped the game that they were leading for nothing. So, that's tremendous. - Yeah, I mean, that's the kind of game you got to win and the fact that you, and again, how many home runs did the Dodgers hit in this series? It felt like, I think they caught Maris. I'm not 100% sure. It felt like it, right? I mean, it's just, and to counteract that with, yeah, Victor Scott got two hits tonight, which is good. You know, they still never really kind of used him, right? I mean, I don't know that he even, I was listening to a little bit of it, so I don't know, I'm sure, but it felt like even when he got on base, he never got really a chance to steal, he and Mason win were both on bases. And it feels like if these guys aren't gonna hit the ball, which is right now what's going on, you've got to take advantage of those speed guys on the bases and try to do something, right? I mean, because you've got to start trying to figure out how to manufacture runs, if these guys can't consistently put it in play, and you know, who knows, maybe that kind of pressure turns it around and allows for easier pitches, and you can start getting into a groove that way, but you know, something's got to kick in. - Yeah, I know a lot of people are upset when Scott was on second and Mason win, bunted him over to third with nobody out. And that's one of those situations where a single is definitely getting him in. He has a chance to steal third in a case like that. And so that's the Cardinals playing for a single run in that situation against a team that just spent a billion dollars and may have the best lineup in all of baseball. As we saw tonight, you're gonna need more than four runs to actually win the game. What's sad is when Matt's left the game, the starters or the starter had done his job. It's the bullpen that gave the rest of their way. This just, I don't know, I'm just seeing red flags and red lights all over the place right now, just kind of pointing to a sign saying, get used to it. There's a lot more of this to come this year. - Yeah, I mean, 'cause that was the one thing the Cardinals thought they had fixed, right? Was the bullpen. And then two nights in a row, you're seeing how granted John King should have been in there, but you know, some of the other guys that were there beforehand are the ones that kind of let that go, you know, that's hard. I mean, you've gone to have those guys, you know, Helsey's got to be great. Gallegos is gonna be great and Romero's got to be great. Those guys got to do their job, especially with people like Middleton and stuff on the injured list. And so to have that happen, a spot of the team which you really felt pretty good about, that yeah, I think that you're right, the red lights and maybe a little bit of smoke out of the back. And you know, this time last year we're talking about, well, it's a long season and things will get better, but you know, by the end of April, the season was pretty much decided. And I don't think that this team is going to do that. I think that there's plenty of time for them to turn this around and you know, one in three is not terrible, but when you have that last year hanging over your head, it's got to add a little bit of pressure to everybody in that lineup and everybody on that staff to have to deal with that and knowing that they have to turn it around or you know, next last year can be this year. - Yeah, you don't want to finish your first series of the season and already be three games out of first place. And that's exactly where the Cardinals are right now. Not only are they three games out of first place, but they have the fewest amount of runs scored in the central and that includes playing more games than some of the other teams in the central. They've given up the most runs in the central. Yeah, again, it's the Dodgers, I get that, I know, but that doesn't mean that things are going to get better. You hope they do. You hope that once you start playing teams that have a smaller payroll and you start playing games at home that things get better, but I don't think there's any guarantee with this rotation. When Sonny Gray comes back and he's healthy, I think when he pitches, we're going to think the Cardinals have a good chance of winning tonight. When everyone else pitches, we're going to say, I don't know, either I have a bad feeling or it's going to be a coin flip. And I think we may have talked about that last week. I hate to be such a negative person at this point, but I'm just being realistic. My hopes aren't too high at this point. Even when last night, when I thought that they were going to blow it and they didn't, I wasn't on the edge of my seat. I was just kind of expecting it to happen and wasn't going to let my emotions be swayed one way or another because I don't see this team making the playoffs, I don't see them making a run in the playoffs. I think I'm just going to kind of have to be like, eh, okay, they are what they are and maybe next year will be better, which is sad to say four games of the season. - Well, yeah, yeah. Is there something that would make you think that things are different? I mean, what does it take? Like, in the VOG, if in April, they are 500, you're probably still thinking that, right? If they're three games over 500 at the end of the