Bring on your questions!
The Cardinals have won 9 games in a row and beat the Phillies last night in Philadelphia. For those who have been tracking the Cardinals early in the season you know that their road woes have been well documented. In a hostile environment against a playoff caliber team the Cardinals answered yet another questions towards their legitimacy this season as they continue to surprise. Last night was a microcosm of the surprises this season. Matthew Liberatore pitching like a front-line starter, Kyle Leahy handling high leverage situations, young offensive pieces coming through in key situations, Jordan Walker flashing some leather (even if he isn’t hitting) his glove work contributes to the overall defensive strength of the team.
The Cardinals will send staff ace Sonny Gray to the bump tonight against Jesus Luzardo (Jesus Lizard) in anticipation of winning their 10th game in a row and continuing to put enormous pressure on the early season central favorite Chicago Cubs who only hold a 1 game lead in the division currently.
What is your current level of buy in for this team? Are you guarding your jaded heart from being hurt again? Are you willing to buy in a little bit but only if everything continues to fall perfectly right for the team? Are you willing to buy into this group and ride some of the highs and lows of the team but are ready for a fun summer? Are you ALL THE WAY IN and believe there’s no reason they aren’t a playoff team at this point?
Another topic I wanted to quickly take a look at is that Nolan Gorman’s power seems to have disappeared some, but his overall plate discipline and approach has improved and could lead to a more consistent profile later in the season:
Rate changes year over year from ‘24 to ‘25 (80 PA’s) as of May 8th:
K% 37.6 to 28.4 (-9.2%)
Swing% 51 to 42.9 (-8.1%)
Whiff% 38.7 to 28.4 (-10.3%) (86th percentile!)
Chase% 30.3 to 21 (-9.3%)
BB% 8.5 to 14.8 (+6.3%) (90th percentile!)
Hard hit% 38.6 to 41.3 (+2.7%)
First pitch swing% 39.9 to 27.5 (-12.4%)
First pitch strike% 63.1 to 60 (-3.1%)
why these two matter; when Nolan Gorman is ahead in the count his OPS is .724, when he’s behind in the count his OPS is .53Gorman’s BABIP this year is .244 and his career is .289 so I expect some positive regression that will raise his average and counting stats over time considering his AVG is .185 but his xAVG is .213 and xWOBA is .326. Gorman is swinging less and walking more that almost always leads to improved results. The numbers indicate that he’s more productive in more advantageous counts and he’s made a conscious effort to put himself in those positions. I’m anxious to see this season play out for him.
Lastly, Miles Mikolas is continuing to find success and give the team a chance to win even if it’s not as the innings eating veteran that we all anticipated it would be. Give Mikolas the benefit of the mulligan in Boston (seriously what pitcher had success that weekend?) If you remove the 2.2 IP and 8 ER allowed in that start Mikolas has pitched to a 2.70 ERA through 36.2 IP.
If you have any other questions for us to answer on this weeks episode of the podcast leave them below!
-Thanks for reading