Good on Paper, Bad in Life: St. Louis Cardinals Pitching Edition

The St. Louis Cardinals have a lot of things that need to be addressed, but what is the disconnect. So where do you go from here?

The St. Louis Cardinals have a lot of problems within their team, but it’s hard to say where the problems are originating from. They have a long history of winning, and this season has been historically bad for the Cardinals franchise, but where are the problems coming from? Looking back to last season, Mike Shildt showed great promise as the manager of the Cardinals roster, but after a big decline this season in the pitching, why are they struggling so bad?

You look at some of the names that the Cardinals have in their rotation now and in the past, but they have never performed as bad as they are this season. The Cardinals were supposed to have depth this past season but after Johan Oviedo, Carlos Martinez, John Gant, and Daniel Ponce de Leon all got chances and have not performed.

You look at the names though and look back even to last season and every one of those names were reliable in the rotation to make spot starts when need be, and this season it’s almost a guaranteed loss. Is it a problem with situational pitch calling? Is it a problem with coaching? Or is a problem with simply the players?

Situational Pitch Calling

The Cardinals are struggling with their pitching, but it’s been hard to figure out why this season is so much worse than usual. The pitchers haven’t really changed all that much, but they are performing like they are double-AA pitchers against a team of Mike Trouts. So because the fans can’t figure out why they are performing so badly, maybe because it’s not visible.

The Cardinals only have one pitcher who is performing respectably right now, Adam Wainwright. The chemistry between Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina is unbreakable and therefore that could be the difference between Wainwright’s success and everyone else’s downfall. Could it be that the pitchers are throwing pitches that they are feeling in bad situations? Could that be where the problem is?

Coaching

The St. Louis Cardinals pitching coach is well known for his success back in Texas. However, the pitching staff that he has right now it pitiful! The Cardinals should be performing a lot better than they are, but nothing seems to be working right. With horrible starting pitching, the bullpen is throwing just as many innings as the starters are. The coaching may be the reason for the lack of success for the Cardinals this far into the season.

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You look early on in the season and how they used Tyler Webb. Webb was not pitching well by any means and he seemed to struggle majorly, yet he was pitching just about every game and he got hit around every game.

With little consistency from any of our pitchers, there has been way too many mental and physical errors by the pitchers and the staff themselves. Could the fact that the coaching making bad decisions with who they are throwing out there be part of the reason why there hasn’t been much success thus far into the season? Could there be a change of coaching soon? Time will tell.

The Cardinals are having a rough go so far, and with KK in and out of the IL, Mikolas out, Flaherty out, and Hudson on the IL, the Cardinals have just been decimated. What they are going to do moving forward, no one is quite that sure of, but something is going to have to happen.