Cardinals can not take advantage of Nationals comedy of errors

Anyone watching Fox Sports Midwest on Monday night had to wonder if they were watching a Junior Varsity contest between Chaminade Prep and DeSmet Jesuit.

No, that certainly was a Major League game on Monday. A Major League game that the Cardinals managed (that is not a pun because this one has nothing to do with the manager) to lose despite the Washington Nationals committing four "official" errors.

Despite the comedy of errors, the Cardinals fell to 2-5 on the young season, and I am sure that Twitter is on fire as I type this at 1045 pm CT. I would not know, since I have unofficially quit the social media network. I simply felt most of the mucous spewed on their by "the faithful" simply had clouded my judgement and tempted even my own fairly objective bias.

So the below thoughts on Monday night's loss are below. And I am sure the seven of you that will read this article will talk bad about me on Twitter behind my back. I will check my DM's, but not my timeline and the app has been erased from my phone.

Moving on...

~ Adam Wainwright was God awful on Monday night. Most of you will put the blame on Kolten Wong's shoulders (because he has made himself an easy target), but this start by Wainwright should set off alarms louder than the one at Bogey Hills Country Club a few months ago.

Wainwright told reporters during the Fox Sports Midwest post-game show that he had "good-stuff" and tipped his cap to the Nationals. He should tip his cap, because the Nationals ripped him to shreds. But if that is "good-stuff" then we may be closer to the end then even I thought we were when it came to Wainwright.

I am on record that this feels like a Roy Halladay end of career collapse for Wainwright.

Wainwright's "good-stuff" allowed 13 base-runners on Monday night, on top of the one allowed by Wong's poorly timed error.

That is now two starts for Wainwright and zero quality starts thus far on the season.

Going back to his shutout victory over the Miami Marlins on July 16, 2016, Wainwright has made 16 starts, and only FIVE of those have been of the "quality start" nature.

Of those five, one was against the Pirates, who had a minor league lineup out there on the last day of the year. The other four came against the Brewers (twice), Phillies and Padres, all of which were desperately trying to lose as many games as they could during the second half of 2016.

I love Wainwright. He battled like only Wainwright can battle on Monday night. But my case for the end being close simply is not just about two starts. This sample size is much larger.

~ I'm assuming daggers are being dug in to Mike Matheny for allowing Wainwright to trot out there for the fifth inning. On this occasion, I was hurling daggers too.

But, if your starter can not get you at least five innings, your chances of winning simply are not good.

Al Hrabosky said something about "getting Wainwright through the fifth so he can get the victory."

That is horse shit. The only reason to get him through the fifth is so that the crappy bullpen only has to go four innings (or in this case, only three innings since mercifully, the Nationals did not hit in the ninth).

~ Speaking of fire at Bogey Hills, I think the St. Charles Fire Department should investigate Trevor Rosenthal. Holy mother of rubbing two sticks together for an extended period of time the former closer looked good. Rosenthal looks slimmer than year's past. Maybe that was a result of his training to be a starter. But he was dominant in his one inning of work, which is a very positive sign.

~ While Rosenthal was en fuego, Kevin Siegrist looked like a guy who will find himself on the disabled list before the calendar turns to May. His fastball looked lifeless. He looked like he had zero confidence. I'm no doctor, but those are a pair of symptoms you would expect in August, not April.

~ Matt Carpenter got a pair of hits in the loss and pushed his average up to .208 on the season. He is also slugging .208 on the season. Do you need to know anything else about why the club is 2-5?

Okay, that is all for now.

P.S. The club now has three quality starts in seven games. Their record in quality start games is 2-1. They are 0-4 in non-quality start games. You will be sick of this in a few weeks.