Cardinals Turn to Pallante After Letting Another Win Slip Away
THE CARDINAL CHRONICLE
Game Day Preview: Cardinals Turn to Pallante After Letting Another Win Slip Away
St. Louis, MO
By Ray Mileur
The St. Louis Cardinals will try to even their weekend series against the Cincinnati Reds tonight at Busch Stadium after allowing another winnable game to slip through their hands Friday night.
First pitch is scheduled for 6:15 p.m. CT.
Right-hander Andre Pallante will start for St. Louis against Cincinnati right-hander Hunter Greene. The game will be televised on Cardinals.TV and Reds.TV and carried on KMOX.
Cincinnati enters at 48-54 after winning Friday’s series opener, while the Cardinals have fallen to 52-51. Greene is 2-1 with a 6.06 ERA and 26 strikeouts. Pallante is 10-6 with a 4.02 ERA and 75 strikeouts. (MLB.com)
The Cardinals still lead the season series 4-2, but that advantage will offer little comfort after Friday’s 4-2 defeat.
Dustin May delivered one of his best starts since his complete-game shutout in June, holding Cincinnati to one run over six innings while striking out eight. He gave the Cardinals exactly what they needed.
The offense and bullpen failed to finish the job.
St. Louis did not record its first hit until the fifth inning, when Blaze Jordan doubled home Iván Herrera and Nathan Church to give the Cardinals a 2-1 lead. It was the club’s only hit of the night.
Cincinnati reclaimed the lead in the seventh when Sal Stewart singled and Eugenio Suárez drove a George Soriano slider 435 feet into the left-center-field seats for a two-run home run.
The Reds added an insurance run in the ninth after Elly De La Cruz walked, stole second, advanced on a wild pitch and scored on another Stewart single. Emilio Pagán retired the Cardinals in order in the bottom of the inning to complete Cincinnati’s third consecutive victory and fifth win in seven games. (Reuters)
The Cardinals have reached the point where there are no consolation prizes for quality starts.
May pitched well enough to win Friday. Hunter Dobbins pitched well enough to win Wednesday in Anaheim. Michael McGreevy has repeatedly pitched better than his record suggests.
Eventually, the offense must provide more than one productive inning, and the bullpen must protect the leads it inherits.
The Cardinals have now lost seven of their last nine games since entering the second half with a victory in Arizona. During that stretch, they have blown a seven-run lead, lost on a walk-off hit-by-pitch, surrendered another late lead and been held to two runs or fewer four times.
That is not merely a short run of bad luck.
It is a team failing to play complete baseball.
Tonight, the responsibility begins with Pallante.
The 27-year-old has been one of the Cardinals’ steadiest starters this season, reaching double digits in victories while making all 19 of his appearances in the rotation. He has thrown 105⅓ innings with a 1.26 WHIP and has gone 4-2 with a 4.10 ERA over his last seven starts. (MLB.com)
Pallante’s strength remains his ability to generate ground balls and work efficiently when his sinker is moving through the lower part of the strike zone.
When he stays ahead, he can produce quick outs and pitch deep enough to keep the Cardinals away from the vulnerable middle innings of their bullpen.
When the sinker remains over the middle of the plate or his breaking pitches fail to finish, opponents can string together hard contact quickly.
That was the story of his previous start Sunday in Arizona.
Pallante carried a no-hit bid through five innings while the Cardinals built a 7-0 lead. The Diamondbacks finally broke through in the sixth, scoring three runs against him before beginning a comeback that eventually produced an 8-7 victory in 10 innings.
Pallante finished with three runs allowed on five hits over 5⅓ innings. (Reuters)
The final result cannot be placed entirely on the starting pitcher. A seven-run lead should survive three runs against the starter.
Still, Pallante has an opportunity tonight to help put that collapse — and a difficult week — behind him.
He will face a Cincinnati lineup that has become increasingly dangerous.
Stewart continues to produce in the middle of the order. Suárez remains capable of changing a game with one mistake. De La Cruz can create a run with his legs even when he does not collect a hit, as he demonstrated in the ninth inning Friday.
Tyler Stephenson also drove home Cincinnati’s first run with a ground-rule double, while JJ Bleday and Spencer Steer helped create the inning.
The Reds did not overpower May throughout Friday’s game. They simply took advantage of enough opportunities to win.
That is something the Cardinals have not done consistently.
Pallante must keep De La Cruz off base, control the running game and avoid allowing Stewart or Suárez to hit with multiple runners aboard. Cincinnati is too dangerous in motion to be given extra bases through walks, wild pitches or defensive mistakes.
The greater challenge may belong to the Cardinals’ hitters.
Greene’s 6.06 ERA is misleading because his season consists of only three starts following surgery in March to remove bone chips from his right elbow.
