Name: BenFred: Sunday was a gut-test game for the Cardinals. They failed. Miserably.
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BenFred: Sunday was a gut-test game for the Cardinals. They failed. Miserably.

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Truth is, some games say more than others.Sunday’s 5-1 loss to the lousy White Sox at Busch Stadium just became a very good example in a very bad way.Whether you prefer to call it character, resolve, guts, gumption, grit or something else entirely, this was a game everybody knew would test whatever it is you like to call, “it.”The Cardinals just failed the test in front of more than 43,000.Like a ripe fastball in a hitter’s count this team so often watches for a called strike, the Cardinals just let it happen.Those of us who expected more out of the Cardinals this season compared to the last-place disaster that was 2023 are left with little encouraging to say at the moment.
            Sure, these Cardinals are different in multiple ways than those Cardinals. They pitch and defend better. Maybe they run the bases better, but before that can definitively be determined they would have to get on base. Finding a new way to be entirely underwhelming doesn’t count for much. Especially when the losses keep coming. They’re back in the National League Central’s basement.Let’s add some context to this series-loss-cementing defeat at home to the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad White Sox.The White Sox had won only six games when they showed up at Busch Stadium for Friday’s series opener. Only one of those wins had come on the road. On the Cardinals’ home field, the White Sox doubled their season road win total and number of series won.There are no acceptable excuses. You maybe make excuses for not sweeping the White Sox. There are no excuses for losing a home series to them.Yes, the Cardinals had to shift to a bullpen game Sunday. But why was that, really? Because the front office’s errant belief in Steven Matz somehow turning into a reliable starter once again blew up in the team’s face, causing a preventable scramble.Yes, the Cardinals lost Saturday’s game after C.B. Bucknor, baseball’s second-worst umpire behind Angel Hernandez, called a clear ball a game-ending strike against Ivan Herrera. And? If you leave the fate of your game in Bucknor’s hands, especially after a 3-plus hour rain delay, chances are high you will not like what you get.Besides, it wasn’t Bucknor who went 3-for-13 with runners in scoring position and stranded 10 in that Saturday loss.And it wasn’t Bucknor who got one runner past second base Sunday.This ghost of a Cardinals offense did.And it was ex-Cards outfielder Tommy Pham, not Bucknor, who hit Saturday’s go-ahead run for the White Sox before that lengthy rain delay.Pham wanted a Cardinals reunion this season, for those who had not heard. He even showed up at Cardinals spring training hoping to secure a job during his visit. The Cardinals were not interested in his services.While he’s not one of three former Cardinals outfielders (Marcell Ozuna, Tyler O’Neill and Adolis Garcia) currently ranked in baseball’s top-seven for home runs, Pham is averaging .286 with a .753 on-base plus slugging percentage through his first 35 at-bats with the White Sox despite a late start. That’s a higher OPS than the .545 one Cardinals outfielders had entering Sunday’s loss, and that was before they combined to go 2-for-10 with two infield singles in this game.Pile upon used-up reliever Giovanny Gallegos for fumbling Sunday’s bullpen-game baton if you like. He looks spent, or hurt. Time to find an impingement of some kind. The Cardinals used him and used him and now there may not be much left.But let’s not overlook the bigger issue here. Last season a sketchy rotation doomed the season. This season a silent offense is threatening to do the same.A lineup full of sagging hitters with just one steady exception in Willson Contreras, who provided Sunday’s lone run via homer, showed up on a day the world knew offense was needed due to emergency pitching plans, then did next to nothing. Hitters who insist they love hitting coach Turner Ward keep pouring gas on fans’ hollering to fire him, just to try something, anything.That’s the kind of loss Sunday felt like, one that can get someone fired. But when every piece of the puzzle has been put in place by a front office that exists behind a Teflon shield, plenty of fans also are wondering how players, coaches and managers keep changing, but never the front office.Ward isn’t the one up there tracking meatballs into the catcher’s mitt, but the offense he’s in charge of getting right is all sorts of wrong.Paul Goldschmidt looks lost. Nolan Arenado is slugging .395. Nolan Gorman, last season’s home run leader, got pinch-hit for Saturday with a game on the line, and it could have been the right call, considering he’s averaging .182.The Cardinals are tied, ironically with the White Sox, for the fewest homers in baseball (23). Their .624 OPS is basically tied with the 9-26 Marlins for second-lowest in the game, ahead of only the White Sox (.597). They are in baseball’s bottom-five in hard-hit percentage (36.6%) and barrel percentage (6.1%). According to Sports Info Solutions, the Cardinals see MLB’s eighth-highest percentage of pitches inside the strike zone (43.1%) yet swing at the seventh-lowest percentage (66.6%) of those in-the-zone offerings. Compare that to, say, the clobbering Braves, who see 41% of pitches inside the zone and swing at 74.7% of those pitches.How fun it must be to pitch against these Cardinals right now, like White Sox starter Garrett Crochet did for six innings Sunday. He handcuffed the Cardinals to one run in six innings, striking out six and walking none. He showed up here with a four-game losing streak and zero career road wins; he was 0-6 in his 40 previous road appearances.Pounding the zone against the Cardinals is the way, because they don’t like to swing, and when they do, they don’t do much damage. Even when they come to the ballpark knowing their own pitching needs help. Even when everyone had to know a loss Sunday would be a different kind of bad.This was a tell-you-something game, as big of a gut test you will find in May.

Truth is, some games say more than others.Sunday’s 5-1 loss to the lousy White Sox at Busch Stadium just became a very good example in a very bad way.Whether you prefer to call it character, resolve, guts, gumption, grit or something else entirely, this was a game everybody knew would test whatever it is you like to call, “it.”The Cardinals just failed the test in front of more than 43,000.Like a ripe fastball in a hitter’s count this team so often watches for a called strike, the Cardinals just let it happen.Those of us who expected more out of the Cardinals this season compared to the...

BenFred: Sunday was a gut-test game for the Cardinals. They failed. Miserably.

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