3 ways the St. Louis Cardinals keep breaking your heart

The RISP and LOB problems

During the Cardinals series with the Giants, the team was 6 of 24 with runners in scoring position and left 24 runners on base.

Much like Marmol said, that's unacceptable. It's unacceptable when you see the talent on this team. Paul Goldschmidt, Nolan Arenado, Willson Contreras, and Jordan Walker should strike fear into the opposing team. With those numbers, it seems opposing teams have to wait until everything falls apart as it does.

This has been a trend for a couple of seasons now. The question remains if it's one of those issues where the team needs to punch back or if the players are just not executing. Either way, it's terrible, and it needs to be fixed. These issues could be resolved by applying the fundamentals of the game.

The pitching, or lack their of

This pitching staff is incredibly streaky. One week a player will finally break out of a slump, and another pitcher will blow up the next game.

The pitching coach, pitcher, and catcher should have a plan to prepare for what happens in certain situations during the game. As has been discussed a lot this season, Contreras is working hard with the pitching staff to make them comfortable with him. The pitchers must adapt as they deal with a different catcher from Yadier Molina. It seems some have adapted and are working with Contreras. In other cases, it just looks like the team has terrible luck.

The team's response after Gallegos gave up the two-run home run to Yastrzemski should have been to shake it off and allow the bats to clinch a walk-off victory. That didn't happen. As has been usual this season, the team became shell-shocked and lost.

It's a manager's job to help the team regain composure. Provide words of encouragement. The players should know it's their job to get back out there and regain the lead. They will keep breaking fans' hearts until the team grasps these fundamental concepts.

Let's hope this long road trip will help the team find their way back to sucess.