PAINFUL PATTERN: St. Louis Cardinals' Late-Game WOES Resurface Against Los Angeles Dodgers

0:00This is the Lockdown Podcast Network celebrating 10 years of your team every day. Today's episode is brought to you by the Dell XPS. I'm Wes Goldberg from Lockdown NBA Daily and Lockdown Heat. So what does it feel like to have a better laptop like the Dell XPS powered by Intel Core? With a premium design that's thin and light, it feels smooth. With a responsive touch screen, it feels fast and precise. And with long lasting battery life, it feels like non-stop energy with a laptop that can keep up. Built for those who want better, the Dell XPS built for you. So close, so close to sweeping the Dodgers, but one of the biggest issues for the 2016 Rears, it's ugly head again. You are Lockdown Cardinals, your daily St. Louis Cardinals podcast, part of the Lockdown

1:03Podcast Network, your team every day. Hey there, Cardinals fans, it's Shady Haffer, and today's episode brought to you by Fandall College football Saturdays are already packed with reasons to get excited. And this season, Fandall is giving fans even more ways to get in on every matchup. Join all the action at fandall.com. On today's show, some not so great news. Got an update on 100 abins. That injury is no bueno. William Doyle, though, back on the mound for Springfield had himself a nice game trying to avenge the rare shut out loss on Wednesday by Springfield. So we'll talk about that. But let's get into Thursday nights game against L.A. Against the Dodgers, Cardinals coming in, having won the first two games of the series. They're four and one against the Dodgers so far this year. For whatever reason, they played at a different level when they take on the Dodgers. And that's what some teams do, you know, when your level of competition rises. Sometimes you tend to play a lot better. And it feels like that happens a lot to the Cardinals this year, where when they're facing

2:07somebody who's a better opponent, most people's eyes, they play a lot better. But when they play against teams that maybe aren't so great, they play down to their level, which is something you don't want to see. But, you know, first game, they outslug the Dodgers 13-8. Second one, they come back down three runs to win at 8-6 in extra inning. So a lot of positive things to talk about from those first two games. So if you have a listen to the last two episodes, go back, check them out. We went through the games and it was fun. That was some fun tape to review. Offensively, they were really impressive, you know, in those first two games. Situational hitting, base running, slugging. But if they wanted to complete the sweep, they were going to have to go through the two-time rating AL-SY Young Award winner, and Terrick Scubo, who came over to LA in a trade with the Detroit Tigers at the deadline. I mean, it's ridiculous. Like, Terrick Scubo, to go along with Went Healthy, a rotation that also features Shohei O'Tani, Yoshino Miyamoto, Blake Snow, Tyler Glassnow, Roki Sasaki, Chris Babich,

3:14is on their roster as well. It's a disgusting group. It's also quite fragile. A lot of these guys continue to get hurt, even Scubo has been on the IEL this year. Since coming to the Dodgers, he's been fine, not the dominant guy that we saw when he was with Detroit, but, you know, takes some time to get settled in, coming off his best performance since the trade. He was going up against his former team of Tigers, six innings, one run, four hits, seven K, certainly not an easy task for our young Cardinals. And opposing him was another rookie for the Cardinals this year, Quinn Matthews, who was making his fifth big league start, fourth one that he's had to make on the road. And the boys were able to jump on Scubo early in this one. It was like out of the gate, you got the Firminator, Jose Promen, greeting him with the lead off single up the middle. Yvonne Herrero follows Sue, ropes one towards the gap in left field, shout out to our guy, Tommy Edmund, who had himself a nice revenge game in this one. But he makes a nice play, cuts it off in the gap, and keeps Yvonne from turning that

4:16single into a double. That would be a key play to save a run later on this sitting because after Jordan Walker strikes out swinging on a pitch up here in his eyes, Jordan, what are you doing? Well over anxious, trying to do some damage against Scubo, I guess it's understandable, but I mean, I'm on boys, six six, that thing was up here, man. But then it was another rookie, Joshua Bias, who had the two huge doubles in Wednesday's victory. They come through yet again, pokes a single to right field to make it one to nothing. And just like in Wednesday's when it is so good to see these young hitters not trying to do too much, not trying to pull everything, not over swinging at everything. All right. I know Bias does it from time to time, or he takes a mighty hack, but he's trying to do damage. But in this situation, he did not. He had a job to do. He knew what it was, and he got a done. Did number swing just put it right over there to the right side. And it's leading the great things for the offense when they do it that way.

