St. Louis Cardinals: Cardinals held at bay by Hammel, fall to Royals

The St. Louis Cardinals put together yet another poor offensive outing against a struggling pitcher, losing 5-1 to Jason Hammel and the Kansas City Royals.

Jason Hammel came into the game with an ERA over six, yet the St. Louis Cardinals were simply ineffective against him. While they were able to string together nine hits, all were singles, and were only able to score a run on an odd-looking bait play that neither runner fully looked committed to until the Royals made an error.

The Fowler-Carpenter pair at the 1-2 spots didn’t work particularly well for St. Louis, mainly due to Dexter Fowler‘s struggles. He was unquestionably the worst player on the field, and looked like he has no direction at the plate. This is no more epitomized than in his last at-bat of the night. He took two obvious balls, then got to a 3-0 count on a borderline call that went in his favor. However, Fowler swung at the next pitch and flew out to left.

Matt Carpenter hit the ball hard, but he also hit the ball into the shift way too much. He continues to pull the ball at a 45% rate, and teams are playing into it. He is on a hot streak and is making progress, but he will need to diversify his hit location as he did earlier in his career if he is going to be able to hit.

Jose Martinez took a nasty bean ball to the ribs tonight, but was mildly disappointing otherwise. While he made decent contact, got hits, and had a steal of home that flashed good base running instincts there was no doubt that he missed some pitches and some opportunities to go yard. With a guy like Hammel on the mound, we need more from Martinez.

Marcel Ozuna had an encouraging game tonight, as he saw the ball well and made enough contact to record hits. While he didn’t get the ball squarely on the bat tonight and consequently couldn’t drive the ball very far, he still put himself in a position to succeed, and might have been the best hitter tonight.

Tyler O’Neill had very discouraging at-bats, but a very encouraging one as well. While the strikeouts were as ugly as you can get, O’Neill was able to hit against a left side overload shift. For a guy known mainly for power and not bat control or discipline, this is a wonderful sign.

Kolten Wong had a typical Kolten Wong game. He was great on defense, making a great reactionary catch and overall put in solid work. However, he looked mediocre at best at the plate, and didn’t really look like he had a chance to hit anything tonight.

Along with Ozuna, Anthony Munoz was one of the other bright spots in the offense. He took the pitches that were coming to him, and didn’t sit on good pitches or whiff at bad ones. This resulted in some good, slapstick hits off of a pitcher that should’ve given up more.