4. St. Louis Cardinals
In complete contradiction to the NL East, the NL Central may be the worst division in MLB. The Cardinals’ offense struggled greatly last year en route to a second place division finish. After landing Nolan Arenado to assist in fixing that, the Cardinals are looked at as the favorite in the Central.
Unfortunately, the Cardinals’ pitching killed them this weekend. They lost two of three to the Cincinnati Reds, who are one of the most underrated teams in the league but aren’t world beaters by any stretch.
After winning the season opener 11-6, the Cards dropped the next two 9-6 and 12-1. The weekend will be most remembered for Nick Castellanos’ altercation with Yadier Molina that resulted in benches emptying.
What makes that Saturday incident worse for St. Louis is what happened on Sunday: a 12-1 rout by the Reds that included a 2-4, 3 RBI performance from the new top villain of the Cardinals.
The pitching is very worrisome going forward. St. Louis didn’t have the best rotation going into the season, and giving up 27 runs over three games will only magnify those questions. The starting pitching was responsible for 16 of those runs, with ace Jack Flaherty and Adam Wainwright bot giving up six earned runs over 4.1 and 2.2 innings respectively and Carlos Martinez giving up four runs over five innings.
Up next for the Cardinals is a Marlins team that exploded for 12 runs in their last game on Saturday. The streak of six runs given up might continue heading into the second week of the season.