5:19Now here's where the Edmund play comes into play is another way to say it, because Edmund got to the ball so quick and center on Herrera's base knock. He's only a first base. So he can only move up to second base on that particular base hit from Bias. And if he had gotten a double in that situation, perhaps to run score on this hit by Bias, not sure if Pop would have sent him home, only one out. Bias, the single, wasn't hit all that hard. So not sure how deep Tucker was playing in right field, but I don't know. Might have had to play at the plate. No, Tucker's won't go about there before, but I don't know. It's just little things like that. Like holding Herrera to a single on that play is able to keep him from even thinking about trying to score on that, because you could have had a two to nothing lead there, at least maybe a plate to play. You know, little things like that. That's what winning clubs do. And Tommy Edmund's been doing that for his entire career. We got to see it firsthand when he was a card. No, it still stings my butt that we made that deal.

6:21I remember the time too, thinking like, I get why they're doing it, but at the same time, I'm like, gosh, we hate losing. I like Tommy Edmund of all people who can do so much play in field, play outfield, switch hitter speed. And we're doing this for Eric Fettie. Okay. Next batter is Rookie Leo Bernal. Some bad luck here for Leo. He smacks this frozen rope over to the shortstop side towards left field. And it goes right to move you back right to him, placed perfectly. And they double up Herrera at second base two in the inning. 102.4 off the bat, but right at Mookie. So what are you going to do? Right? Cardinals get the one run. They get three hits off scuba. They're helping in and they're seeing them pretty well. You know, so. But you know how it is you face, you face like elite pitchers like scuba. And if they give you an opening, you got to like run right through it and take advantage of it. And. Because you're not probably going to get more chances like that.

7:22Usually they settle in and that can be game over. Like as soon as they get locked in, you're not doing anything. But the Cardinals get battling. You know, they got a couple knocks in that second inning as well. Third inning Herrera with the lead off single walker. A bias go down on strikes, but it's lay over to all again. Laces went to center field. 212 Wow for Ramon, Urias, who singles the left to make it to enough. Eight hits off of scuba. All singles in the first three innings. And it's hard to be upset about that like scuba is sick. Like he's one of the best pitchers in baseball, obviously. So having that kind of damage done off him already, you're starting to wear him down a little bit. Maybe getting to that Dodgers ball pen. But that's where the offense in it. Sadly, that's where it ended. Cardinals get blanked the rest of the way. But they finished with two runs on 12 heads, which, you know, you would like to have a little more production as far as the runs. I think they were two for nine with runners in scoring position. But every single starter had a base hit. Herrera Walker Bernal collected two of peace.

8:23They just, they couldn't come up with that. That big knock like they did in the previous two games. You know, there was none of these big home runs that really swung momentum towards them. And we're able to bust it open and just never came. And they needed more breathing room clearly because unfortunately they would they needed it late. We're going to talk about that side of things next. We'll get into the pitching Quinn Matthews. I like to write so there. But you had another blown say for Raleo Brian. So we'll give it all of that coming up next on locks on Cardinals. College football fans. It is time to put your knowledge to the test with college football pick them from Fandall. Now each week, you can make 10 free against the spread picks. 10 free against the spread picks. You finish with one of the weeks top pick totals. And you can want to share a $500,000 in bonus bets. There's no entry fee. You have to put anything down. No wage required.

9:23Just make your your picks based on whatever college football knowledge you have. And maybe it's good. Maybe it's bad. And we'll see how you stack up. And the competition does a stop there. Make your picks before kick off all the lively to board throughout Saturday. And we'll see if you can outpick names like Will Compton and Taylor Luan and Josh Pate. Beat any of them. You'll unlock a profit boost to use on Fandall. And for me, what I like about this stuff is because there's so much college football, right? There's so many teams in schools and opportunities to win. I like being engaged in all of them. It's a bummer when you're waiting in the afternoon and you're like, I don't know any of these teams. Now you have a reason to watch these games. So follow the leaderboard as the games happen. Then come back the next week. See if you can do better. Download the Fandall app play college football pick and prefer only on Fandall. Visit fandall.com to get started. Thanks for making locks on Cardinals first listen of the day. Thank you for making lock down the number one sports podcast network.

