Cardinals implode in eighth inning for fifth-straight loss, fall to 1-10 in road games

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ATLANTA — For seven and a half innings Monday night, the St. Louis Cardinals played gritty and good baseball.

They received another quality start from Erick Fedde (his fourth in five opportunities) and timely hitting from the bottom of the lineup, with Victor Scott II paving the way with a three-hit day and two RBI and Nolan Gorman adding two hits while driving in a run. Kyle Leahy stepped up in a high-leverage situation and posted a shutdown seventh inning, which set the table for the Cardinals to use set-up man Phil Maton in the eighth and closer Ryan Helsley (who has not pitched since Wednesday) for the ninth.

Maton did indeed emerge for the bottom of the eighth inning, slated to face the top of the order with the Cardinals leading the Braves 3-2. In 12 appearances for the Cardinals, he had struck out 14 and had not walked a batter nor allowed an earned run. It seemed the Cardinals were closing in on snapping their four-game losing streak.

And then things went off the rails.

Atlanta scored five times in the eighth and withstood a three-run rally in the top of the ninth to stun the Cardinals 7-6 at Truist Park, marking a fifth-straight loss for St. Louis and dropping its road record to 1-10. After a brutal series against the New York Mets in which they were swept in four games, the Cardinals (9-14) have now officially reached their most frustrating point of the early season.

“If you remove yourself from the result, which is what I’m trying to do at the moment, the guys are building towards something that’s good,” manager Oli Marmol said after the game. “But to be on the losing side of it again, it’s just frustrating.”

Key word: trying. The Cardinals’ loss on Monday was arguably their most maddening yet.

Maton began the inning by punching out Braves leadoff hitter Alex Verdugo. But Brendan Donovan, who was manning shortstop on the final day before starter Masyn Winn is eligible to return from the injured list, couldn’t make the play on a slow roller from Austin Riley. First-base umpire Jordan Baker originally ruled Riley out on the bang-bang play, but the Braves challenged and the call was overturned.

Maton followed that by walking Marcell Ozuna, putting two on with one out for cleanup hitter Matt Olson. Olson connected on a first-pitch cutter to tie the score. Action quickly began in the Cardinals’ bullpen. JoJo Romero, who has been inconsistent in his early usage so far this season, began to warm up. Maton walked Ozzie Albies on four straight balls to load the bases, though both he and Marmol took exception to ball four. While making his way to the mound to swap Maton out for Romero, Marmol had some choice words for home-plate umpire Mark Carlson, who promptly ejected Marmol from the game.

Michaal Harris II wasn’t fooled by Romero’s first pitch — a slider low across the plate that he sent to right field for a sacrifice fly. The next hitter, Sean Murphy, did one better. He smashed a first-pitch changeup for a three-run homer to break the game open.

MURPH FOR THREE!#BravesCountry pic.twitter.com/JxPcXJdXFY

— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) April 22, 2025

The Cardinals, to their credit, did not go down without a fight. They scored three times off Atlanta’s closer, Raisel Iglesias, including a two-run homer from Willson Contreras, and had the tying run at first base. But Nolan Arenado made inadvertent contact on a checked swing on the first pitch he saw. The ball bounced softly in front of home plate, and Murphy scooped it up and tagged Arenado out before he could even realize the ball was in fair territory.

It made for a fittingly dissatisfying end to another disappointing ball game.

“I think I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t frustrating,” Maton said. “I think we’re playing good baseball. We’re maybe a hit away here, a guy putting up a zero there, we win those games. But it’s April 21. I don’t think we’re going to put our whole season on what happens in the first two road trips. But we need to turn it around.”

Rarely will a team smash the panic button in mid-April, but the Cardinals are in a much different spot than many teams. As the team navigates through a transition year, the focus will continue to be on player development. But as Marmol pointed out after Monday’s loss, developing wins is critical too.

“When you’re developing, you want to develop a winning mentality,” he said. “You want to be rewarded when you play the game well, do certain little things well. And when you’re on the wrong side of that, it’s difficult (as a player) to sometimes see the fact that you’re making progress in certain areas. It’s always good to get rewarded with shaking hands and feeling good about coming to the clubhouse and building off that. That’s the frustrating thing.

“We have to be mentally strong enough to go through these kinds of down periods, because what I’m extremely confident of is that we’re building towards something that could be a lot of fun. I’m going to continue to … do exactly that.”

Willson Contreras celebrates after hitting a two-run homer in the ninth inning. (Brett Davis / Imagn Images)

For that reason, the pressure on St. Louis to turn things around grows. Roster moves are in the works. Winn is all but set to be activated off the injured list ahead of Tuesday’s game, and the Cardinals have a difficult decision to make on the corresponding move. The organization is weighing whether Thomas Saggese, who has swung the bat well since being recalled in early April, is better suited with the big league club or playing every day in Triple A. If they elect the first option, would they be comfortable sending down a left-handed bat (Nolan Gorman, Alec Burleson or Michael Siani) instead? There could be some bullpen shuffling as well as the club looks to replenish its right-hand side of their bullpen.

But what remains the top priority is finding a way to stop the skid, and urgently at that.

“I think it’s easy to get pissed off after games like this and it turns into this big stretch where everything’s awful,” Maton said. “We’ve lost these last five, but I think overall we’ve played pretty good baseball. … I don’t think this is falling apart because we lost a few games.”

(Top photo of Nolan Arenado grounding out softly to Sean Murphy: Brett Davis / Imagn Images)

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