ӣ����Ƶ

Longtime and loyal Cardinals fans certainly understand the concept of a team at-bat. Some at-bats belong to the individual player, but others are dictated by the situation and what potentially puts the team in the best position for success — moving the runner, getting the run in, etc.

If there’s a managerial equivalent to a team at-bat, it’s what Cardinals skipper Oliver Marmol did Thursday afternoon when he announced that badly struggling will take his turn in the rotation against the Atlanta Braves on Saturday afternoon at Busch Stadium despite dreadful recent results and the club’s quest to continue surpassing expectations and continue chasing a playoff spot.

“We’re going to give him another shot at it,” Marmol said with only slightly more enthusiasm than you’d expect from a hostage video.

Clearly, Marmol’s reticence was not an indictment of Fedde, the person. It reflected the predicament created by Fedde’s lackluster recent performance.

Marmol fought off follow-up questions from behind his desk in the manager’s office at Busch Stadium like a batter fouling off pitches. Instead of a bat, he was armed with a can of sparkling coconut water energy drink.

“Fedde’s going to start on Saturday,” Marmol said. “And my hope is that we can get on the other side of what his last couple outings have looked like.”

In case you forgot how things went in Fedde’s recent outings — and lucky you, if you did — he’d allowed twice as many home runs (four) as he had strikeouts (two) in his previous three starts. He also walked nine batters and posted an ERA of 15.30.

During that span, opposing batters scored 17 earned runs, logged a hard-hit percentage of 58.7% and posted a batting average against Fedde (.417) that would make Ted Williams and Tony Gwynn blush.

To be fair, it hadn’t been that way all season. Fedde has had moments, such as a shutout on the road against his former team the Washington Nationals in May, but even prior to that outing he’d already been battling inconsistency with his pitch shapes and movement that left him extremely vulnerable.

Fedde hits free agency after this season. If he’s able to piece together some representative outings, perhaps he’ll have some appeal as a rental option to teams in need of starting pitching help to get through the summer.

Of course, Fedde must pitch in order to have any chance to establish trade value. That means he gets the ball again, even if that lessens the likelihood of a win and increases the likelihood of putting the bullpen at risk of having to cover six of the nine innings Saturday.

So instead of coming up with a phantom injury for Fedde or pulling whatever shenanigans necessary to skip his turn in the rotation and give it to somebody like , who Marmol has previously admitted belongs in the big leagues, Marmol will send Fedde back out to the mound.

Presumably, this is all about the club giving itself the possibility of recouping any player with a fraction of a chance of contributing to the club in the future in exchange for Fedde.

In recent days as the questions persisted about Fedde, Marmol said there were ongoing discussions to be had before he would announce the plans for Saturday.

The clear implication being that the decision was going to be made by a group of people that included the front office, not just the manager and his coaching staff.

There’s a bigger picture at play, and more than just Marmol’s input has been taken into consideration.

“No doubt about it,” Marmol said to an assembled group of writers Thursday. “That’s why I said there’s more conversation to be had when you guys asked me a couple days ago and then yesterday, because there are other variables that play into this other than just performance.”

That’s where this scenario becomes treacherous for Marmol.

Marmol is the face of this organizational decision, the one answering questions. Common sense and competitive nature tells us he’s hard-wired to give his team the best chance to win every game.

However, Marmol also knows it’s his job to protect his player — not throw him under the bus — and also serve as a shield for the front office from time to time. It’s part of the gig that comes with the office he occupies.

But it does harken back to comments president of baseball operations John Mozeliak made during spring training while seated at a metal table on the patio outside the major league clubhouse at the club’s training complex in Jupiter, Florida.

At that time, Mozeliak described the careful balancing act Marmol would have to perform this season. The manager has been charged with making sure the club provided runway and allowed guys to play through their ups and downs while also being responsible for wins and losses.

The most immediately relevant part of Mozeliak’s March comments are when he said, “The resources that are provided to (Marmol) — the depth that’s provided to him — is not something that he can go out and provide on his own. So he has to play the hand he’s dealt.

“But having the mindset that, yes, he’s going to try to make sure that all these young guys get at-bats. Even if some guys are struggling, they’re still going to get playing time. But he can’t lose his clubhouse either by not trying to win.”

Let that last part sink in, “He can’t lose the clubhouse by not trying to win.”

The front office can let Marmol wear this Fedde decision publicly, but there’s got to be some awareness that they can’t cast Marmol, within the clubhouse, as the sole culprit behind an edict that compromises the team’s ability to win.

