Cardinals bullpen configuration was doomed from the start

Math tells us it is not yet official, but the embarassing sweep at the hands of the San Francisco Giants pretty much closes the door on the St. Louis Cardinals chance at an unexpected postseason run. The story was the same in this series as it has been much of the season with the inexperienced and overworked bullpen was unable to hold leads to salvage even one win.

When the Cardinals blew a 6-1 lead with two outs in the eighth inning on Wednesday, that was their 38th blown lead of the season. It then became their ninth walk-off loss of the year but giving up the five-run lead was somehow not the biggest deficit they saw opponents erase this season. With the latest late game collapse, the Cardinals relief corps now has a 4.58 ERA (24th in baseball) and the ninth-most losses by the bullpen with 29. However, the most frustrating thing about the constant nail-biting bullpen performances is that it seems to be intentional.

Chaim Bloom ignored the Cardinals bullpen despite being a glaring weakness

Coming off of a disappointing 2025 season, the Cardinals bullpen actually performed well. The relievers finished 10th in the majors in ERA and combined for just 24 losses on the year. However, that group contained nine pitchers who were no longer in the St. Louis organization and while bullpen turnover is going to happen, five of these players appeared in at least 20 games last season. Those nine do not include JoJo Romero and Chris Roycroft, who started the year with the Cardinals but have since been moved elsewhere.

Out of the 11 players, then, that have been replaced, the Cardinals lost 33 saves from the stat sheet while also getting next to no contribution from 2025 workhorse Matt Svanson and Ryan Fernandez. In fact, the most used relievers from 2025 that stuck around the entire 2026 season were Riley O'Brien, Gordon Graceffo, and Kyle Leahy. In Leahy's case, he was moved to the rotation early in the offseason and won the starting spot, meaning the Cardinals actually needed to replace 12 bullpen arms coming into this year.

With that glaring need, Chaim Bloom obviously went out and filled those holes right? Not necessarily. In his effort to put together some sort of relief corps, Bloom brought in Justin Bruihl and George Soriano via trades and signed 34-year-old Ryne Stanek, who has battled command issues his entire career. Those moves set the stage for O'Brien to become the All-Star closer, but also left little available to support him later in games.

Matt Svanson struggling immediately did not help the situation, but neither did a seemingly intentional lack of desire to find a suitable replacement. Bullpen arms are available at a moment's notice, but the Cardinals either stood pat with their current set up too long or kept penny-pinching and avoided supplementing the group with experience and rolled with inexperienced arms instead.

Shockingly, the results have been nothing short of miserable. O'Brien was an All-Star and his 36 saves currently lead the NL, but his seven blown saves are tied for second in the league. Who is he behind? None other than George Soriano, who has nine blown saves on the season to lead baseball. Things have been worse since mid-July, with O'Brien's four losses again leading the NL with Soriano blowing a league-worst five games since that time.

As a group, the Cardinals bullpen has a 5.24 ERA (worst in NL) going back to the start of the second half with 13 blown saves (worst in NL) and 93 walks (second-worst in NL). The 2026 season was of course meant to be a rebuild, but the starting lineup and rotation must have missed that memo. Those two groups have played league-average or better all year only to be let down by the scrapheap relief group too many times. The Cardinals are hoping to find some answers for next year's bullpen with Luis Gastelum performing well alongside Graceffo and Bruihl, but Graceffo may get a look at the rotation and Bruihl was a journeyman before this season.

The 2027 season could see the Cardinals once again surpass win total expectations, and if that is the case, Chaim Bloom has to open the pocketbook and add some higher leverage arms into the mix. Bloom adding to the bullpen would show his confidence in the sustainability of his current group and keep fans happy with his attempt to fix what is once again a massive hole on the roster.

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