How the Cardinals flipped the script and turned their season around

This story was excerpted from John Denton’s Cardinals Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

ST. LOUIS -- As the Cardinals were sitting around the American Family Field clubhouse in Milwaukee on May 11 after dropping nine games below .500 at 15-24, one particularly pointed comment from an unnamed player on the team hit differently.

The off-the-cuff comment eventually sparked something within the Cardinals and helped them reverse a season that didn't start out as planned.

“This feels like last year,” that player surmised following a walk-off loss to the rival Brewers that extended the team’s skid to seven straight losses.

Last year, of course, the Cardinals slumped to a 71-91 record and finished last in their division for the first time in 33 years. The thought of '24 careening out of control like '23 did was a wakeup call to many within St. Louis' clubhouse.

“I’m not going to name a name, but there was a comment during that stretch where a person said, ‘This feels like last year’ -- and they didn’t mean it in a derogatory way and it was kind of the truth,” blossoming slugger Alec Burleson recalled on Sunday, after the Cardinals wrapped up their first 16-win June since 2015. “A lot of us in here heard that and we didn’t want that, because last year was no fun.

“That’s kind of when things turned around, because we were all like, ‘We’re not going to do [2023] again!’ That’s when we came together as an offense and we figured things out. What was said wasn’t necessarily in a bad way, but we just decided we didn’t want it to keep going [like 2023].”

Ultimately, the Cards flushed 2023 by putting together their best stretch of baseball since the '22 season. Their 28-16 mark since May 11 is the best record in the National League and trails only Cleveland’s 28-14 stretch since that date. Remarkably, the Cardinals were able to play their best baseball even without their most productive early-season hitter, catcher Willson Contreras, and starting outfielder Lars Nootbaar. Both missed time because of injuries.

Newcomers Sonny Gray (9-5, 2.98 ERA), Kyle Gibson (5-3, 3.70 ERA) and Lance Lynn (4-3, 3.59 ERA) stabilized the starting rotation, while trading for veteran reliever Andrew Kittredge (24 holds, 3.22 ERA) and the Rule 5 Draft plucking of Ryan Fernandez (seven holds, 2.21 ERA) look to be the best under-the-radar moves of the offseason. Brendan Donovan (a team-high 41 RBIs), Masyn Winn (.286, four homers and 28 RBIs) and Burleson (seven homers in June) have carried an offense still waiting for Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado to hit their stride.

“If you look at how this [season] started, it wasn’t good at all,” manager Oliver Marmol said. “There were some things that kept recurring, that kept happening that weren’t allowing us to win. To dig that hole and get out of it, we had to compete extremely well to get back to .500 and above. That’s not easy to do, and we weren’t able to do that last year when we dug that hole. This year, we have a different group of guys who -- it’s not that they’re committed, they are convicted about what they want to do.”

During their season-saving hot stretch, the Cardinals swept the young and talented Orioles and the retooled Giants, and they won series against the Red Sox, Pirates and Cubs (twice). It has them believing that they can run down the Brewers in the NL Central, with Milwaukee holding a 6 1/2-game lead.

“When you talk to them in that clubhouse, their mindset is exactly where it needs to be,” said Marmol. “They want to win the division and they’re committed to doing that. … I feel like we’re playing much better baseball and competing at a better level.”

As a result, players like closer Ryan Helsley hope to avoid any more comparisons to last season.

“I got drafted in 2015 and last year was the first time at any level that I didn’t make the playoffs, so it’s understood that as a St. Louis Cardinals player that you strive to make the postseason and make a deep push,” Helsley said. “Last year was tough, and now everybody is fighting like crazy to put our best foot forward.”