month, do you start thinking, well, maybe something has changed? - Yeah, I think if they are anything over 500 by the end of April, then I'm going to be optimistic at that point. Maybe not overly optimistic unless somehow they're like five games in first place for something and we're just shocked at what they're doing. But I think anything over 500 at that point, I would be pleasantly surprised and start looking towards, yes, that maybe this team can actually win a central. I just don't think it's going to happen, especially with the way this schedule is starting for them. They do have a time coming up where they have some easier teams, at least for what we think should be, but that doesn't mean anything at this point. So yeah, I'll take over 500 coming out of April. I'll take a three-game winning streak, that even something like that would be a big thing. If they could pull off a three or four-game winning streak, that might turn some heads to see a couple of guys in the rotation actually make some solid starts to see a quality start here and there from a guy. And not one of those quality starts where you're like, it actually wasn't quality, they just went six innings, but an actual semi-dominant start. Yeah, something like that. And maybe once Newt comes back and once Gray comes back, the bullpen's a little healthier, that will be the case. But at the same time, we've been wondering when some of these guys are gonna come back and while we're waiting for them to come back, the other guys are getting hurt and Riley O'Brien is on the IEL and then we see John King tonight just completely implode. So I'd love to be optimistic. I'd love to have some hope, but right now I'm just kinda floating around and head barely above water, not expecting much. Yeah, and that's reasonable, I think, to some degree until they can show, this is the team from Missouri, right? They've got to show that they can do something different. I think spring training and then the off season, you can talk yourself into this is gonna work somehow or I think maybe you can see how this would work, whatever. And, you know, when you start seeing it on the paper, on, I mean, from off a favor and actually on the games, it becomes more difficult to fool yourself, if you will. But that being said, you know, Lancelyn did pitch a lot better, I think, than anybody thought he would and might have been, that game might have been different, had the reins not come and him be able to go a little bit longer. That might have made today's game a little bit different too. You know, Stephen Matt's pitched well. I think, you know, you go to tomorrow and if Kyle Gibson can pitch well, which if he pitches anything like he did his last start in spring, that would be great. And, you know, you're starting to see a rotation, kind of start piecing it together. But, you know, that is not that helpful when, you know, the offense isn't going. Yeah, and to go back to something you mentioned earlier, I'm seeing from on Twitter at Cardinals metrics, the Cardinals got out Homer 10 to one in the series. 10 to one. That is terrible, especially when we talk about the offense, supposing to be one of the strong points this season, a team that should be hitting for some power. And instead it looked like guys, guys named Nolan looked completely lost at the plate. Paul Goldschmidt seemed to be okay. Brendan Donovan had some moments, but outside of those guys, nobody was driving the ball. Nice to see Victor Scott, the second hit one in the gap tonight, that on a warmer night, maybe that ball hits the wall, goes over the wall, but it's just it's tough to watch at this point. And maybe it'll be better in San Diego. I don't know. The Mike Schilt revenge tour might come after him. I don't know. I don't know, maybe Matt Carpenter goes off on his old team. But. I mean, it worked for Ted Jerko. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I don't know. I just, I guess I can't, there's not much more I can say. I'm just, I expected this, but I'm still at the same time just discouraged by it. Yeah, yeah, it is. 'Cause again, I think you kind of, as much as we like, okay, this is my go bad. You still have that hope that, okay, maybe not. And it's, it's real easy to dash it. When it looks so much like, you know, Katie Wu put it in pretty well in an interview on, on Friday that this team, the Thursday's game, the opening day game, looked like a tribute video to the 2023 Cardinals. And I think so far, you know, it feels like they're still playing those hits. The hits of last year, which were not hits at all, but you're seeing a lot of the same stuff. And until they turn around, I mean, I think if you take this start and you put it in 2019, you put it in 2017, something like that, you're probably not as concerned about it, right? Because, you know, you've got, you don't have that negative history, so recent to, to reinforce what we're seeing here. But we do. I mean, this is like game number 166 of the 2023 season. Yeah, you're right. I think in those previous seasons, you would still feel okay, unless they go into San Diego and get swept. And then that's when you start getting a little bit worried about what's going on. And that's when you start hearing the National Media start talking about what's wrong