With only three days left in the regular season, the St. Louis Cardinals and their loyal fanbase can take solace in the fact that soon, this nightmare of a season will come to an end.
The Cards entered their final series of the season against the Cincinnati Reds with a record of 69-90 and are at risk of recording their worst season since all the way back in 1978, when they finished 69-93.
It's been a long and dreadful year in the Gateway City. The Cards started off 10-24. There were brief moments of hope and signs that the season may turn around, however, they were fleeting, and it didn't take long for the Cardinals to snap back to reality and continue careening.
The highlight of the season was without a question the moment when Adam Wainwright earned career win No. 200. But highlights were few and far between for the Redbirds, who have now lost 90 games for the first time since 1990.
There are a number of reasons why the Cardinals failed this season. It goes without saying that 2023 was a colossal failure for the 11-time World Series champions.
The Cardinals front office failed to address the pitching
When the 2022-23 offseason began, it was evidently clear that the Cardinals were in desperate need of some pitching. And not just any pitching, but ace-level pitching and players who have high strikeout rates.
Instead, President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak arrogantly claimed that the Cards already had six starters. What they needed was at least one top-level pitcher to give them a chance to go deeper in the postseason.
Instead, the Cardinals stuck with their supposed six starters. Things went south from the start.
Adam Wainwright was injured in the World Baseball Classic, and Miles Mikolas, Jack Flaherty, and Steven Matz all struggled. Jordan Montgomery was the team's only true reliable starter, and he was traded to the Texas Rangers at the deadline, though the Cardinals did get a solid haul for the veteran left-hander, so some credit there.
Wainwright has struggled most of the season, and Matz is now out for the season after making drastic improvements and returning to the rotation.
The pitching was the team's biggest weakness, and a quiet offseason came back to haunt them very quickly when the regular season finally got underway. Thus, the Cardinals are set to finish in last place in the NL Central.
One-run losses haunted Cardinals
The Cardinals offense has been a strength for most of the season, but the lineup can only do so much when the pitching doesn't come through. And sometimes, the lineup struggled and cost the Cardinals games.
The Cardinals have lost 26 one-run games this season, either due to the offense not supporting the pitching on rare days when the latter was affective, or a bullpen meltdown. One could make a case that all 26 of these losses were games that the Cardinals easily could have and should have won.
However, one-run games were a key factor in the Cardinals collapse this year. Most contending teams find ways to win tight ballgames. St. Louis was simply unable to do that. When one thing was working, the other fell apart.
When the offense produced, the pitching couldn't make the runs stand up. And when the pitching was good, the offense didn't support it.
All of this resulted in a whole boatload of one-run losses. Had the Cardinals found ways to win these games, they would obviously be in a much different position, and one far more desirable for that matter.
The Cardinals didn't adjust to the new rules
This season, new rules were enforced in Major League Baseball. Bases were enlarged to encourage more stolen bases, the shift was banned, and a pitch clock was added.
The rule that affected the Cardinals the most was the banning of the shift. This is not what caused the Cardinals to fail, but they did fail to adapt to the new rules. For years, the Cardinals pitching staff had relied on a pitch-to-contact approach. As such, they could use their normally stout defense and the shift to their advantage to get outs and win games.
With the shift gone however, the Cardinals struggled. They didn't prepare accordingly. As such, the defense struggled, and the pitching staff allowed far more runs than in previous years. St. Louis ranked ninth in runs allowed last year at 3.93 and fell to 24th (5.04 per game) this season.
There was certainly time to prepare for the rule changes and analyze how they might affect the Redbirds going forward. But their failure to adjust also highlighted the importance of strikeout pitching and their desperate need for it.
Either way, times changed, and the Cardinals didn't. They'll have to change their approach in the future if they plan on bouncing back into contention next year.
