St. Louis Cardinals: Four moves to get Cards back in the NLCS

Waiting for the St. Louis Cardinals’ offense to return is akin to waiting for the Great Pumpkin. Down 2-0 heading into D.C., faith is nice. But action is called for. What moves can be made, quick?

The St. Louis Cardinals need something to jumpstart their offense or it will be off-season before they know it. They are down two games to none in the NLCS heading into Game 3 in Washington. Only 12% of postseason teams come back from such a situation.

The problems are legion. The playoff baseball used is not traveling as far as the regular-season ball, claim the Cardinals. And they may be right. Even their 13-run rout of the Atlanta Braves featured no home runs. The team that relied heavily on the home run during the season is finding itself having to string together singles… or else.

But the hits just keep on not coming. They were no-hit until late in both NLCS ballgames and tallied only one run and four hits… two of them by a pinch-hitter. Eighteen strikeouts were yielded and many other kinds of frustrating at-bats have been seen, including tapping out into the shift or fouling out to the catcher. (Read Matt Graves two-game tale of woe here).

What if this lineup never gets back on track?

For the 2019 Redbirds, there is no tomorrow… just a 2020. Patience in midseason might be a virtue, but in October, with a team’s back against the wall, patience is a luxury they do not have. Sure, the Cardinals can go out gracefully, sticking with a) the players, b) the lineup, and c) the offensive strategy that brought them to the NLCS.

Or they can look at the fact that something is not working and that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Isn’t it nobler to do something, even if it does not end up helping than to do nothing and wish you had?

Here are four moves that could be considered: