Adaptable Pallante a large part of Cards' future rotation

ST. LOUIS -- In order to become a more viable option for the Cardinals’ rotation, Andre Pallante had to leave his comfort zone. That he did so successfully speaks to a Cardinals pitching staff that manager Oliver Marmol has hailed as the team’s biggest improvement in 2024 as well as to Pallante’s own willingness to adapt.

It was all about the directionality of his newest pitch: a sinker.

Because everything Pallante threw previously -- a four-seamer, slider and curveball -- all moved away from right-handed hitters, he was saddled with extreme reverse splits in his first two seasons. Right-handed batters had an .881 OPS against Pallante last season. That, effectively, turned the average right-handed hitter into an elite player vs. Pallante, a right-handed pitcher.

This year, Pallante committed to throwing his sinker more aggressively against right-handed hitters, throwing it 20 percent of the time thus far.

“Throwing a pitch that goes left-to-right was hard for me, but I think it helped my mechanics overall,” Pallante said after pitching seven innings of one-run ball in a 2-1 Cardinals win over the Guardians on Sunday at Busch Stadium.

Pallante, 26, is on a roll at an opportune time for the Cardinals as well as for his young career. The team is in evaluation mode as it looks to make its plans for 2025 and beyond and Pallante figures to play a role in the future of the starting rotation.

Six days after one of the finest performances of his career -- seven scoreless innings against the Pirates in which he struck out a career-high nine batters -- Pallante pitched efficiently and mercilessly against the Guardians, a lineup stacked with free-swinging lefties and switch-hitters.

This time, he kept the ball on the ground. Pallante needed just 59 pitches to get through the first five innings. He didn’t allow a hit until Myles Straw led off the sixth inning with a line drive to center field that dropped in front of Lars Nootbaar. Pallante piled up 13 outs on the ground.

“He is adapting and making adjustments on the fly and that’s what you want to see out of your guys,” Marmol said. “It’s their ability to make an adjustment in-game rather than wait for the side session between starts. To continue to see these little adjustments are crucial to development.”

For all of that, the Cardinals’ offense didn’t do much to support a strong pitching performance. It took some defensive miscues by Cleveland to net the Cardinals their only run off Gavin Williams. Guardians right fielder Jhonkensy Noel took a step back, then charged slowly on Nolan Arenado’s towering fly ball to right field, allowing it to drop in front of him for a hit. Masyn Winn raced all the way around from first base to score on the single.

The Cardinals scored their other run on a wild pitch.

The Cardinals’ sluggish offense this season was largely the product of rough showings by the team’s two superstars, Paul Goldschmidt and Arenado. After an 0-for-4, three-strikeout game Sunday, Goldschmidt reflected on the worst season of what might prove a Hall of Fame-worthy career.

“The truth is I tried everything,” Goldschmidt said. “I tried every drill I could think of: video, no video, just go and hit without doing anything. For five months basically, including Spring Training -- honestly even back toward the second half of last year, so almost a full calendar year. I just could not find a way to consistently put good swings on the ball, have good at-bats and get the results that were needed to help us win.”

This series was set up as a race to get to the back of each team’s bullpen. The two closers, Emmanuel Clase and Ryan Helsley, may have been the two most dominant relievers in baseball this season. The Cardinals got the better of that matchup as Helsley was the only one who appeared, with the Cardinals taking two of the three games.

Helsley struck out the side Saturday night and then relied on off-barrel contact to pick up his 47th save on Sunday. He trails Trevor Ronsenthal’s single-season saves record by just one with six games left.

The Cardinals had lively crowds all weekend, a testament to their adoring fan support in St. Louis. The team drew 2,869,783 fans in 2024, according to the team, leaving them shy of 3 million for the first time in a non-pandemic-impacted season since 2003.

Sunday’s crowd of 39,100 fans gave nice ovations to Goldschmidt and Matt Carpenter before their first at-bats of the game. Both players had MVP-caliber seasons for the Cardinals and both are prospective free agents this offseason.