AND the answer (as we gave away in the subject line...) is "hell yes," as the table at right demonstrates. What you have here are the weekly results for the Cards this year, showing wins/losses overall and in one-run games (St. Louie is going kerblooie in such games this year...) and color-coded into three-week segments (aw, hell, call 'em "chunks" if you prefer...as Kate sez to Spencer in Adam's Rib: "let's all be manly!") so that we can sum things up tidily in the lower portions (aka "nether regions") of the display...
When we sum things up and re-arrange to see the two 3-week stretches that send the Cards into "crash and burn" mode, that "Bad 6" summary tells a sad (and loud) tale of woe. That 9-27 record compiled in weeks 4-6 and 10-12 is down in A's and Royals territory (.250 WPCT) and is pretty much the death knell of a season. Within that time frame the team also managed to lose 11 of 14 one-run games.
In the other nine weeks of the season, St. Louis is an OK team, looking a lot like other Cards squads that have had sluggish starts in the first half of the year but have roared back into the thick of things after the ASB. But of course the problem is that the six-week drowning act has put them on the thin edge of little or nothing (which is a very thin edge, indeed).
We've been suggesting to several of our cronies that the Cards should have engineered a deal for more bullpen help, and should have done so aggressively much earlier in the year. The didn't do that, and they had only one stretch where the pen wasn't an outright liability. It's still a liability, but the ship sailed a long time ago. Odd to see how the Cards' front office was so decisive last July in adding needed pitching, while this year they've been basically asleep at the switch. Stay tuned...