Lynn Worthy

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Before Ivan Herrera left for his rehab assignment this weekend at Class AAA Memphis, the Cardinals had the former catching prospect briefly explore the position farthest from home plate.

An outfield glove could be a fit to keep his bat in the lineup.

Herrera continued his rehab assignment Friday night with the Triple-A Redbirds, and he’ll appear at designated hitter all weekend in the minors and most often when he returns to the major leagues after the All-Star break. But to keep from limiting him to DH for the remainder of the season and landlocking the lineup so others do not get DH starts, the Cardinals gave Herrera some introductory workouts in the outfield. They sought to gauge his comfort and assure he would not risk another injury to his leg.

“We’re going to see what that looks like,” manager Oliver Marmol said. “We know catching is a stressor. We want to do whatever allows him to stay healthy all the way through, and if we feel at any point that it’s strictly DH, then it’s well worth it to keep his bat in the lineup and give him days off when we need the flexibility of moving someone into that spot than stressing (the leg) and him missing more time. That’s the way we’re looking at it.”

One of the most potent bats the Cardinals have had this season when he’s in the lineup, Herrera will resume the season with a .320 average, a .533 slugging percentage, and a .925 OPS. He’s gone on the injured list twice with a leg injury, and most recently had a slight tear in his hamstring on June 20. The Cardinals do not expect him to catch much — if at all — in the second half of the season because of the concern for his leg.

That has a ripple effect for who plays elsewhere in the lineup.

With Herrera at DH that limits starts for Nolan Gorman or Alec Burleson, and that puts Burleson in the outfield, which likely shifts Gorman and Jordan Walker, when he returns from the IL, the bench. If Herrera plays outfield some, that gives the Cardinals the DH to buy a break for Nolan Arenado and Willson Contreras or fit one of the other young hitters into the DH spot. Walker (appendicitis) remains on his rehab assignment with Class AA Springfield with no specific timetable for his return — and no guarantee what role he’ll have when he does.

“It will complicate things, but it’s no different than when we had everybody healthy,” Marmol said. “We had to have some kind of rotation to keep guys fresh, but also locked in. It’s part of it. And we’ll navigate it. It won’t be the first time we’ve had to navigate that. We’ll get back to it.”

Current back-benchers Jose Fermin and Thomas Saggese are also going to get more time in the outfield during workouts and possibly games. Fermin has played in the outfield for Class AAA Memphis, and at some point the expectation is Saggese will as well. Saggese has been taking fly balls in the outfield during drills and batting practice. Marmol suggested Friday that Saggese, a right-handed bat and usual middle infielder, could get innings in center field to see how comfortable he is there to further increase his versatility.

“Exploring that with him should be a real option,” Marmol said.

The Cardinals lean left when it comes to their current and usual options in the outfield with four left-handed batters usually getting the starts: Lars Nootbaar, Burleson, Victor Scott II, and their All-Star Game representative, Brendan Donovan. Walker began the season as the right-handed bat that would get priority playing time in right field. Burleson’s production has shifted that plan to fit his bat in the lineup, and Walker has missed more than a month due to a wrist injury earlier and his recovery from appendicitis.

The appeal for an additional right-handed bat in the lineup is obvious as the Cardinals have lost six of the past seven games started by a lefty (not including an opener). Since Herrera went on the IL, the Cardinals have the lowest batting average (.178) and the lowest slugging percentage (.260) against lefties. Those lefty starters have a 1.08 ERA against the Cardinals in 41 2/3 innings. Three of the five runs they’ve allowed came on one swing — a homer by Gorman.

The Cardinals do not expect Herrera to spend any time, even BP, in the outfield while with the Redbirds this weekend, and it’s possible he only works in the outfield with coach Jon Jay in the coming months and does not see any innings there in a game. They just want to be open to trying him out.

“That’s something we can target once he’s here,” Marmol said. “See if it’s an actual option.”

Nootbaar returns, managing injury

Removed from Thursday’s game in the late innings as a precautionary move as he plays through soreness in his ribcage, Lars Nootbaar returned as advertised to the lineup Friday. The outfielder received treatment for a strained intercostal, and he has been managing the injury for several weeks to avoid aggravating or intensifying it. Nootbaar hit .169 in June with a .299 slugging percentage, and since returning from treatment he’s had an uptick to slugging .444 with a .259 average in his previous eight games.

