Cardinals battered bullpen is showing its cracks. Can it recover for the postseason?
If anything assuages the concerns surrounding the suddenly sputtering St. Louis Cardinals offense, it’s that the team has been at its most successful when sitting firmly in its niche as a run-suppression team.
That requires excellence in three other phases of the game – starting pitching, defense, and relief pitching.
While the first two have held firm, the latter is showing cracks that could prove to be impactful heading into the postseason.
“I don’t want to minimize that those guys have worked very, very hard and done a very, very good job,” Cardinals manager Mike Shildt said Friday. “I want to make sure we remember that. (Giovanny Gallegos), (Andrew Miller), (Ryan Helsley) ... those guys have been outstanding. And we’ll run them back out there and have complete confidence in them, and rightfully so.”
Shildt’s confidence finds friction when contrasted against the bullpen’s last 13 games.
Over that stretch, relievers have allowed 40 runs and a 5.47 earned run average. Perhaps most concerning is the walk rate; Cardinals relievers have allowed 4.48 walks per nine innings pitched over that same stretch.
“There’s walks where a guy earned a walk or we’re pitching around a guy a little bit, those we can understand,” Shildt explained. “The walks that are four-, five-pitch walks with a lot of misses, regardless of who it is, those are the ones that tend to bother you a little bit.”
Friday night’s game began to fall apart in earnest when Andrew Miller surrendered a leadoff, five-pitch walk to Ben Zobrist in the seventh. With the game tied at one, Miller would go on to allow a bloop single to Willson Contreras and a double to Ian Happ before he hit Victor Caratini with a pitch, ending his night.
“Andrew, you know, it’s always about consistency and being able to control counts and hit with your pitches,” Shildt said. “But he’s been very consistent, so we can’t just sit here and pile on this guy. This guy’s been really, really good for a nice stretch here.”
Despite his manager’s backing, Miller’s numbers have taken a turn for the worse over the last few weeks. His season ERA has ballooned to 4.50, and he’s allowed 10 runs (9 earned) over only 9 1/3 innings pitched in September.
“I don’t want to walk anybody. I don’t also want to have to give in to anybody. That was a very bad walk and obviously I paid for it,” Miller said. “I kind of dug myself a hole and even though I felt like the contact was bad, I kind of created an inning that sped up and that leadoff walk ended up kind of coming back to bite us.”
The Cardinals bullpen may still be dealing with residual effects from Tuesday’s marathon game in Arizona. After a 19-inning slog which saw 10 Cardinals relievers take the mound, the recovery has been challenging.
Shildt was adamant that “I don’t think any of our guys will accept that” as an excuse for poor performance, but reliever John Brebbia conceded that it’s hard to avoid the cascading effects of that game.
“Is it going to creep its legs out a little bit further than most games? Yeah probably,” Brebbia conceded, “because that’s starting to touch and affect more pitchers. But at the same time, I think that we’re all equipped to throw whenever needed.”
Miller pointed out that several pitchers are approaching 70 innings pitched or 70 appearances, but said, “you’ve just got to find a way to dig deep and get it done. The guys on the other side are dealing with the same thing.”
The physical toll of pitching deep into a season poses a new challenge for most of the Redbird relievers. Among bullpen arms, only Miller and closer Carlos Martínez have pitched in the Major League postseason. Miller said that he hopes the high intensity environment of recent weeks can serve as a kind of dress rehearsal for the upcoming playoff stress.
“(These games) don’t have all the distractions that I think that come with playoff games,” Miller said. “I’m sure we’ll have a moment to talk about that. There are fortunately a couple guys that have a lot of experience in doing it and doing it here.”
Brebbia, like his manager, sees the challenge of the schedule as an opportunity to seize upon adrenaline and find the necessary push to get himself – and the team – over the hump.
“I can’t necessarily speak for anyone else on this but, having a game like that in a tight season where games count and being a playoff push, that’s kind of an adrenaline kicker,” Brebbia said. “I think that kind of adversity and that kind of excitement about the playoffs can add together and can make things even better, even stronger, which I wouldn’t be surprised if we even see in the next two days and into the playoffs.”
This story was originally published September 28, 2019 at 5:36 PM.