ST. LOUIS -- The Cardinals are sorting through their options for handling innings in the days ahead of the All-Star break, looking for some ballast that can keep them afloat in a challenging race that is shaping up around them in one of their most physically grinding stretches of the season.
Should Michael McGreevy earn a start in the coming days, however, that will only cover one game. There is not a deep bench waiting to ride to the rescue, nor can they retroactively erase some of their recent struggles and reclaim lost ground in the standings. Every solution has its limits.
Wednesday night’s 8-2 loss at the hands of the Nationals at Busch Stadium was a continuation of a discouraging trend, as this turn through the starting rotation has left St. Louis scrambling to collect outs. Andre Pallante stayed in the game through six innings and 100 pitches, but he allowed seven runs (all earned) on eight hits along the way, mustering half as many strikeouts -- one -- as home runs allowed.
“He’s a high ball in play guy, and you’re hoping it’s at people,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “The hard contact wasn’t, and some of the soft contact wasn’t either, and you’re gonna have to live with those games.”
Pallante’s struggles interrupted what had been arguably the best stretch of his season, as he had allowed just two earned runs over his previous three starts, covering 18 innings. The seven earned runs match his season high, previously recorded on June 3 vs. Kansas City.
In 29 swings generated against fastballs on Wednesday night -- 14 against his four-seamer and 15 against his sinker -- Pallante didn’t register a single swing and miss, leaving him particularly vulnerable to the chance which accompanies batted balls. Washington, however, generated seven hard-hit balls against Pallante (exit velocities of 95 mph or harder), taking some of the chance elements out of the equation.
“I felt like I threw some good pitches in some good chase spots there,” Pallante said. “It’s [a] learning curve. I’m still working on that, working on a new pitch to try and get some more chase, especially to righties.”
With his nascent sweeper misbehaving in his between-starts bullpen, however, the pitch was mothballed for this start, and the Nationals were able to take advantage of Pallante’s more familiar arsenal.
“Could have pitched a little bit better, I think, in terms of, like, smarter,” he assessed. “Just some pregame routine and kind of knowing where I could have gotten some more miss.”
Despite being against Pallante’s personal trend, Wednesday’s results continue what has been a tough turn through the rotation for Cardinals starters. Beginning with Miles Mikolas’ start on July 4 at Wrigley Field and covering one full turn of the team’s five-man rotation, Cardinals starters have allowed 22 earned runs over just 23 1/3 innings pitched.
In averaging less than five innings per start while simultaneously posting an ERA of 8.48 over this turn, the pressure continues to mount on an offense which is without the injured Iván Herrera and Jordan Walker and which returned Nolan Arenado to the lineup on Wednesday after he missed the previous three games with an impingement in his right shoulder.
“We need to continue to just have our head down, play as hard as we can, play the game the right way until we get to the All-Star break,” Marmol said before Wednesday’s matchup. “Guys are focused on going as hard as possible until we get this break.
“This is part of it. You’re going to be banged up, you’re going to be hurt, you’re going to not feel great. Every team experiences that, so you have to be mentally tough enough to get to where you get more than one day [off].”
Mikolas is set to start the rubber match against the Nationals on Thursday, with Matthew Liberatore set to open the weekend series against Atlanta and Sonny Gray set for Sunday’s first half finale. What happens in between -- and throughout -- will come down to finding more traction from starters than has been readily available over the last week.
Sometimes the solution really is as simple as it seems.
“We’ve got a little swing miss with a couple guys, but for the most part, we do pitch to contact,” Marmol said. “That's why we make it a big deal to play good defense and stay locked in pitch to pitch, because we know we're going to have to do that in order to survive.”