La Russa promotes ‘champions’ event

Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa is in town this weekend ahead of his fundraising event Wednesday to promote a night of stories from Cardinals champions. In Stifel Theater at 6:45 p.m. ӣ����Ƶ time, Joe Buck will moderate interviews with a collection of former Cardinals that is expected to include World Series MVPs David Eckstein and David Freese along with Rick Ankiel, Will Clark, Matt Morris, Jason Isringhausen, Mike Matheny, Matt Morris, Reggie Sanders, Mike Matheny and Jim Edmonds among others.

The evening will also include a tribute to Walt Jocketty, the architect of the Cardinals’ World Series winner in 2006 and pennant-winner in 2004.

La Russa will be in Ballpark Village before each game this weekend as part of the pregame events, and he’ll attend games at Cunningham Corner in Busch Stadium — on the second level, down the third-base line — to sell tickets without the service charge and be available for autographs. The program supports his new charity that supports animal rescues, La Russa Rescue Champions, and the PenFed Foundation.

Lynn Worthy

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The ӣ����Ƶ Cardinals lose 6-5 to the Atlanta Braves to begin final home stand before All-Star break

As he makes his last appearance before the All-Star break, Cardinals starter Matthew Liberatore hopes to continue his resurgence after a rocky spell.

Liberatore and the Cardinals open a three-game series vs. the Braves, their last before the break, with Friday's 7:15 p.m. start at Busch Stadium.

The left-hander Liberatore (6-6, 3.70 ERA) has a 2.25 ERA in his last four starts and hasn't allowed more than two runs in any of them. Last time out, the Cubs were able to run up his pitch count, limiting him to five innings, but Chicago could only put two runs on the board against Liberatore.

That followed a five-game stretch in which Liberatore recorded a 5.57 ERA with opposing batters hitting .309.

Against the Cubs last Saturday, Liberatore led with his breaking pitches for just the second time this season, throwing them nearly 44% of the time. Those pitches have been dominant for the most part in 2025 to the tune of a .215 batting average against.

That's second only to his changeup, against which foes are hitting just .100.

Remastering the breaking pitches has been a big part of his resurgence. Batters hit .375 against them in a three-game span last month vs. .115 in his last three starts.

In his last four games, Liberatore has not allowed a hit on a pulled fly ball and has greatly limited the number of barrelled balls allowed.

The Braves have been worse vs. left-handers (.657 on-base plus slugging percentage, 22nd-best in MLB) than vs. righties (.714, 19th). Only Matt Olson and former Cardinal Marcell Ozuna have hit lefties well among qualified Braves batters.

The Braves will start right-hander Grant Holmes (4-8, 3.44 ERA), a former first-round pick by the Dodgers who is in his second big-league season. Holmes leads with his slider, one of the top breaking pitches in the game.

Atlanta has been perhaps the biggest disappointment in baseball. The Braves were expected to be one of elite teams but have seen their offense crater from elite two seasons ago to a below-average bunch in 2025.

The declining offensive productivity of both Ozzie Albies and Michael Harris II has mirrored the team's fall.

Since June 1, only three big league teams rank below Atlanta offensively in Fangraphs' weighted runs created plus metric.

The Cardinals are 50-44, third in the National League Central and 5 1/2 games behind the Cubs.

The Braves, losers of 8 of 10, are 40-52, fourth in the National League East.

Game also airs on KMOV (Channel 4) and Matrix (Channel 32)

Friday's game, in addition to the usual airing on FanDuel Sports Midwest, also is simulcast on local broadcast television on KMOV (Channel 4) and Matrix Midwest (Channel 32). throughout the Cardinals footprint in six nearby states will also carry the game.

It's one of numerous games this season that are set for local broadcast TV on KMOV and/or Matrix.

How to watch Cardinals vs. Braves

When: 7:15 p.m. Friday

Where: Busch Stadium in ӣ����Ƶ

TV/radio: FanDuel Sports Network Midwest (), Matrix Midwest (Channel 32) as well as ; KMOX (1120 AM and 104.1 FM), other stations in the as well as .

Your options to watch: Input your ZIP code and see your choices for watching Cardinals games.

