These 3 things turned Cardinals’ season after ‘doomsday’ loss to Brewers

The first half of the first half was nearly too much a disaster to be worth saving.

A loss in Milwaukee on May 11 dropped the St. Louis Cardinals to 15-24 and capped a seven-game losing streak. They’d played better that night than the previous two games in the series, but the tension around the team was thick.

“It was pretty much a doomsday type of feel for everybody but the ones who were in that clubhouse,” manager Oli Marmol said this past weekend.

The night before, May 10, after an ugly 11-2 loss, Lance Lynn stood at his locker and mused that maybe what would be best for all involved would be to let off the gas.

“The truth of the matter,” he said, “is everybody needs to relax a little bit, realize it’s a game and stop stressing so damn much.”

From May 12 until now, the Cardinals have recorded the best record in the National League. Marmol pinpointed Saturday in Milwaukee as a particular turning point, a fork in the road which broke firmly in the direction of the Cardinals.

He handwaved a question about whether anyone in the clubhouse in particular stood up to say something about where they were then that led them to where they are now, but the day wasn’t memorable simply because the next day was Mother’s Day (and he enjoyed his first ejection of the season).

From then until now, holding above .500 and seizing an increasingly firm grip on a playoff spot in the crowded National League, these are the three things that stopped the Cardinals from sliding:

Bullpen depth from unexpected places

None of Giovanny Gallegos, Andre Pallante or Zack Thompson have made much in the way of positive contributions from the bullpen, though Pallante has made valuable starts. Keynan Middleton was hurt in spring and will miss the season, and at the deadline, the Cardinals will seek to replace what he might have been able to give them.

Middleton has scarcely been missed, though, because Ryan Fernandez has turned out to be a stellar find in the Rule 5 draft. Marmol described him as a pitcher the organization could see dominance in if he was only able to harness and repeat a sometimes finicky delivery. Work in spring locked that down, and more than 30 appearances into his first big league season, his ERA is closer to two than three.

Kyle Leahy and Chris Roycroft were far enough off the radar in spring that the only roster conversation they were involved in centered on Memphis, but both have made important contributions. Gordon Graceffo, Adam Kloffenstein and Ryan Loutos have had brief, successful cameos. The Memphis Shuttle is once again functioning, and when it heads north, it brings options and weapons rather than hope and Band-Aids.

Emergences at the top of the lineup

Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt have not emerged from their funk; the monthly splits for both look flat across the board, save maybe a slight June uptick for Goldschmidt. Nolan Gorman’s roller coaster ride is currently at its absolute nadir, prompting questions about whether he might need time in Memphis to fix his swing. Lars Nootbaar has struggled to stay on the field; Jordan Walker hasn’t seen a big league field since April.

Masyn Winn and Alec Burleson, though, have evolved into a legitimate threat at the top of the order. Burleson drove in 20 runs in June, and hard hit balls which found gloves in his first two seasons are finding grass. Winn’s patient approach, despite a small downturn last month, gets him on base, and allows him to use his speed to pressure defenses.

If nothing else, the pair of them can reliably execute getting a runner on and then getting him over. That provides plenty of chances for those behind them to get them in, even if it takes more swings than the Cardinals might prefer.

A slow and steady heartbeat

Insistence throughout the winter and spring that this was a clubhouse short of veteran leadership drew eyerolls from fans and close observers alike. The Cardinals were statistically one of the oldest clubs in baseball in 2024; how much difference could adding Matt Carpenter and Brandon Crawford in emeritus roles really make?

There’s no way to quantify it, of course, but the answer is certainly, “at least some.”

Burleson has talked about Carpenter working him through cold snaps. Winn has spoken of Crawford’s wisdom in the ways of playing shortstop in the big leagues every day. Even the light show in the home clubhouse after a victory and the music selections – yes, really, the clubhouse music – go a long way toward keeping the mood light.

Almost immediately after he signed, a teammate approached Crawford in the clubhouse in Jupiter with a question. He’d heard that Crawford controlled the soundscape in San Francisco; would he be willing to do that again? If it was the first question he was asked by a teammate as a Cardinal, it was certainly not the last.