Tuesday evening in Atlanta, the Cardinals found what they’ve been searching for: more offense, a road win, strong relief pitching, and an elusive victory to cleave a five-game losing streak. It was all there in an entertaining 10-4 victory over the Braves.
The Cardinals erased Atlanta’s two-run lead by scoring eight times over the final four innings. The Redbirds also cleaved their five-game losing streak and stand 10-14 going into Wednesday’s early game against the Braves.
Miles Mikolas starts for the Cardinals today. He hasn’t been totally awful in his last two starts, limiting the damage to five earned runs in 9 and ⅔ innings. There was so much media praise for his 4.65 ERA in the two starts, I was starting to think the locals would be talking up a dang Cy Young award candidacy for Miles, or something.
We wish Mikolas the best today, because the Cardinals are going for the first road series win of the season after painfully losing road conflicts in Boston, Pittsburgh and New York – and getting outscored by 29 runs in the three series.
VIBE CHECK: Happy to break the streak, and maybe a little hopeful going into today? Dare we say confident? Let’s not get carried away.
I want to write about Kyle Leahy, who gave the Cardinals another clean inning of relief in the rally at the ballfield in Smyrna.
KYLE LEAHY’S PITCHING PROFILE
Entering Wednesday’s slate of games, 109 MLB relievers had pitched 10+ innings this season.
And only one of the 109 relievers had a profile highlighted by this combination of performance traits:
* Strikeout rate of at least 28.8%
* Ground-ball rate of at least 54.5%
* Opponent batting average of .083 or lower.
* A walk rate less than 6 percent.
That one reliever?
Cardinals right-hander Kyle Leahy.
Leahy is having a sensational season so far, with a 1.80 ERA in 10 relief appearances. But do not call him an overnight sensation.
Leahy was a 17th round draft pick by the Cardinals in 2018. He’ll be 28 years old on June 4, and his journey to an important place in the St. Louis bullpen included three seasons of college baseball, and parts of six years in the minor leagues.
Leahy pitched well for the Cardinals last season, stepping in to protect the bullpen by working multiple innings in games.
It wasn’t a center-stage role, and his quietly effective work as a middle-innings reliever was largely overlooked.
Well, Leahy can’t be overlooked anymore – not by smart and attentive people, anyway.
Leahy may be the so-called “breakout” star for the 2025 Cardinals.
Leahy is more of an artist than a thrower. And even though he averages about 94.5 miles per hour on his hard stuff, Leahy uses his clever legerdemain to go at hitters with a dizzying mix of six different pitches.
Need a strikeout? Leahy can do that. Leahy has a higher strikeout rate than Ryan Helsley. He has a higher strikeout rate than Tanner Scott, who signed a four-year, $72 million deal with the Dodgers this past offseason.
What about a ground ball to set up a double play? Leahy can do that. His 54.5 percent ground-ball rate is the seventh highest among MLB relievers that have a minimum 12 innings pitched – and the highest among relievers with 15+ innings.
Will Leahy walk a lot of hitters because of erratic control? Heck, no. This season Leahy has walked an average of 1.8 batters per nine innings – the seventh-lowest rate by a reliever with 12+ innings.
Do you need Leahy to give you more than one inning in a relief appearance? Nothing to worry about. He’ll handle it. He’s done that five times already, and only seven MLB relievers have gone 1+ innings more often than Leahy this season.
Isn’t there a platoon-split disadvantage with him? I understand the question. Because he’s a righty, Leahy probably has some problems when encountering left-handed batters. Correct? No. Wrong!
Through Tuesday, left-handed batters were hitting a faint .063 vs. Leahy. That’s even more impressive than the .094 average chipped against him by right-handed hitters.
Leahy has a lower strikeout rate (16%) against LH batters but induces a lot of soft contact – and a ridiculous 69 percent ground-ball rate.
And when he takes on right-handed hitters, Leahy puts a lot of them away with his 36.4% strikeout rate – or gets them to hit it on the ground 45 percent of the time.
Let’s recap the Kyle Leahy experience: a bushel of ground balls, a pile of strikeouts, very few walks, strong against LH bats as he is RH bats, and a workhorse that can go longer than an inning when he comes in from the bullpen. That’s Leahy.
What about Leahy’s variety-show pitching assortment? It’s a plus, that’s for sure. I don’t know how hitters can figure out what’s coming next. Leahy leaves them guessing and looking and trying to decipher a pattern.
Leahy has thrown the four-seam fastball 35 percent of the time, followed by the slider (21%), sweeper (15%), changeup (12%), curve (9%) and sinker (7%).
Hitters have had some success against Leahy’s four seamer, going 3 for 11 with a double and a home run. But if we combine Leahy’s other five pitches, hitters are 1 for 34 against them with a strikeout rate of 32 percent. I suppose batters can go hunting for the Leahy four-seamer, but he has five other varieties that can make them guess wrong.
It must be difficult for hitters to narrow the possibilities down to a couple of different types of pitches. And if they look for the four-seam fastball and don’t get it – well, that probably explains why the fellas are hitting .029 when they swing at something other than that four-seam. Leahy slips them something they aren’t expecting.
The strange thing is, Leahy was knocked around in the minors for a 5.51 ERA. The word “dazzling” would not be used to describe Leahy’s minor-league resume.