The Reds activated Greene from the 60-day injured list on July 4 after he completed his rehabilitation assignment. (MLB.com)
His return began poorly. Greene allowed eight runs on seven hits and four walks over 3⅓ innings against Baltimore.
He responded by throwing seven scoreless innings against the Chicago Cubs, allowing three hits while striking out 12. In his most recent start at Colorado, he allowed three runs on four hits over six innings and struck out seven without issuing a walk. (CBS Sports)
Those three outings tell the story.
The season ERA still reflects the disastrous debut, but Greene has allowed only three runs with 19 strikeouts over 13 innings in his last two starts.
He appears to be finding his rhythm.
When healthy, Greene has some of the most overpowering raw stuff in baseball. His fastball can reach triple digits, and his slider gives him a swing-and-miss weapon when hitters gear up for velocity.
The Cardinals cannot allow Greene’s fastball to control the pace of their at-bats.
A lineup facing elite velocity often begins swinging earlier and expanding the strike zone because hitters fear falling behind. That approach plays directly into Greene’s hands.
St. Louis must force him to work.
The Cardinals need to lay off elevated fastballs outside the zone, recognize the slider and make Greene throw strikes over the plate. He has already demonstrated that he can dominate when he gets comfortable and works ahead.
The Cardinals also cannot repeat Friday’s offensive approach.
One hit will not win many Major League games.
Blaze Jordan deserves credit for making that hit count, driving in both Cardinals runs after Herrera was hit by a pitch and Church drew a walk. But the rest of the lineup produced almost nothing.
JJ Wetherholt drew a walk to become the Cardinals’ first baserunner in the fourth inning. Herrera reached when he was hit. Church walked. Jordan doubled.
That was essentially the entire offense.
Jordan Walker, Alec Burleson, Lars Nootbaar and the rest of the lineup must give Pallante more support tonight.
Walker remains the Cardinals’ most dangerous power threat, but Cincinnati successfully kept him from changing Friday’s game. Burleson has been one of the club’s most consistent hitters, yet the Cardinals need production to come from more than one or two spots in the order.
They need traffic at the top, damage in the middle and competitive at-bats near the bottom.
The concern is not simply that the Cardinals are losing.
It is how they are losing.
They built a seven-run lead and lost in Arizona. They carried a lead into the ninth inning and lost in Anaheim. They received six scoreless innings from Dobbins but scored only once. They wasted May’s six innings of one-run baseball Friday.
The Cardinals are repeatedly leaving themselves with no margin for error.
The offense scores just enough to create hope. The starter keeps the game close. Then one mistake, one home run or one difficult bullpen inning changes everything.
That is a hard way to survive a postseason race.
Friday’s loss dropped St. Louis below the position it occupied when this difficult stretch began. The National League Wild Card field remains crowded, with Arizona, Pittsburgh, Miami and Washington all close enough to make every result matter. Before Friday’s games, the Cardinals were 1½ games behind Arizona for the final Wild Card position. (MLB.com)
The Cardinals cannot control what those teams do tonight.
They can control whether Cincinnati leaves Busch Stadium with another victory.
Oliver Marmol may also need to manage the bullpen with greater urgency.
Soriano entered Friday with the Cardinals leading 2-1 and surrendered the decisive home run. Luis Gastelum allowed the insurance run in the ninth after a walk, stolen base and wild pitch.
With JoJo Romero unavailable following his appendicitis and Riley O’Brien struggling recently, the Cardinals do not have the luxury of clearly defined late-inning roles.
The best available reliever may need to pitch when the game is on the line, whether that moment arrives in the sixth, seventh or eighth inning.
Saving a pitcher for the ninth does little good when the lead disappears in the seventh.
Tonight is not technically a must-win game. Baseball people are reluctant to use that phrase in July because there are still too many games remaining.
But the Cardinals need to begin winning games that look and feel winnable.
They have Pallante on the mound. They are playing at home. They still hold the season-series advantage over Cincinnati. They have another opportunity to stop a difficult stretch before the Cubs arrive Monday.
The Reds are playing with confidence.
The Cardinals are playing as though every small mistake might become fatal.
The cure is not complicated.
Score early. Add on. Give Pallante room to pitch. Use the bullpen when the leverage demands it. Finish all 27 outs.
The Cardinals have spent most of the past week explaining how games slipped away.
Tonight would be a good time to stop explaining and start winning.
I kept it as one continuous article, without the sectional dividers.
The Cardinal Chronicle, in association with Gateway Sports & MiLB Today
Preserving the Past, Promoting the Present, and Projecting the Future.
Check out The Cardinal Chronicle for more St. Louis Cardinals coverage, daily farm reports, prospect updates and old-school baseball commentary:
www.cardinalchronicle.com
Photo Credit: Andre Pallante, St. Louis Cardinals | MLB