ST. LOUIS -- After being named an All-Star for the first time in 2022 -- a season when he set a then-career high in saves, recorded MLB’s fastest pitch and even threw an immaculate inning -- Cardinals closer Ryan Helsley felt immense disappointment in 2023 when he couldn’t repeat those accomplishments and missed three months because of a right forearm strain.
Helsley rebounded in 2024 by being as unhittable as any reliever in baseball by converting an MLB-best and franchise-record 49 saves in 53 opportunities. However, on the heels of his first loss of the season -- a 7-6 defeat to the Braves on Saturday afternoon at Busch Stadium -- Helsley is watching history repeat itself in some ways.
An easy All-Star pick in 2024, Helsley hit the break with 32 saves in 34 chances. This season, however, he’s seen those chances drop, and he’s converted just 18 of his 23 save opportunities this season, watching his ERA climb to 3.38 over 32 appearances. As a result, Helsley, now 30 years old, will spend this All-Star break with wife Alex and their two children instead of in Atlanta at the MLB All-Star Game.
“There’s no way to replicate game speed besides obviously being in the game. … [Pitching sporadically] isn’t an excuse for me, because I still feel great,” said Helsley, who allowed singles to Nacho Alvarez Jr. and pinch-hitter Drake Baldwin which allowed for a groundout to score the go-ahead run in the ninth inning. “I feel like I could still execute better on some things, but I still feel good. I’m taking that as a positive. Learn from it and move forward.”
Cardinals reliever Phil Maton, who was a candidate to pitch in the All-Star Game himself after his stellar first half of the season, could certainly understand Helsley’s frustrations on Saturday. Maton left a cutter in the middle of the plate in the eighth inning that Cards killer Sean Murphy hit for a three-run homer that vaulted the Braves into the lead at 6-5. Maton came into the game with a solid 1.83 ERA and tied for eighth in MLB with 18 holds. However, he surrendered his first home run of the season -- and his first home run in 365 days after doing so on July 12, 2024, while pitching for the Mets against the Rockies.
“I had the fastball set up, but it doesn’t do any good when you plant it right in the middle of the zone,” said Maton of the Statcast-projected 372-foot homer hit by Murphy, who is 6-for-18 (.333) with five homers and 10 RBIs in five games against the Cardinals in 2025. “I knew I didn’t have [a home run allowed] this year, but it’s one of those things as soon as you look at it, something happens. Overall, my pitch execution has been good, but today, two pitches were the determining factors in that game.”
The determining factors in Helsley’s drop-off this season compared to his stellar 2024 are his lower rates in terms of swings and misses. He’s seen his whiff rate drop from 36.1% in '24 to 30.1% in '25, and his strikeout rate has gone down from 29.7% to 25.9%. His barrel rate allowed has gone up from 3.7% in '24 to 7% in '25, while foes are now hitting .260 against him as opposed to just .210 a year ago.
All of this has happened while his average fastball velocity -- 99.6 mph in 2024 and 99.2 mph in '25 -- has remained in MLB’s 99th percentile, per Baseball Savant.
“You compare one [first] half [in 2024] to the next [in '25] and you can see two completely different guys,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol surmised. “So that’s just part of being a reliever.”
Helsley’s performance comes against the backdrop of the July 31 Trade Deadline being less than three weeks away. Helsley is the Cardinals’ longest-tenured player, having been in the organization since 2015 when he was the 161st overall pick of that year’s Draft. However, his past success, his expiring contract and his hopes to command a salary equivalent to that of Astros closer Josh Hader and Mets star Edwin Díaz, could make him expendable.
Happy with how the Cardinals (50-46) have clawed to stay in the playoff race in a season when little was expected of them, Helsley is hopeful that his club adds talent instead of selling it off.
“I think we’ve played some great ball, and even when it feels like we are out of them, we come back -- with the last two days being great examples,” Helsley said. “Our offense has done a great job keeping us in games and battling back. So it’s been a lot of fun. And there have been a lot of guys out there in the bullpen who have made strides, so that’s been a lot of fun to see.”