Is it time to worry about the Cardinals? Perhaps, or perhaps not

As a longtime, rather intense observer/fan of the St. Louis Cardinals -- and as someone who spends way too much of his time thinking and talking about that franchise -- I cannot get away from the question these days: What is wrong with the Cardinals?

It is a very fair question. The Cardinals have become synonymous with winning over the last two-plus decades. Since the calendars changed from 1999 to 2000, the Cardinals, over those 23 seasons, have:

• Won the World Series twice.
• Reached the World Series four times.
• Reached the NLCS 10 times.
• Reached the postseason 16 times.
• Had exactly one (1) losing season (2007, 78 wins).

• What went wrong for the Cardinals in 1st month?

The last time the Cardinals finished in last place was 1990, a season manager Whitey Herzog left after 80 games. The last time before that? 1918. 1918!

And yet here they are, after the season’s first month, not only at 10-19, not only in last place in the NL Central, but a whole 10 games out of first place behind the upstart Pirates.

Cardinals fans have been spoiled, there’s no question about it; I certainly understand if you are loathe to have much sympathy for them. But still: It is downright disorienting to see the Cardinals at the bottom of the division and struggling so dramatically. With the Cardinals finally getting a day off after a miserable 2-8 West Coast trip, and with the Shohei and Trout show heading into Busch Stadium this week, I thought it might be time to figure out: Is now the time to panic? Or is it all going to be fine?

Here are three reasons not to worry about the Cardinals … and three reasons you absolutely should.

REASONS NOT TO WORRY

1. It’s early. And it’s not just early: The schedule has been brutal.
It is certainly scary to see that big number 10 in the “games back” column, particularly when there are three teams in between the Cardinals and the first-place Pirates. But if you have to be 10 games back, it’s much better to be 10 games back on May 1 rather than Sept. 1. The season is long by design, you know. This has been the Cardinals’ worst month since May 2019, when they went 9-18, and the reason you don’t remember that month is not just because a lot has happened in everyone’s lives since May 2019: It’s also because the Cardinals won 91 games that year and reached the NLCS. The Cardinals’ schedule has been punishing so far, with series against the Blue Jays, Braves, Mariners, Brewers, D-backs, Dodgers and those dominant Pirates (they’ve actually given the Pirates more than a fifth of their losses), and that West Coast trip on which they just went 2-8 was their longest in more than two decades. This month, they get the Tigers, Cubs, Red Sox, Reds and Royals. If they’re going to get back on track, May’s the time.

• MLB standings

2. There’s still a ton of offensive firepower here. They just have to figure out how to deploy it.
No matter how long you’ve been watching Nolan Arenado, I assure you, you’ve never seen him like he is right now. The possible future Hall of Famer is scuffling in a rather dramatic way, going 5-for-38 on the road trip and looking lost in nearly every at-bat. (Arenado is one of those players who wears his emotions on his sleeve. His sleeve looks very sad these days.) It’s fair to assume that Arenado is going to eventually turn it around. The Cardinals are loaded with offensive talent; the issue so far has been getting it all working at the same time. The key might be figuring out the outfield, which has gotten so crowded that nobody can get in any sort of groove. With Tyler O’Neill, Dylan Carlson and Alec Burleson all struggling right now, you should probably expect the recently demoted Jordan Walker to reappear soon. This team should score some runs.

3. Adam Wainwright’s coming back, not just to help the pitching staff, but the vibes
The Cardinals lost their Opening Day starter and franchise icon right after the World Baseball Classic, and the vibes have felt off ever since then. Wainwright doesn’t throw hard anymore, but he can still get guys out. He’s likely to return to the rotation this weekend -- replacing Jake Woodford, who currently has a 5.72 ERA -- and, honestly, as silly as this sounds, the Cardinals may need his presence in the dugout as much as his right arm. This is the team of Lars Nootbaar, of the grinding of the pepper, of the funny in-game Wainwright interviews. There is no joy in this Cardinals clubhouse right now. At the very least, Wainwright can provide some of that.

REASONS TO WORRY

1. There isn’t much pitching help coming.
The Cardinals do, however, need more than joy from their rotation. The Cardinals got four quality starts from their rotation on the West Coast trip -- not that it helped -- which raised their total to, uh, six on the year. The whole rotation is filled with question marks. Jordan Montgomery has been the best starter so far, but he’s still 2-4 despite a solid 3.34 ERA. Miles Mikolas just pitched his best game of the year, and it only lowered his ERA to 5.97. Woodford and Steven Matz (6.23 ERA, two more years on his deal after this one) have been disappointments. And Jack Flaherty, the guy the Cardinals have been waiting to be their ace for four seasons now, is maddeningly inconsistent -- wild one start, dominant the next, bowled over the start after that. The Cardinals look two or three starters short right now, and while there’s some hope in Triple-A Memphis with Matthew Liberatore, teams usually get out of slumps by getting reliable starting pitching. There is nothing reliable about the Cardinals’ starting pitching right now.

2. The decision-makers can’t seem to settle on a formula
Many observers around baseball were surprised when the Cardinals sent top prospect Jordan Walker down to Memphis despite respectable numbers in his first few weeks in the Majors. While you could make an argument for the move in isolation -- Walker does hit the ball on the ground too much for a man of his talents -- it almost felt like making a move for the sake of it. (The man the Cardinals brought up when they sent down Walker, Taylor Motter, still hasn’t had an at-bat a week later.) The Walker move was mostly done to help clarify the crowded outfield situation, but it hasn’t: O’Neill, Carlson and Burleson have continued to slump, and there still isn’t any regular playing time for anyone but Nootbaar (who has been fine).

That lack of clarity has made it tough for manager Oliver Marmol, who has been struggling to figure out the outfield situation and tweaking the lineup every night. The Cardinals want you, and themselves, to believe that everything is fine, that they’re going to figure it out -- they’re the Cardinals, after all. But the people in charge certainly aren’t acting like everything is fine.

3. It’s later than you think.
This is probably the biggest one. The fact is: The Cardinals aren’t this bad. They’re not a 55-win team, which is what their current winning percentage averages out to. They are too talented, too deep, too well-constructed, to remain this bad for much longer. A turnaround is coming. But is it already too late? It might be. At this point, as noted by Dayn Perry in his (excellent) Birdy Work newsletter, for the Cardinals to win 90 games this year -- a reasonable number to have to reach to have a legitimate chance at the postseason, particularly the way the National League is shaping up -- the Cardinals will have to go 80-53 the rest of the way, a .602 winning percentage. That’s a 98-win pace for a team that, as optimistic as many were heading into the season, no one had winning 98 games.

The Cardinals have to play above their heads, way above their heads, just to crawl back to a reasonable chance to compete … and that’s not even accounting for the fact that they have four teams to climb over in their own division. Are they capable of that? They better be. Because that’s the minimum of what’s required at this point. That’s the thing about April. You can’t win a division in April. But you might well be able to lose it. Have the Cardinals already lost it? It's more likely than any St. Louis fan probably wants to admit right now.