In an interview with Rob Rains, the dean of St. Louis baseball writers, Leahy discussed his frustration while navigating the long, minor-league trail.
“There were definitely some dark times, some sleepless nights, some times when I wondered,” Leahy told Rains. “What was really driving me crazy was knowing that I wasn’t getting everything out of myself and that there was more in the tank. I wasn’t showing my best self to the world, to the game, to my teammates, to my coaches, to everybody.”
As he cultivated and polished his potpourri of pitches, Leahy gradually gained confidence. And these days his confidence is there in abundance. This dude shows no signs of distress. Ever.
“I had to believe in myself,” Leahy told Rains. You have to start there. Nobody else is going to believe in you if you don’t believe in yourself.”
NOTES ON MY SCORECARD
1. Steven Matz: he’s having an impressive season, crafting a 1.86 ERA in 19 and ⅓ innings through Tuesday. Matz allowed one run in five innings in his only start so far. In his six relief appearances, he’s twisted a 1.88 ERA and held hitters to a .229 average and .559 OPS. There hasn’t been much of a strikeout element in his pitching, but Matz gets the job done with a sharp sinker. Batters are 8 for 43 (.186) against Matz’s best pitch this season. How good is Matz? Via Statcast, his Pitching Run Value rates among the top five percent of MLB pitchers to this point.
Matz was huge in Tuesday’s 10-4 victory. Coming in to replace starter Andre Pallante, who had a rough night, Matz gave the Cardinals 2 and ⅔ scoreless innings to keep the game within reach after the Braves opened a 4-2 lead.
2. Heck of a Tuesday night for the STL bullpen. Matz, Leahy and Helsley combined for 4 and ⅔ innings of scoreless, one-hit relief to silence the Braves. The three relievers faced 18 Atlanta hitters and only four reached base.
3. Victor Scott II was huge in Tuesday’s win, going 3 for 4 with two doubles, an RBI, three with a pair of doubles, driving in a run and scoring three times. In the first two games of the series in Atlanta – his hometown – Scott had 6 hits in 8 at-bats with two doubles, a walk, three RBIs, four runs scored, and a stolen base. He’s 8 for 8 in steal attempts this season.
4. Nolan Gorman: He’s enjoyed the visit to Atlanta, going 3 for 9 with two doubles and four RBIs. Gorman’s two-out, bases-loaded double in the eighth inning Tuesday cleared the bases in a 4-4 game to put the Cards up by three runs.
5. Willson Contreras: The big man is reawakening after a dull start to the season. In his first eight games of the campaign, Contreras had two hits in 32 at-bats (.063) and struck out in 46 percent of his plate appearances. But since then, in his last 15 games before Wednesday, Contreras is batted .267 with a .750 OPS, and five of his 16 hits have gone for extra bases. He also drew five walks to shape a .333 onbase percentage, and his strikeout rate during the 15-game bounceback was a reasonable 21 percent.
6. Alec Burleson: He had two hits as the DH in Tuesday’s game but still is struggling to generate power. Burly is slugging only .292 this season. And to be blunt (and truthful), he’s been terrible offensively since the 2024 All-Star break.
In 333 plate appearances since last July 20, Burleson has a .244 average, .314 slugging percentage and a weak .620 OPS. Per the wRC+ metric, Burleson is 23 percent below league average offensively since the ‘24 All-Star break Among MLB hitters with at least 300 plate appearances since then, Burleson ranks No. 104 among the 106 hitters in slugging, in slugging and is 99th among 106 in OPS.
Going back to last season, Burleson has only three home runs in his last .289 at-bats. This is surprising. Burleson led the 2024 Cardinals with 78 runs batted in and his 21 homers were second behind Paul Goldschmidt (22.) Burleson hasn’t homered in his 78 plate appearances this season, 82.5 percent of his hits have been singles. Hey, but he has almost as many stolen bases (2) than doubles (3) through the team’s first 24 games.
7. Welcome back: In his first game back from the IL, Cards shortstop Masyn Winn went 1 for 3 Tuesday with two RBIs. He’s good to go.
8. Lars Nootbaar: he went 2 for 5 with three runs batted in during Tuesday’s win, highlighted by a two-run homer. After hitting two homers in the first four games of the season, Nootbaar has two homers in his last 19 games. And in the 19 games Noot batted .211 with a .326 OBP and .329 slug.
9. Thomas Saggese: I’m glad the Cardinals kept him up here. But for how long, who knows? But I don’t see why Saggese should automatically be sent down because he’s a 23-year-old rookie. Going into Wednesday he was batting .400 and had displayed the ability to play multiple infield positions. I don’t see why manager Marmol couldn’t work Saggese into the lineup three times a week, and that would be enough to justify keeping him here. Do you realize the great coaching Saggese is receiving from a big-league staff that includes Daniel Descalso, John Jay, Stubby Clapp and Brant Brown? Isn’t that valuable to his development? A rookie doesn’t have to start five games a week. A rookie can help your team while he’s helping himself by receiving proactive instruction from his coaches.
Thanks for reading …
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting. You can access all of his columns and videos here on SportsHubSTL, catch him weekdays on the “Gashouse Gang” or “Redbird Rush Hour” on KMOX (1120-AM, 104.1-FM), and he is a regular guest of “Cardinal Territory” video show hosted by Katie Woo of The Athletic.