The A-Team: How did the potential 2024 Cardinals lineup perform in 2023?

June

The month of June was another plummet from the heights for the Cardinals' A-Team. They finished the month with a 5-10 record, and they experienced perhaps their worst loss of the season on April 29th against the Houston Astros. Houston won 14-0, Adam Wainwright allowed six earned runs in just 1.2 innings, and the offense only tallied four hits in the game.

The supposed best hitters on the team scored just 3.53 runs per game, and they batted 0.231 across fifteen games. Lars Nootbaar went on the Injured List once again, Masyn Winn still hadn't been called up, and other players such as Nolan Gorman and Jordan Walker struggled, particularly Walker in his return to the majors.

There were three games in June where eight of the nine starters in 2024 played together. Only Masyn Winn was missing, as he was still raking in the minors. On June 19th, 25th, and 29th, The Cardinals played the Nationals, Cubs, and Astros respectively. They beat the Nationals and Cubs but lost badly to the Astros.

The pitchers allowed nearly six runs a game, but when the offense struggles to score more than four runs in a game, it's tough to pin a sub-.500 month on one particular group. Brendan Donovan and Paul Goldschmidt carried their weight this month, but the rest of the team failed to live up to expectations. June was tough for the best players on the Cardinals in 2023.