The St. Louis Cardinals are going to need a starting pitcher before long.
Last night, the Cardinals fell to the defending champion Atlanta Braves by a final of 7-1, as starter Andre Pallante made it just 3.2 innings, allowing all seven of the Braves runs.
That’s their third straight loss and it dropped them into a tie with the Philadelphia Phillies for the third NL Wild Card.
It was a continuation of an ominous trend, where a Cardinals starter has been unable to get through six innings since Pallante himself did it at home against the Miami Marlins.
Katie Woo of The Athletic tweeted some troubling stats for the Cardinals in their last turn through the rotation.
The Cardinals drop to the Braves, 7-1. It was not a good game.
In their last turn through, the rotation combined to go 1-4 with a 10.13 ERA (24 ER/21.2 IP) and allowed 40 hits.
St. Louis has lost five of their last six. It's the first big skid of the season. #STLCards
— Katie Woo (@katiejwoo) July 6, 2022
An Ominous Trend
This is concerning for the Cardinals, who began the season with one of the best starting staffs in all of baseball.
Even when Steven Matz went down and Jack Flaherty was out, Adam Wainwright, Miles Mikolas, and Dakota Hudson were getting the job done.
But lately, that has not been the case.
Hudson allowed six runs in four innings on Monday and Pallante followed it up with a clunker of his own.
Just like last season, the Cards are in a position where they need some innings out of their starting rotation.
The solution at last year’s trade deadline was acquiring Jon Lester and J.A. Happ.
It’s unlikely that the Cards will be in play for somebody like Frankie Montas, but pitchers such as Zach Davies, Chad Kuhl, and Tarik Skubal could fit the bill for St. Louis.
The Cards are in the midst of a tough stretch against teams above the .500 mark and are going to need innings out of their starters in order to get through it.
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