10:24I got a Quinn Matthews on the mound last night with a super cool socks, which I will always respect if anybody. Where's those socks you automatically get bonus points from me? They are the coolest look. I think that is the best look that any of these Cardinals could have. Socks pants up. Socks up. Do it. It looks awesome. But Matthews on the mound. No show, hey, O'Honey in the lineup. He gets a day off after he struck out four times in Wednesday's game and he looked terrible. At the plate and it's those shock that he's dealing with some injuries right by Seb Ann neck issues for show. Hey is what was going on one for 18 against the Cardinals this season. And he hasn't been heard all season when the Cardinals face himself. I get this series has been banged up, but one for 18 against the Cardinals. That's a 56 batting average. No extra bass hits. Struck out seven times. Well done gentlemen. Well done. Show Hey, who? I'm but he's still got this crazy sick lineup that you have to go through with the Dodgers. It's still got Edmond and Mukie and Tiasca Hernandez and Freddie Freeman and Will Smith and Kyle Tucker plenty of talent to go around without O'Tonaco.

11:32Matthew sell them and check for five. And he's the only allows one run out of four hits three of those were by Tommy Edmond because of course he did. Because let's what the Cardinals do we give up revenge games. It's what we do. So is there anybody on Colorado that's from the Cardinals because they're about to go off? Okay. But anyway, Quinn Matthews, Four hits, walks four, which yeah, that's that's not what you want way too high, but he also strikes out for did dodge some danger in that third inning, but kept LA off the board until the fifth inning. You get the lead off double from Edmund, which as soon as you get somebody in scoring position with LA like it feels like they're automatically going to score because of the talent they got. He walks, Mookie Hernandez grounds out and it's just, you know, it happened to be in the whole little bit and wasn't the quickest of turns over its second base so they can't turn to, but Edmund goes to third base. What really matter because he comes in on what is ruled a wild pitch, but it didn't look like a wild pitch to me.

12:33It looked like a pass ball. It's a fast ball up. It goes off. Pa has his glove and goes back to the backstop Edmund scores, but I mean literally I think Pedro catches that ball 99 out of 100 times. It wasn't extremely high or inside or anything, but wild pitch was what the official score said and that makes it a two to one ball game, but that's all the damage they would do against Quinn Matthews. He again, you know, gets the pitch count up 99. The walks obviously don't help, but held his own against one of the best lineups in the league. Like, I mean, how can you not be impressed? How can you not love what you're seeing out of Quinn Matthews so far specifically in the games other than the one against Philly? You know, he has that hiccup in Philly where he gets torched, but then battles through to get through five innings for his squad. But two runs or less in the other four starts. Like, that's good stuff. I'm loving it. Bolpin did their part until the very end. Kate Winquist comes in. Look good, followed by Stannick. Makes the nice little nifty play on the hit back to him.

13:34I still don't know how he got his glove on that, but he did. But you get clean innings from both of those guys. Now, George Soriano. Yeah, he had another rough one. And I don't maybe George is wearing down. It's a possibility. He's young. And I should have looked at his innings before I got going here. But three walks and his one inning of work. He also strikes out a couple guys. Escapes the spaces loaded jam that he created for himself. But most of the pitches on those walks too. It's not like he was nibbling and these guys are laying off incredibly good pitches. They weren't even close most of the time. He was very much like Bryce and Mott's was the other night. He'd all over the place. So his struggles continue. Since the beginning of August, Soriano has made 14 appearances. Three blown saves. He's a lot of 11 runs on 15 hits. He has struck out 15 credit to him there. But he's also hit two guys and he's walked 11 in 13 innings. The ERA is sitting at 7.62 over that time span. And it's the walks that are maddening because nobody can help you with that.

14:37Your defense can't help you if you don't throw strikes. And they became an issue here because even though LA doesn't score against Soriano, the walks allow the top of the dadgers order to get another crack at things in the bottom of the ninth inning. That would prove fatal for the Cardinals in this game. And for Riley O'Brien who comes in in the ninth inning and it's a one run game. This isn't easy. Okay. And we take it for granted that Riley O'Brien should come in and just wipe everybody away and it should be done with. And it's not that easy. And these are the Dodgers. They're pretty good. It's the number nine hitter freelling the line out. But then it's a single by Tommy Freakin' Edmond who finished the night before it. He then walks Mooky Betts on four straight pitches. So that's not good. Those weren't even close. And you can just tell like you're like, crap. Like this is not going to end well. You could feel it. And then they have a yes, it's really good battle with Teasca Hernandez.