Lineups

CARDINALS

1. Brendan Donovan, 2B

2. Masyn Winn, SS

3. Alec Burleson, RF

4. Willson Contreras, 1B

5. Lars Nootbaar, LF

6. Nolan Arenado, 3B

7. Nolan Gorman, DH

8. Pedro Pagés, C

9. Victor Scott II, CF

P: Matthew Liberatore, LHP

BRAVES

1. Ronald Acuña Jr., RF

2. Matt Olson, 1B

3. Austin Riley, 3B

4. Sean Murphy, DH

5. Jurickson Profar, LF

6. Drake Baldwin, C

7. Ozzie Albies, 2B

8. Nick Allen, SS

9. Michael Harris II, CF

P: Grant Holmes, RHP

Injury report

Jordan Walker, OF (appendicitis): A wrist injury that also limited his playing time in June is part of the reason the Cardinals expect Walker to remain on his rehab assignment for a longer stretch than just proving his health. When Walker could be activated and rejoin the Cardinals is unclear as he continues to work on his timing at the plate and adjustments to his stance. Through July 10, he is hitting .172 (11 for 64) in nine rehab games with Triple-A Memphis and Double-A Springfield since he was placed on the injured list in late June. Updated July 11

Ivan Herrera, C/DH (left hamstring strain): Herrera began a rehab assignment at Triple-A Memphis on Thursday. He was the team's designated hitter and went 1 for 3 with a single. He is not expected to catch during the rehab assignment. If he catches at all in the second half of the season, it will be limited after two leg injuries this season, manager Oliver Marmol said. Updated July 11

Zack Thompson, LHP (shoulder, lat strain): Lefty starter has begun a throwing program designed to strengthen his arm after a long stretch without much activity. The shoulder has responded well and Thompson has felt progress with this program, which had to be restarted because his recovery stalled in May. There is no timetable for his return to the mound. Updated June 19

Lynn Worthy

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Now that we’ve gotten 11 days into July, we can credibly say we’re approaching the July 31 Major League Baseball trading deadline. That makes this a perfect time to put on the metaphorical bow tie and assume the responsibilities of Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak as he prepares to steer the franchise through the trade deadline for the final time.

The big chair remains his for a few more months. This season is still a Mozeliak production. The results will go on his career dossier.

That said, don’t turn this into a “legacy” conversation. That’s more fallacy than legacy. Mozeliak’s total tenure with the organization spans 30 years — one trade deadline isn’t forever altering anyone’s perception.

So there’s only one question that any baseball fan has for a front office at this time of year: buy or sell?

This will be thoroughly unsatisfactory to most Cardinals fans, but the Cardinals can’t fully be buyers or sellers.

Their players best suited for the trade market will also be the ones most likely to tank the club’s season if they depart for greener pastures.

At this point, with the playoffs still within reach, it’s too late for the Cardinals to change directions and make the rest of this season about 2026 and beyond.

Two caveats.

One: If you’re able to line up a trade that allows you to deal from an area of organizational strength (perhaps one of the catching prospects) and get major league-caliber starting pitching with years of control left remaining, do the deal.

Two: If you find someone willing to take Erick Fedde off your hands, agree and hang up the phone before they change their mind.

Realistically, any club scouring the Cardinals roster for pitchers capable of helping in a regular-season playoff push likely lands on two-time All-Star closer Ryan Helsley, veteran reliever Phil Maton and veteran left-handed starter-turned-reliever Steven Matz (all come with the added bonus of not carrying any long-term contractual commitment).

Theoretically, you could throw veteran starter Sonny Gray into that mix. He’d provide a shot in the arm to a rotation in need, but he’s also got another year remaining on his deal before the club option year in 2027. Oh yeah, and Gray doesn’t have to go anywhere because he’s got the right to veto any trade.

So why not pull the trigger and get the most you can for Helsley, Maton and Matz?

If you take Helsley, Maton and Matz out of the current bullpen, you might bolster the farm system, but this season effectively ends right then.

Entering Thursday, the Cardinals had gone 24-17 in games decided by two runs or fewer. They’d gone 40-1 in games when they’ve lead through seven innings.

And who have the Cardinals repeatedly leaned on to get them through tight games? You guessed it.

In late and close situations Helsley (17 appearances), Maton (14 appearances) and Matz (10 appearances) are three of the club’s five most-used pitchers along with left-hander JoJo Romero (17 appearances) and Kyle Leahy (16 appearances).

Maton, who boasts a strikeout rate of 11.65 per nine innings, entered the day tied for the sixth-most holds in the majors (18).

