The St. Louis Cardinals need this week in a bad way

The St. Louis Cardinals have had a rigorous stretch of schedule and their most recent series showed fatigue. They need this week in a big way.

Spirits were high surrounding the St. Louis Cardinals after the team took two out of three from the NL Central rival Milwaukee Brewers last week. Each game of the three-game series was extremely hard-fought and took a lot of effort from the bullpen and the starters.

The team then took a plane out West to face off against a beat-down Padres team in their own right, missing Fernando Tatis Jr. and more because of COVID-19. Sadly though, the Friars knocked off the Cardinals in each game, sending the Cardinals limping back to St. Louis.

It only takes a glance at the box scores to be able to tell that the Cardinals were gassed. On Friday, none of the team’s top relievers were used and Johan Oviedo, who was filling in for the injured Carlos Martinez, went just 2.0 innings. On Saturday, Wainwright’s first true clunker of the year left Matt Carpenter on the mound to finish the game, and on Sunday, sloppy play and plenty of walks thwarted a game where the Cardinals out-hit the Padres but still lost by two.

In the three games, the team walked 26 batters, almost an unimaginable number for any team. This is a bigger issue that deserves its own look, but the fact remains that the Cardinals are walking a substantially larger amount of players than any other team. There is very little that will dissolve a division lead than letting this trend keep up.

On Sunday, everything culminated into one of the ugliest games of the year. Nolan Arenado sailed a throw across the diamond and then Kwang Hyun Kim walked in two with the bases loaded, erasing the lead the Cardinals had.

Later in the game, one of the ugliest misplays of the year by Tyler O’Neill in left field on a ball lined straight over his head led to another run. The final nail in the morale coffin was the collision between Dylan Carlson and second baseman Max Moroff in the Bermuda Triangle behind first base. Carlson made the catch, but Moroff was left with a bloodied lip.

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This last series wasn’t the Cardinals that fans have been used to seeing this season, and there is a pretty easy reason to point to why. No. 1, the Brewers series that left the team spent, but also the fact that the Cardinals just finished a stretch of 23 games in 24 days. Since April 23, they’ve had one off day and it was a travel day to Milwaukee.

They are clearly gassed, but relief is coming.

This week will hopefully be the perfect remedy to the sloppy play and some of the walks fans have seen. The Cubs come into town for their first series against the Cardinals on Friday, but the team has Monday and Thursday off, at home, with a two-game series against the Pirates in between.

The last time the Cardinals played the Pirates, it was a relatively easy sweep in Pittsburgh. Before that series, the Pirates were tied with the Cardinals at 12-12 in the series. Heading into Tuesday’s game, the Cardinals are at 23-18 (still with a 2.0 game lead over the Brewers) and the Pirates have tumbled to 17-23 and are in last place in the division.

The Cardinals can’t just breeze past the Pirates, but it is certainly easier competition than Milwaukee or the Padres. It’s a light week where the Cardinals will hopefully take some time to rest at home and come back strong.