ST. LOUIS -- Though it took until July 28 to see it, a scenario that seemed more than plausible before the season began has finally arrived.
For the first time in 2026, the Cardinals are below .500.
On Tuesday night at Busch Stadium, the Cardinals fell for the third straight game and the fifth time out of six on the homestand, losing 10-2 to the Cubs. Their record dropped to 53-54.
By playing as well as they did early in the season, it’s possible that the Cardinals made it a little too easy for onlookers to revise the history on what was supposed to happen this summer.
They built an early cushion, riding an outsized power output to a favorable perch in the standings. After a period of watching serendipitous winning baseball, it became second nature to blur the lines of what the expectations were.
The 2026 St. Louis Cardinals were never designed to become immune to stretches of futility. On Tuesday, it came for one of the team’s most consistent players as Michael McGreevy allowed more runs (seven) than outs recorded (five).
Earlier in the week, Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol outlined the method to the madness when it comes to shepherding a young group through this kind of stretch.
“Although frustrating, I love where our staff’s minds are at,” Marmol said. “Previous years, there would have been a high, high level of frustration with this stretch. And our staff, I give them a lot of credit, because they keep me from getting there at times, of really understanding what the task is.”
So, Marmol doesn’t enjoy losing any more than the next guy. In fact, it sounds as though he appreciates it a fair bit less than the next guy. But he and his staff understand that the key within the losing days are the teaching moments they hold.
“You have back-to-back walks, and then you chase a changeup off the plate in order to end the inning,” Marmol said. “You can't speak to that situation prior to it happening, right? Think about all the situations you'd have to think through. So, it has to happen, and then you can sit down and go, ‘OK, here's why that can't happen. And here's how big innings occur. And here's how you let ‘em off the hook.’ And it becomes more real once you're able to have the conversation based on it taking place and them experiencing it, the downside of it.
“But our staff is zeroed in on finding all those opportunities and speaking into them as we build this, which is different than previous years in how that's being handled, in my opinion.”
After what amounted to his first real blowup game this season, McGreevy asserted how he wants to see himself and his Cardinals teammates revert back to playing the way that allowed them to surpass expectations to this point.
“I think in times like these, you have to remember what this year -- not was supposed to look like -- but there were expectations upon us,” McGreevy said. “I think we’ve exceeded those expectations tremendously. But we have to make sure we take a step back, play the way we were playing early on. It’s like, ‘Hey, just play free.’ There’s no need to go white knuckle up there for an at-bat, or I’ve got to make this perfect-perfect pitch, and that will get me out of it. It’s all part of the process.”
As recently as the All-Star break, you could squint and see the Cardinals maintaining their push. Now, the arrow points firmly in the direction of selling off short-term pieces ahead of Monday's 5 p.m. CT Trade Deadline.
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In some alternate timeline in which the Cardinals had come out of the All-Star break like gangbusters, rattling off wins in a manner similar to the frequency of their present losing, it might have gotten more interesting. Then again, it probably wouldn’t have changed much about the outcome.
The public reaction might have been different. Fans probably would have been more surprised to see sell moves coming from a team more roundly in the postseason conversation. But the outcome was always destined to be the outcome.
“There’s just a real conviction at the moment of not remaining in the middle,” Marmol said. “That should be exciting for everybody in this building and everybody that enjoys watching us. Because we have a real understanding of, we are not where we want to be, and a real clear path of how we want to get there, though. And I have full confidence that we will execute that well.”