Of Matz’s 24 relief appearances, he pitched more than one inning in 17 of those outings. Matz has provided flexibility — pitching in high leverage and/or providing length — and often saved the Cardinals from having to use multiple relievers and hamstringing the bullpen for subsequent games.

Not only have Helsley, Maton and Matz been three of the most effective and valuable relievers, but their presence — along with Romero — has allowed the Cardinals to cycle through inexperienced and unproven relievers such as Riley O’Brien, Gordon Graceffo, Matt Svanson, Chris Roycroft, Roddery Munoz, Andre Granillo and Leahy in lower-leverage situations.

That’s setting aside any role a veteran like Maton might have as far as showing the newcomers the way.

“I knew we were getting a guy that knew how to get outs,” Marmol said. “I knew we were getting a guy that can lead well. He has done 10 times more than I expected when it comes to that clubhouse and the way he can talk to other pitchers and give them, in very simple ways, his thoughts on usage or how he prepares for opposition or how he looks at a lineup, how he looks at navigating tough at-bats, opposite handedness.

“He’s really good, and it’s awesome to have a player that’s calm enough and secure in who he is enough to see the rest of the game and not just worry about himself.”

Asking Romero, Leahy and the rest of the group to carry the burden without the safety net of Helsley, Maton and Matz means you’re treating the final two months of this season like the final two months of 2023.

You remember. The evaluation period. Giving opportunity. Seeing what they’ve got. Gathering important data points for future decisions.

And, of course, losing. They went 24-31 down the stretch in 2023.

If it were just an academic exercise or a computer program, then sure, you could simply write off the final couple of months of games this season as a necessary evil. In that case, it’d just be numbers. Math is math no matter what.

However, at some point in the real world, the Cardinals need to win. That is if they truly believe in fostering a winning culture, developing a winning team and not just running a major league skills camp.

If you think guys like Brendan Donovan, Masyn Winn, Alec Burleson, Ivan Herrera, Victor Scott, Matthew Liberatore, Andre Pallante and the rest of the core group have a chance to be part of winning teams, contending teams, then at some point they need to play meaningful games. You can’t keep kicking the can down the road.

If the focus at this deadline is solely on adding whatever you can to the organization, then it comes at the cost of wasting another year of the current core group’s time in the big leagues.

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At 20, Camden Cimorelli finally found a job he enjoyed: laying specialty flooring.

His father, Frank Cimorelli, a former pitcher for the ӣ����Ƶ Cardinals, became cautiously hopeful that his son’s life was starting to turn around.

Cam had struggled with angry outbursts as a young boy after his parents’ divorce.

They figured he was having trouble adjusting. But by the time he was 11 or 12, his parents knew something was seriously wrong. They took him to doctors to try to get help. He was admitted to one of the best psychiatric hospitals in Milwaukee, where they lived. They diagnosed him with ADHD.

When he was released to go home a week later, Cam was no better. He didn’t like how the medicine made him feel. They tried four or five different medications. Cam refused to open up to his therapist. His parents knew he wasn’t getting the help he needed.

“We felt so helpless the entire time,” Frank said. When Cam would spiral, they would take him back to the hospital, where they kept him a couple days and then sent him home. He probably ended up at the hospital 10 times over the years, his father said.

Doctors never gave Cam another diagnosis even though he had times when he suffered from hallucinations and paranoid delusions. But, he also had periods when he was more stable, like when found the flooring job.

That was the happiest his father had ever seen him. They went to baseball games together. Cam was a funny, smart, big-hearted young man. He was a loyal friend, and had a way of charming others. He also loved talking to his grandfather about guns.

One day, he called his father excited about purchasing his first gun.

“My heart sunk,” Frank said. “I felt like his fate was sealed at that point that day.”

But, again, he felt helpless.

At 18, Cam could walk into a store in Wisconsin and legally buy a gun — even as someone with a documented history of psychiatric hospitalizations and suicidal ideation. He ended up owning three guns, including a rifle. There was no red flag law to stop him, no place to share a doctor’s warning. The majority of states, including Missouri and Wisconsin, lack red flag laws. It’s easier to buy a gun than adopt a dog. More than 27,000 people died by firearm suicide in 2023 — about 58% of all gun deaths.

But Cam was doing well — even supervising a flooring crew — until something in his brain switched again. Around 23, his mental health started to decline. The hallucinations, paranoia and angry outbursts came back. He was at his father’s home in December 2022, when he walked down to his bedroom with a hoodie balled up over his face.