with the Cardinals. Are the Cardinals that, who we thought they were, you know, you already hear a little more excitement in the National Media surrounding teams like the Reds, because of Ellie Taylor Cruz and some other teams with some young stars who are a little bit flashy. Now, Victor Scott II is picking some of that up, but the National Media definitely is talking about these other teams. I think if the Cardinals continue to suffer, you're going to hear the media kind of start, I don't want to say piling on them because I don't even think the team is that prominent or popular right now to actually go after, as if it was like the Yankees or something. But you'll start hearing the doubters, you'll start hearing the questions and things like that about, is this team any better than it was? Did the front office make the right decisions? Did this team give the right person an extension? As far as the manager goes, things like that. And so it may be good for me and others to take a deep breath and wait and see what happens. But if they walk into the series against the Marlins and this team has three more losses next to their name, yeah, things are going to start feeling a little rough and just feel completely hopeless, ritly at that point. - Yeah, it's going to be pretty rough. And hopefully that's not the case, but even if they lose that series against the Padres and they come in, what, two and five. I mean, maybe again, depends on how they do it. Maybe if Gibson and Michaelas and Thompson all pitch well and they just have to lose a couple of close games and maybe you can start feeling like you're turning a corner or something like that. But I don't know that anybody would put any money down on that. So I'll show you how Tani might. But I don't think anybody would expect that at all. I guess it's also something to say, right? Though the Cardinals kind of held Tani and Tani fairly much in check and they just didn't do any good. - Yeah, they did a great job with him during the series. They shut down some of the guys, some of the top players for the Dodgers. Now definitely couldn't figure out Mookie Betts, but they did a pretty good job. I think what's worrying me is we're not seeing anything look good at this point. The offense struggled. The offense looked terrible. They couldn't hit the ball out of the ballpark. Outside of Stephen Matts, the starters did not look good. They struggled a lot. They were giving up the early leads. The bullpen looked terrible as well. So it's hard to even look at one aspect of the team and say, well, at least that was good. You almost have to just look at individual players and say, well, at least he played well because we can't actually point to a specific thing. Now maybe the defense, do we say, okay, the defense look okay. But that's about it. And one could even question that. So if the bullpen looked tremendous, then we could say, okay, at least if the Cardinals can get a lead, they'll be okay. But no, that's not the case. The offense didn't look good enough to get a lead very much. The starters can't hold a lead or wait for the offense to get a lead. So that's where it's just so frustrating right now because nothing is clicking. You look at a team like the Dodgers and they seem to be clicking on all cylinders except for the stupid mental mistakes. You look at the Pirates right now and they're having a lot of fun out there. The Brewers are looking pretty good right now. Their pitching looks tremendous. The Cardinals have nothing going for them right now. Hopefully that turns around tomorrow. I'm just not overly optimistic 'cause they're about to go play another team that even though they sold off a lot of pieces, it's still a big budget team and they may do some damage 'cause they do have to face Musgrove and Darvish in the series. It's about to say the matchups are not necessarily ideal from the Cardinals when you look at the pitching staff. But again, you just never know. I mean, somehow if the bats start coming around, it was very interesting. I think that Paul Goldsman is the one guy that's been hitting when he had had such a terrible spring and has been talked about as a slow starter. He's kind of clicked in and not just anybody else has. Nolan Gorman's had a couple of good hits, but they start putting stuff stuff together. But like you said, if they got to stop striking out all the time and that may be easier said than done, I don't know. Well, now that we've left you with such optimism and excitement about the 20, 20, 40, I mean, I know that y'all are fired up, but hopefully we'll be a little bit better mood for this next week. Cardinals will go to San Diego and then come home for that home opener against Marlins. And by next week, we may know it sounds like there's a good chance that Lars Neutmar and Sonny Gray may be coming back around the same time. So even by next week might have Neut back and Gray just about to go. And maybe that'll help. Who knows? Something's got to change. So who's going to find that? So until next time for David, I'm Daniel. Good night. Andy Adirich center back at the wall. It is off the base of the wall. The Cardinals are going to take the lead. Carpenter is empty. The base is in with the three run double. St. Louis jumps on top. And it's Carpenter again.