ST. LOUIS -- What happens when Kyle Leahy faces a batting order for the third time through has been a storyline just about every time he’s taken the ball for the Cardinals this season.
On Wednesday afternoon at Busch Stadium, Leahy allowed three runs and took the loss as the Cardinals fell short of a series sweep, dropping the finale with the Padres, 6-1.
But in the prescribed area of growth for Leahy, Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol didn’t hesitate to categorize the outing as progress. Leahy logged a quality start, completing the sixth inning for the second time this season.
More than that, Wednesday’s sixth inning was his best of the day.
While facing the 4-5-6 batters in the San Diego lineup for the third time, Leahy breezed through a 1-2-3 frame on eight pitches, logging one strikeout in his most economical inning of the outing.
Even toward the tail end of his day, Leahy found several radar readings in the 95.4 to 95.6 mph range, per Statcast.
“When your stuff is maintained later on, you just give yourself a better chance,” Leahy said. “I’ve been doing everything I can to try to improve that.”
Leahy attributed those valuable gains to a mechanical adjustment he made during the week, the type of tweak that is a commonality for the 29-year-old throughout the season.
“I don’t think there’s a day I come to the field without an idea of something I am trying to do to get better,” Leahy said. “Over the years, I’ve had a lot of ideas that didn’t work. It was nice to see that one of my ideas this week did work.”
Lately, it seems, whenever a Cardinal starter has a bad outing, the drumbeat grows in volume from outside observers weighing in on which converted reliever should be relegated back to a bullpen role. Leahy has not been immune.
Marmol addressed this topic with reporters at length earlier in the week -- and made the club’s stance on the matter as clear as he could.
“We knew with [Matthew Liberatore] and Leahy that there’s going to be points in the season that move this way,” Marmol said. “That’s part of growth. … You don’t have to use the word ‘commit’ when it’s easy. You have to commit when it’s not easy. When it’s difficult.
“The reason we say we’re going to commit to these guys in the rotation is because we know there’s going to be times where the easy thing to do or say is to react and say let’s flip ‘em. That’s the opposite of being committed to something.”
With multiple converted relievers in the Cardinals’ rotation, the virtue of patience is prevalent in the way Marmol describes the approach of pitching coach Dusty Blake.
Coming into Wednesday, Leahy’s split the third time through the order had him allowing a .462 batting average and 1.363 OPS this season. The notion of patience in the face of that kind of stat is made easier when you understand that the Cardinals haven’t been caught off guard by it.
“We’re not surprised at all, by any of this,” Marmol said Tuesday. “Actually, not even a little.”
Bracing for ebbs and flows in a foundational year was part of the process for the Cardinals, a premise to which Blake has remained steadfast, per Marmol’s description.
“Dusty, this is his strength,” Marmol said. “Where he does not care about any noise outside of, like, what is meaningful. He is not going to sit here and subscribe to the outside noise of flipping this guy -- like, he’s so committed to all that matters is, ‘Can we get an inch closer today? Can we get an inch closer tomorrow?’
“When I say committed, like, that is all he cares about. To the point where sometimes I have to, like, push a little -- and he won’t, he doesn’t budge. He is really adamant about small improvements and continuing down this road. But I love that, because it keeps me in check, too.
“I believe in the process that’s in place. We’ll continue to evaluate it.”
Wednesday’s improvements for Leahy in the areas of emphasis weren’t hard to spot. A fifth-inning double by Fernando Tatis Jr. marked the only third-time-through blemish on Leahy’s ledger, with the Padres going 1-for-6 against Leahy under that circumstance.
As arguably the club’s most dynamic reliever a year ago, even the Cardinals’ management of Leahy in 2025 was catered toward preparing him to expand into this starting role.
Now that they’ve come this far, stacking moments of refinement for incremental progress remains the target.