“What’s going on?” Frank asked. Cam took the hoodie off. He held up thumb and index finger to make a gun gesture with his hand. Frank started screaming, his world spinning.

Cam shot himself under his chin. The impact blew out all his teeth, destroyed his jaw. Frank called 911.

“I didn’t know if he was going to die in my arms. I had no idea where the bullet was,” he said. “If politicians had to see his face that day and didn’t do anything about it, I’d have a whole lot of four letter words to describe them. If that was their kid, and they saw that and went to work the next day and did nothing…”

They waited for the police to clear the house before an ambulance could take Cam to the hospital. His son was rushed into surgery. He had also tested positive for COVID, so no one could go into the hospital with him. For 12 hours, his family had no idea what was happening to him.

By some miracle, Cam survived the suicide attempt. The bullet went through his chin and out of his face. He spent the next several weeks in the hospital having multiple surgeries to reconstruct his jaw and face. When he was discharged, his parents took him straight to a psychiatric hospital.

They begged them to keep him for intensive in-patient treatment. They kept him for five days, then the doctor said they were sending him home.

“We knew if he came home, we knew something bad was going to happen. We couldn’t help him or watch him 24/7,” Frank said.

Sure enough, 24 hours after coming home, Cam was dead.

The autopsy was inconclusive. Doctors suggested that an electrolyte imbalance might have caused death in his already weakened state.

Frank couldn’t bring himself to enter Cam’s room for months. When he finally went inside, he found little white things scattered around the floor. He started to clean them up and realized it was his son’s teeth.

Frank has spent the last year telling his son’s story to anyone who will listen — on social media, at gun violence prevention events and in meetings with lawmakers. He’s on a mission to prevent this kind of unbearable suffering and pain for other families. He wants to know how many more parents will have to clean up their children’s blood before lawmakers decide to do something.

Frank says he’s not against the Second Amendment or anti-gun.

“I don’t worry about responsible gun owners,” he says. But he is furious that nothing stopped his son — a young man who suffered from repeated mental health crises — from getting access to guns.

He has spent the past two years trying to climb out of a dark pit of despair. He wants to remember the time they went to see the Brewers play the Nationals and his son asking him about his days as a pitcher. He focuses on Cam’s strength and humor.

“I’ve been around the best athletes in the world,” Frank says, “and he was as tough as anybody.”

The medical system failed Cam. But the gun industry and NRA-funded lawmakers helped kill him.

It took Cardinals righty Miles Mikolas two pitches into his Thursday start against the Nationals to remind himself that he “can’t be doing this again.”

After what he called a “borderline” slider he placed low and inside to CJ Abrams was called for a ball to open the game, Mikolas followed with a fastball he looked to throw in on the left-handed hitting shortstop. Instead, Mikolas’ fastball “leaked back over the plate” and was lifted to right-center field for a leadoff ground-rule double.

In the at-bats that followed, Mikolas’ ability to mix fastballs and curveballs away from first-time All-Star James Wood resulted in a strikeout. A curveball that broke in on Luis Garcia Jr. led to a pop out to shortstop. Three pitches located away from Josh Bell got a ground out to end the first inning, which set the tone for a scoreless start that marked a bounce back showing and aided the Cardinals to an 8-1, series-securing win over the Nationals.

“Working those pitches away, I feel like I found a little bit better rhythm and upbeat with my delivery right there. That was big for me,” Mikolas said.

Roughed up to the tune of eight runs and six home runs during a July 4 start at Wrigley Field vs. the Cubs, Mikolas turned in 5 2/3 scoreless innings Thursday against Washington. Including the double by Abrams, Mikolas limited opposing hitters to two hits and one walk. He collected six strikeouts and induced 10 groundouts.

Mikolas (5-6) retired 13 consecutive batters after Abrams doubled, holding tight to the 2-0 lead he was provided on RBIs from Alec Burleson that scored Brendan Donovan in the first and third innings. A single to right field with one out in the fifth inning from Mikolas’ former Cardinals teammate Paul DeJong represented the second and only other hit a Nationals batter got against Mikolas before he was lifted from his start after throwing 71 pitches — 50 of which were strikes.

“(Mikolas) had everything working,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “He stayed out of the middle. ... I thought he mixed well enough to keep them off balance. We needed it. We talked enough about it, and we needed him to have a bounce back type of an outing, and that’s exactly what he did.”

