Cardinals' pitching is taking a different road from the division leaders

Compared to current division leaders, the St. Louis Cardinals’ 2025 pitching staff shows a unique statistical pattern.

The current division leaders have a strong emphasis on generating high strikeout volumes. The Cardinals are at the bottom of that category.

Diving deeper, you can find, however, that this different approach is working

The rationale behind the higher strikeout approach is straightforward: A higher K% and K/9 directly translate to fewer balls put into play. This minimizes opportunities for defensive errors, reduces the number of hits allowed through batted balls, and lessens a team's reliance on favorable batted ball luck (BABIP). By reducing the variables associated with balls in play, pitchers gain more control over the outcomes of each plate appearance, leading to more predictable and often increased run prevention. Division leaders are actively embracing this analytically driven strategy to gain a competitive edge.

So, how are the Cardinals pitchers seeing the same ERA as the division leaders since they aren’t striking anyone out? 

Two things are happening. First, they have the second-lowest walk rate in the league. Second, they have the second-best defense in the league. This defense allows them to get by with having the second-most ground balls hit against them. They also have the second-lowest percentage of outfield hits leaving the park. 

Pitching is a delicate balance between preventing baserunners and preventing runs. While strikeouts achieve both directly, as you can see, if a staff does not generate many strikeouts, other factors must fill the void.

The St. Louis Cardinals' reliance on a low-strikeout, contact-management pitching staff in the current baseball landscape raises reasonable questions regarding the long-term sustainability of this approach. Power hitting and sophisticated hitting analytics increasingly dominate this era, making high strikeout rates a more stable pathway to consistent run prevention. Pitchers who can consistently generate swings and misses or outright strikeouts are less vulnerable to the unpredictable nature of batted balls and the increasing emphasis on launch angle and exit velocity among hitters. The Cardinals' deviation from this prevailing trend prompts consideration of the inherent risks and requirements of their strategy.

A couple of things will need to be monitored to see if this can hold up. Even with a strong defensive unit, there is an inherent variance in batted ball outcomes (BABIP). The pitchers must consistently induce weak contact, such as ground balls or pop-ups, to suppress hits. Any regression in defensive efficiency, an increase in walks, or a slight increase in the quality of hard contact allowed by their pitchers could affect their run prevention and potentially inflate their ERA and WHIP — all things that will add to runs against. Strikeout pitchers don’t have to rely on either. 

With rising temperatures and more home runs expected, it will be interesting to compare the Cardinals’ pitching strategies to the league leaders’ in the coming weeks.