Cardinals 1st Half Grades

The Cardinals started off very strong pitching in the early part of the season. The pitching has regressed to the mean for the Cardinals. Shelby Miller is pitching like a rookie, Jake Westbrook is doing alright, Lance Lynn is getting wins, and Adam Wainwright is pitching to win a Cy Young. Going forward, the Cardinals will face some starting pitching issues. Are the Cardinals going to shut down Shelby Miller? Is Jaime Garcia going to get healthy and contribute? Can Joe Kelly be a quality starter? The Cardinals seem to have made the decision that Michael Wacha will stay in Memphis for the rest of the season. If they do shut down Shelby Miller, they have 3 quality starters left in the lineup. No matter what happens, the Cardinals have starters with little experience in the postseason. Adam Wainwright was the closer for the Cardinals in 2006 and didn’t pitch in 2011. Jake Westbrook and Lance Lynn had relief work in 2011 in the World Series. This is a serious issue heading into the second half of the season.

Bullpen has seemed to figure it out but it’s still a lingering issue. A good 1st half but there is still room for improvement.

Grade: B

Overall:

I know that it seems I am being hard on the Cardinals and I am. The Cardinals have a great record but against great teams, they struggle. The Cardinals are 19-18 against teams over .500. That’s not going to get it done in the playoffs. The schedule gets harder in the second half and the Cardinals could be in jeopardy of missing the playoffs. The Cardinals took care of business in the first half, but it’s going to take a better performance in the second half to win the NL Central.

Grade: B+ 

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