15:37Like that was a fun battle. I think it was seven or eight pitches long. Gets to a three to count. Hernandez had to file off a couple of good pitches. But eventually Riley makes the mistake. He leaves the sinker and it's right down Broadway. I mean, just right down the pipe. Hernandez and go miss that. Smokes it in the left center field. Walkoff winner. Mooky scores all the way from first base three to two. Dodgers take this one. Sixth blown save of the season for Riley O'Brien. Back on August 20th. Riley O'Brien's ERA was at 2.94. And I'm gonna opt out take it on the chin for this one. I was singing his praises. I'm like, look how good Riley O'Brien has been. It was like 11 appearances where he looked very, very good. Yeah, there were guys getting on base. But he was getting the saves. Nobody was scoring. Everything looked great. And August 20th, 2.94 ERA. Since that day, Cincinnati, that was the one where the team came back to win the series because of the drop fly ball by Dave Myers.

16:40And then O'Brien and Soriana almost blew that game after the Cardinals scored all those runs. They almost screwed it up. O'Brien has made five appearances since that day and has allowed 10 runs. Nine of them earned on 10 hits in four innings of work. That's an ERA of 20.25. I don't know if you know this. That's not good. That's really, really bad. But the days of getting super angry over this stuff are they're done for me. Like I'm not gonna do it anymore. I'm just, I just, I can't get mad about this stuff anymore. I just can't. Not to that level. Like I blew a gasket after that Philadelphia game. And I refused to let it bother me that much again, but it's something this team needs to address. It really does. This offseason, free agency, trade, whatever they got to do. But this ball pin needs more. And maybe they could find some people.

17:40You found some better and you found Justin Bruehl. You got Ryan Stannick. Maybe there's something they could do. I don't know how much money you wanna pour into your ball pin. But they need more arms that are more trustworthy down there. Sorry, I don't know. Brian have combined for 13 blown saves by themselves. And maybe they're just not the guys you, like they shouldn't be your only options. Let's put it that way at the end of ball games. Like, really Brian still got 35 saves. Like come on. Yeah, he's had a very good season considering what you thought he was going to do for you. But the team's up to 25 blown saves on the year that it's tied for fourth most in the league. Washington's got 35. The wide socks and the Yankees both got 26 and they're playoff team. So it's not impossible to win and be good with those types of results. But we just, you know, for us trading it is to see a whole game just get blown to bits in the last inning. Ball pins are very volatile. We'll say that over and over and over again. They're very volatile, overpaying and not getting the return on what you want happens a lot when you overspend on people in the ball pin.

18:41That's the Dodgers. It's been a lot of money on some dudes back there and they haven't been that great. So we'll see what they decide to do next year. So for now, we just kind of have to live with this stuff unless you're ready for the Metz Fonson era to come back again, which maybe it will. Maybe it will at some point, but there's just, there's not a whole lot else for this year that they can do. There's some guys and some arms down in Springfield and Memphis that eventually will make their way up. But as far as this year goes, this is what it is, man. And we just got to get you, we just got to, I don't want to say get used to it, but it's just something we're gonna have to deal with, you know? All in all though, really fun series in LA. That was cool to watch, sucks they didn't get the sweep, but they win the series, they win the overall series with the Dodgers. I think we saw a lot of positives to build off of. The restars of the game coming up next, plus the bad news for 100 Dobbins and then the good news. On Liam Doyle, this is Lockdown Cardinals.

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20:47Thanks for making a lock down Cardinals first listen of the day. Thank you for making a lock down the number one sports podcast network. Three stars from Thursday's loss. And number three stars going to go to Ivan Harada. Couple of knocks off school ball, hard hit balls, too. Score to run, had some really good swings. Last four games for Ivan, six for 18, batting 333 RBIs. Still hasn't had a home run since August 17. It's been a bit, 15 straight games without one and only one extra base hit over that time too. So I don't know where the slugging is for Ivan Herrera this year, whether it's catching as much as he has his worn him down. I don't know, but he has not supplied the slugging and the power that most of the thought he was going to do. Strong first half, second half, it just has disappeared. Two star goes to Quinn Matthews. The walks, they got to come down. We all know that. This is not news. I am not, you know, don't know if you heard this, but water is wet as well. But yeah, we got to work on the walks. That's really his biggest weakness right now. But he's getting the job done. And I thoroughly enjoy watching Quinn Matthews pitch.

