How do Cardinals restore energy at Busch Stadium? Winning would help
When Kyle Leahy jogged out of the St. Louis Cardinals bullpen on Friday night, he was greeted on the Citi Field outfield grass by the thumping bass of an Avicii track and a vibrant light show flashing throughout the stadium, which he thoughtfully judged to be “cool.”
Standing at shortstop, Thomas Saggese took in the surroundings as his counterpart, Francisco Lindor, strolled to the plate to “My Girl” by the Temptations. In the midst of a daunting competitive environment, he admitted to singing along quietly to himself, just as tens of thousands were belting the same.
The energy and excitement of Mets fans, and the team’s connection to its supporters, radiates from seemingly every corner of the concourse. It’s an energy that was familiar and expected in St. Louis throughout the last decade, and it’s one that those grinding out the season with the team are beyond eager to recapture. How, then, do the Cardinals get back there?
“You win,” manager Oli Marmol said from his office on Sunday. “It’s pretty simple. When you get in that window where the team’s ready for that type of run, people show up when you’re winning.”
Strong attendance is a necessary component of a daunting environment, but it’s not the only variable. The Mets have arrived at an open window of contention thanks in large part to a change of ownership, in which Steve Cohen, MLB’s wealthiest owner by an order of magnitude, has managed to cast aside his past as the head of a company which pled guilty to serious financial crimes and instead has fashioned himself an avuncular, underdog image.
Couple that with signing Juan Soto to the largest free agent contract in MLB history, securing a long-term future with the vibrant, locally-beloved Lindor, and allowing Pete Alonso to fruitlessly test the free agent market before returning to Flushing to shore up one of the league’s most dangerous lineups, and there’s plenty of fan excitement even before the lights start flashing.
The Cardinals simply aren’t there. The team which started 4-2 followed that stretch by winning only five of their next 15 games, and only one of their first nine road games. Both “refresh” and “reset” – but never “rebuild” – have been used by various authority figures around the Cardinals to describe the current process, but what they might’ve needed more than anything else is a reminder. This is how the game can look and feel when a team earns a connection that pours energy back into them.
“When you see these young guys [on the Cardinals], they’re working toward that window,” Marmol said. “For me, that’s the part that’s cool. Seeing certain opportunities that come up, and their ability to, whether they succeed at it or not, that’s in that memory bank of being able to draw from it moving forward. But you’re building towards that window where it could be really cool for some of these guys once they’re in it.”
Part of that process is approaching correction with a deft hand. New coaches Brant Brown and Jon Jay have been particularly skilled, Marmol described, in stepping in as needed and where appropriate to make immediate corrections during a game. “You can correct something in the fourth so it doesn’t happen in the eighth,” he said, also noting that there are times when it’s better to step back and let a game play out, avoiding piling pressure points on a young player who might already be feeling the pressure of failure.
“That is coaching, right?” Marmol asked rhetorically. “It’s understanding that part of when sometimes not saying anything is the best damn thing you can do…Knowing the personalities is important.”
Those personalities, around the Mets, are part of the connection with the crowd and the community that the energy at Citi Field so notably turned up high. Whatever his other faults, Cohen has made a real investment in his team and the experience of fans, and the Mets are reaping the benefits in kind.
As attendance continues to sag at Busch Stadium, it’s hard not to point to a stretch of uninspiring results, whiplash directions in player acquisition, and a perceived public ambivalence from ownership that has from time to time flirted with a scolding tone. There is also something stoic and traditional – a critic might say faux-patrician – about the expectations around the energy at ballpark in St. Louis.
They’ve never really tried to be the Mets. They have, whether or not ownership would admit it, always instead imagined themselves as closer kin to the Yankees, bundling traditions with a critical mass of historical championships and using that history as their stake in the community.
There’s something to be said for being messier, or bolder, or louder. That is a much better fit for the players they’ve acquired, and the group on whom they are attempting to build a better competitive future.
“The answer to that is absolutely yes,” Marmol replied when asked if the personnel in the clubhouse could be that kind of high-energy team. “Think about it. A Masyn Winn, a [Lars] Nootbaar, a Victor [Scott II]. Those are real personalities that people will get excited to watch.”
Marmol described Saturday’s loss as “a very youthful game,” both in terms of his lineup and also some of the mistakes that were made between the lines. It’s a difficult adjustment for him, and for those in the front office, to accept those speed bumps, but the Cardinals do not yet have the pedal down. They’re not quite there, perhaps closer to the beginning of the road than the end.
The job, then, is to smooth out the path as much as possible, and the hope is that the energy from and connection with the city and the fans will follow when they get there.
“Those are youthful moments, and they have to experience that, learn from it,” Marmol said. “Our job is to make sure it doesn’t look that way in July, but the last thing you can do is get pissed at this group, and then they start playing timid, or scared, or playing not to lose, rather than growing.”