A Wake Up Call for the St. Louis Cardinals

I hope Saturday’s performance by the St. Louis Cardinals serves as a wake-up call because it provided the offensive show that the Cardinals have been lacking.

Saturday’s game against the Nationals saw the Cardinals score 10 runs, the most they had scored since Sunday’s beatdown of the Reds. Three games in Pittsburgh saw the Cardinals winning one game 4-3 before being shut out the rest of the series by 9 and 5 runs, respectively.

The series in Washington–the only one this season–didn’t get off to a hot start. Thursday’s contest, televised on the MLB Network, saw the Cardinals lose 8-1. What was worse with this performance was that Rafael Furcal felt a pop and is now done for the season. Friday wasn’t much better. The Cardinals got shut out 10-0.

The Cardinals are finding ways to hit the ball. Don’t get me wrong. The win in Pittsburgh saw 10 hits. The two losses had 5 hits a piece. With the Wild Card race as close as it is, the Cardinals getting shut out two games in a row could come back to haunt the team at the end of the month. Or it might not.

Thursday’s one run came too late to get a rally started. I get that the Cardinals were up against one of the best pitching rotations in all of Major League Baseball.

The story on Friday is not that the Cardinals got shut out but that Adam Wainwright allowed 6 runs to score in less than 3 innings of play. By the time the third inning was over, the pitcher was yanked from the contest. It was his shortest outing since April 13th when he allowed 8 runs by the Chicago Cubs in 3 innings during the home opener.

Until Saturday, the Cards were limited to less than 10 hits against the Nationals. A stat like that for two games in a row should not happen. Batters have got to find ways to not just get on base but score. On Saturday, in their third consecutive FOX Game of the week appearance, the Cardinals didn’t just come back to win, they grinded their way to come back and win.

Center fielder Jon Jay put one a heck of a performance with an incredible catch, and another one later on. and he reminded me of the good old days of Jim Edmonds patrolling center field.

I’m going to echo Mike Matheny in that Jon Jay should be considered for a Gold Glove Award for what he’s doing out in center for the team.

"“If you’re just talking about the impact defensively that a player has made, I just can’t imagine that anybody has had more of an impact than he has,” Matheny said. “I’ll lobby for him whenever I can, because I have been more than impressed.”"

Whether Jay is able to beat out Andrew McCutchen is a different story.