Derek Shore: New year, same frustrating Cardinals so far

Apr. 15—The St. Louis Cardinals have had games this season where it looks like it could be on top of the baseball world.

Take Tuesday night's 14-3 romping of Washington, for example.

It was the kind of night where every offensive regular contributed, including the starting pitcher Jack Flaherty. It was the night when the big boys, Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt, had humongous nights. Heck, even Matt Carpenter broke out of his prolonged slump and shot his first home run of the season off the right-field foul pole.

In a season that has tested the Cardinals starting pitching depth with the early injuries to Kwang-hyun Kim and Miles Mikolas, St. Louis' offense also reverted back to a familiar place.

From scoring a season-high in runs one night, the Cardinals offense was shut out for the first time this season the next against the Nationals on Wednesday afternoon.

"The way I view it today is (Joe) Ross was pinpoint," St. Louis manager Mike Shildt said in his postgame press conference. "He was spotting up pretty much every pitch he threw. It was either a strike or a close ball. The guy made a lot of quality pitches. You tip your hat. That was the story of today. That was the reason why the offense wasn't as strong. We hit some balls hard, just not enough."

The problem is this isn't just a one-time occurrence.

For the last six to seven years, St. Louis' offense has been either feast or famine, and very, very early signs indicate that could be the case again this season — even with the addition of Arenado in the middle of the lineup.

The Cardinals came out clobbering to open this season, scoring 11 runs to top Cincinnati 11-6 on Opening Day. But the offense sputtered again as the Reds claimed the season-opening series, outscoring St. Louis 21-7 in the next two games.

The Cardinals answered with a sweep of Miami on the road, but suffered a 2-4 record during the first homestand of the season against Milwaukee and Washington.

While the offense has been exciting at times and the bullpen looks to be the strongest part of the club, the lack of length St. Louis is getting from its starting rotation and inconsistency with the offense outweighs those positives.

And it's worth noting the Cardinals' run of starts of five innings or fewer reached 11 games out of 12 when Adam Wainwright was pinch-hit for in the fifth inning on Wednesday. The bullpen covered four more innings, and has already thrown almost as many innings (52 1/3) as the starters (53 2/3).

"We, as a collective staff, have to put hitters on the defensive more often," Wainwright said in his postgame interview. "We have to work ahead in the count more often. We have to avoid deep counts more often. We just have to be a lot more efficient. It's so hard to hit a baseball. We've got a great defense, so we need to use it."

Again, it's very, very early. Every team has flaws, and St. Louis has still managed a 6-6 start without two of its middle of the rotation arms and elite defensive center fielder Harrison Bader out due to injury.

On a positive note, the Cardinals were 5-7 to start the 2011 campaign. I think that year turned out quite nicely.