21:49Maybe the wildness is part of it where it's like, they don't know, they're not quite sure where the hell it's going to go from time to time. And that makes it more difficult to hit. But I feel like he's looked pretty good. It's given the team a chance to win in every game, except for the one in Philadelphia, which was a tough one. But I've been impressed. And I look forward to seeing him continue the rest of the season. And obviously, I think he will be a part of the rotation next year from day one. Number one star, we're going with Lay over and all, man. I continue to be really impressed with this guy too. Two for four in this game, playing first base this time around. So we're seeing him all over the place. We've seen him catch D.H. Now he's playing first base. You love the fact that he's a switch hitter. You don't have to worry about matchups. You just go plug him in and play. He's had a hit in all three games that since he'd been brought up, hit 308, four RBIs, a couple of runs scored. It's been a lot of fun to watch. A lot of fun to watch. I love seeing it. Bad news though. We do have to put some bad news out here. Hunter Dobbins. Yeah, this sucks. According to Derek Gold at STLToday.com, 27-year-old had elbow surgery

22:51on Wednesday to repair damage to his ligament and flexor tendon in the same joint where he previously had a reconstructive surgery or Tommy John surgery. Now the recent procedure, mended the ligament, did not replace the earlier reconstruction. But because this is the second procedure on Dobbins elbow, a Cardinals official said the team expects the recovery time to take 12 months. That's a year, buddy. Due to the timing of the surgery, the length of the rehab could push Dobbins readiness for the Big League rotation all the way until the start of 2028. And that sucks, man. So now you got the two pictures that we're supposed to add depth to your rotation that you got from Boston, Dobbins, and Richard Fitz, both of them gone for the season. And Fitz, we never even got to see. We saw him in spring training, hurt his shoulder, gone the whole year. And although he should be back for the start of next year, it's, you know, we never know. So hopefully those two guys don't become injury prone issues

23:54for the Cardinals. Because you've seen them when they're out there, they've been pretty good. I thought Dobbins was steady as a member of this rotation when he finally got to come up and be a full-time member of it. I thought it was good. We'll see you about Fitz. I don't know. There were moments in the spring that I thought he looked good, but that was like 100 years ago now. So we'll see what happens next year. In good news, though, top pitching prospect Liam Doyle had another solid outing for Springfield. He goes five and two thirds, one run, four heads, four Cays, two walks, and the Cardinals 14 to one blasting of the Corpus Christi books. Doyle is now six and seven on the year, but he's one of his last four outings. He's only allowed four earned runs in his last five starts. He's he's locking in, boys. He's locking in. And the next stop would be the Memphis Redburns. Going up the triple A. I don't know if that's going to happen this year. No need to. Like there's no no pressing issue that he's got to be up. So offense goes bonkers one day after getting shut out, which was like when I saw that score from Wednesday,

24:54I was like, what? A zero. But they go off to Siaraxdale, two for three, three runs, two ribbies, two stolen bases. Rayna Rodriguez, one for two, three walks, four RBI's, Haseus Baez, two for five, two RBI's, D'Ale Ortiz, it is nine thinger of the year, Drovein Three, like these kids can swing it at Springfield. It's a lot of fun to watch if you haven't done it yet. I encourage you to check them out. The Bigley Club, St. Louis Cardinals are going to be in Colorado for the weekend, about the Rockies who have the worst record in the National League at 54 and 86, but they have won their last two games. We get to have Andre Palante back on the mound, which is good. He's back from the IEL. We'll get to start tonight, so good to have him back. Right and Feltener, we'll get the ball for the Rockies, five and nine, five point eight for ERA, and his last seven games, he's got an ERA of 6.50, and an opponent's have hit three 12 against him in the month of August. So the offense could go off, could go off this weekend. I hope they do. I want to see some more fun games.

25:55Like I enjoyed what we saw in LA, I enjoyed watching the rookies. I want to see Baez club one like 500 feet. I want to see Brittenhall smash and gaps and doing his thing. I want to see these guys, man. I'm enjoying seeing the young talent that the Cardinals have brought up, and I hope they enjoy their time at Course Field this weekend. Thanks for making a Lack of Time Cardinals first listen every day. If you haven't already, give us a follow on X, at LLW underscore Cardinals TikTok, and Instagram, a Lack of Time Cardinals like subscribe on YouTube, help our channel and love for the Cardinals grow. We're over 15,000 subscribers now, but we can keep growing. Let's do it for every person out there that needs a second listen. MLB Game Night. If you haven't seen this yet, every game every night, till a World Series champion is crowned at the end of the season, local analysis, but it's on a national scale. You can find MLB Game Night on the Lack of Time, MLB YouTube channel, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You guys are the best fans in baseball. We'll see you next time, a Lack of Time Cardinals. Enjoy your Labor Day weekend. Relax a little bit. A big thank you to-

26:56Thank you for making Lack of Time your first listen every day. For your second listen, find the all night Lack of Time MLB Game Night. Every game every night, until a World Series champion is crowned. Get local analysis on a national scale. Find MLB Game Night on Locked-on MLB on YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts.