Cardinals frustrated again by opposing pitching 

CINCINNATI -- Each time he felt like the Cardinals were close to breaking out of an offensive skid that threatens to derail their season before September even arrives, Nolan Arenado has peered out onto the mound and has repeatedly seen an opposing ace staring back at him.

Against the Cubs, where the Cardinals dropped three of four, they ran into All-Star Shota Imanaga and 2023 Cy Young candidate Justin Steele. Then, surging left-hander Sean Manaea blanked the Cards in a makeup game, and former Cardinal Michael Wacha stifled them over the weekend in Kansas City. Then in Cincinnati, Andrew Abbott dominated them as left-handers have so often done this season, and Hunter Greene showed again in St. Louis’ 4-1 loss to the Reds at Great American Ball Park on Tuesday why he might soon win a Cy Young Award.

Arenado, who provided the Cardinals with their lone run on Tuesday by smashing a Greene slider a Statcast-projected 400 feet, lamented his team's run of rough luck of late.

“Hunter Greene was on today, and Abbott was on yesterday and it’s just tough for us now,” said Arenado, who is hitting .347 with four extra-base hits and eight RBIs in his past 13 games. “[On Monday], we could have done a better job, but today, Hunter Greene was just really on and there wasn’t a lot we could do. We’re struggling and then we have to face an arm like Greene, and it makes it even more of a grind.”

A night after being held to one run on five hits, two walks and a hit batter by Abbott, the Cardinals managed a run on four hits and two walks against a trio of hard-throwing Reds: Tony Santillan, Alexis Díaz and Greene. The Cardinals got a two-out double in the first from Willson Contreras and a leadoff double from rookie Victor Scott II in the sixth inning -- and neither came around to score. The Cards went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position -- a problem all season. They rank 27th in MLB with RISP (.229).

If the Cardinals are to make a serious playoff push -- FanGraphs gives them just a 9.3 percent chance of making the postseason -- they are going to have to find ways to consistently generate more offense. That could be especially tough to do with a schedule that has three games left against the Dodgers, four against the Padres and six versus the division-leading Brewers.

“In order for us to get to where we want to get, we’re going to have to execute in those situations at a higher rate,” manager Oliver Marmol said of the Cardinals’ struggles to do damage with runners in scoring position. “We haven’t done that consistently this year, and at some point, we need to flip that.”

The Cardinals' third straight loss and their 14th defeat in the past 24 games brought them back to .500 for the first time since late June. They were a season-worst nine games below .500 on May 11, but fought their way to a season-best six games over .500 with almost two stellar months of baseball. Now, they are again battling many of the same offensive woes that bedeviled them early in the season.

“We’ve got to score runs and hopefully we can kick it into gear starting tomorrow,” Arenado said. “This stretch has been tough with the amount of games. We’ve got to find a way to win [Wednesday], use the day off to regroup and then we get the Dodgers in town.”

Alec Burleson, the Cardinals’ most productive hitter most of the season, failed to come through in Tuesday’s sixth inning with Scott on third base when he chased a Greene slider that came in near his shoe top. Burleson is currently mired in a 15-for-78 (.192) skid over the past 19 games. Paul Goldschmidt, the NL MVP in 2022 with one of his finest offensive seasons across the board, has hit .179, slugged .245 and mustered just three extra-base hits with runners in scoring position this season.

And then there’s Arenado, who has dug his way out of a slow start, but still has low power and production numbers in the works.

“You just keep encouraging and pushing because, I mean, a lot of these guys have picked me up basically the whole year,” said Arenado, whose home run on the first pitch of the seventh inning was just his 12th long ball of the season. “It’s my job to come in and help these guys. There’s no coming in and pointing the finger because we know as an offense that we’re better than what we’ve been doing.

“We can only lose so many more games and we have to get going. There’s urgency and there has to be now.”