DENVER -- As a reminder that the Cardinals’ issues extend well beyond Erick Fedde -- who was designated for assignment by the club before Wednesday's game-- struggling right-hander Andre Pallante and the team were undone by two disastrous innings and a fizzling offense.
As a result, the Cardinals fell 6-0 to the Rockies in the rubber game of a three-game series at sun-splashed Coors Field. The 26-win Rockies captured their fourth series victory of the season and their second in a row after they took two of three from the Twins last weekend. And after the Rockies snapped a span of 220 games without a shutout -- dating back to May 15, 2024 -- Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol pulled no punches.
“Worst game we’ve played all year, simply put,” Marmol said after his team mustered just five hits, two of them for extra bases. “Not a whole lot offensively, and the approaches weren’t very good. In my opinion, that’s the worst game that we’ve played.”
A 1-5 road trip to Arizona and Colorado pushed the Cardinals’ skid to 13 losses in the past 18 games. That plummet out of the race for a Wild Card spot seemingly makes it more likely that the Cardinals will be active as sellers before next Thursday’s MLB Trade Deadline -- a notion that is present in the clubhouse, shortstop Masyn Winn admitted postgame.
“We’re in here trying to work every day, but we’re aware that in a week some guys might not be here and we might have new faces,” said Winn, who extended his hit streak to seven games with a second-inning single. “But we’re all going out there and trying to do our jobs. I don’t think that the [Trade Deadline] changes how we play, but it might be in the back of our mind that it sucks that Fedde is gone, but that was already in a couple of people’s minds. We’ve still got to go out there and play ball.”
The culprit once again on Wednesday was the starting pitching, as Pallante allowed a leadoff walk and five straight hits in the second inning to drop the Cards into an early 4-0 deficit. In the six games since the All-Star break, the Cardinals have been outscored 28-1 over the first three innings of games. They trailed 5-0, 6-0 and 5-1 after the first three innings against the D-backs and fell behind 2-0, 6-0 and 4-0 in the three games against the youthful Rockies.
Said Winn: “We go down 4-0 early, but in a park like this we should be able to come back from that. Getting shut out at this field is heartbreaking, for sure. But it is what it is, and it’s baseball. But we’re in a tough stretch right now.”
Fedde, who hadn’t won in 12 starts since a complete-game shutout in Washington on May 9, was DFA’d on Wednesday after allowing seven hits, six earned runs and two long home runs over the first three innings on Tuesday. Pallante, a converted reliever, won’t be subject to the same fate after dropping his last three starts. However, with Pallante at 110 innings pitched -- just 11 1/3 innings shy of his career high set last season, when he made 20 starts -- the Cardinals are looking at ways to rest and preserve the 26-year-old right-hander down the stretch of the season.
“They have talked to me about [curbing my innings], but I feel good, I’m throwing hard and my stuff feels good,” said Pallante, whose ERA jumped to 4.91 after Wednesday’s loss. “You’ve got to include the Minor League innings [from 2024], and I think it was [137 2/3 innings]. So I think I’m ready for a full season.”
The desire to slow down Pallante comes at time when the Cardinals skipped starter-turned-reliever-turned-starter Matthew Liberatore in the rotation, because he is also nearing his MLB high for innings. Liberatore, who threw two simulated innings on Monday, will make his first start of the second half on Saturday against the Padres.
Of the eight hits allowed by Pallante on Wednesday, seven came in the second and fifth innings, when the Rockies scored all five of their runs against him. Those were also the two innings where he allowed leadoff walks -- usually a death knell for pitchers battling the thin-air conditions at Coors Field.
In the second inning, Pallante -- who came into the day first in the National League in ground-ball rate at 61.6 percent -- surrendered singles to the bottom three hitters in the Colorado order (Austin Nola, Kyle Farmer and Adael Amador) to jumpstart a rally.
“I was committed to throwing fastballs inside, and I think I gave up three hits in that [second] inning on fastballs inside,” Pallante said. “Sometimes when things go bad, they go bad.”