The lone walk Mikolas issued came against Wood with two outs in the sixth inning. The encounter with the All-Star and No. 2 hitter marked the last batter the righty faced as the rest of the Nationals’ lefty-loaded lineup was set to face him for a third time.

Called from the bullpen to relieve Mikolas, left-hander Steven Matz ended the sixth inning on two pitches to preserve the Cardinals’ two-run lead.

A five-run bottom half of the sixth that included five hits gave Matz and the Cardinals extra room to operate.

The Cardinals (50-44) collected four hits and a walk against Nationals reliver Mason Thompson. They chased the righty out of the game after he got just one out in his appearance. Two hits against reliever Jackson Rutledge that included a home run from Willson Contreras in the seventh helped push the Cardinals’ run total to eight, their win total to 50 on the season ahead of next week’s All-Star break and earned them their first series victory since the final weekend of June.

“It’s really important,” Contreras said of the offense’s ability to widen the lead late. “I think every game is important, especially the way we’ve been playing lately. Today, we showed up and play with intent and intense. That’s one thing that we talk about, and we need to keep it up.”

Before taking the mound Thursday, Mikolas had allowed 14 runs over 10 innings in his last two outings. The scuffling starts ballooned his ERA to 5.26.

A pair of “light” bullpen sessions thanks to a scheduled off day Monday after their road trip to Wrigley allowed Mikolas to work through the adjustments that hurt him in Chicago, where it seemed as if Cubs hitters had a clue on what was coming.

“It felt pretty good,” Mikolas said of his Thursday start. “Like I said, after last game, after that third inning, I kind of figured out what I was doing wrong. I fixed it. I went from there and just went out (and) pitched my game. Same thing today. We had some good defense. The bats came alive there later in the game. Just good overall team win. It felt good for everybody.”

The winning decision was Mikolas’ first since May 23. At that point in the season, Mikolas’ ERA sat at 3.51 through eight starts. In the nine starts that followed, he posted a 7.75 ERA and allowed 53 hits in 36 innings.

What he did Thursday allowed the 36-year-old starter take a step forward in course correcting.

“It’s easy to be reactive to his last couple of outings,” Marmol said. “But when you look ... he had a stretch there where a lot of the conversation was around him having such a long stretch where he was staying out of the middle of plate, getting a lot of soft contact and giving us some pretty good starts. Today resembled a little bit more of that, especially against this many lefties.

“He did his job. He did a really nice job.”

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Cardinals 8, Nationals 1

Washington AB R H BI BB SO Avg.

Abrams ss 4 0 1 0 0 1 .286

Wood lf 3 0 0 0 1 3 .284

García 2b 4 0 0 0 0 0 .262

Bell dh 3 0 0 0 1 0 .217

Lowe 1b 4 0 1 0 0 1 .235

DeJong 3b 4 0 1 0 0 1 .211

Lile rf 2 1 0 0 1 1 .240

Millas c 3 0 1 0 0 0 .200

Young cf 3 0 0 1 0 0 .230

Totals 30 1 4 1 3 7

ӣ����Ƶ AB R H BI BB SO Avg.

Donovan 2b 4 2 2 1 0 0 .296

Winn ss 4 0 2 1 0 0 .263

Burleson rf 4 0 1 2 0 1 .289

Contreras 1b 4 2 2 1 0 1 .254

Nootbaar lf 3 1 1 0 0 0 .230

Hampson ph-lf 1 0 0 0 0 1 .176

Arenado 3b 3 1 1 1 1 0 .245

Gorman dh 3 1 0 0 1 3 .212

Pozo c 3 0 1 1 1 0 .303

Scott cf 4 1 0 1 0 2 .232

Totals 33 8 10 8 3 8

Washington 000 000 010 — 1 4 0

ӣ����Ƶ 101 005 10x — 8 10 0

LOB: Washington 5, ӣ����Ƶ 5. 2B: Abrams (20), Winn 2 (19), Nootbaar (15). HR: Contreras (12), off Rutledge. RBIs: Young (15), Burleson 2 (42), Arenado (42), Pozo (13), Scott (29), Donovan (35), Winn (32), Contreras (52). SB: Scott (23). SF: Donovan. DP: ӣ����Ƶ 1.

Washington IP H R ER BB SO ERA

Soroka, L, 3-7 4 4 2 2 2 4 5.35

Chafin 1 0 0 0 0 0 2.93

Thompson 1/3 4 5 5 1 0 22.50

Rutledge 12/3 2 1 1 0 3 6.08

Finnegan 1 0 0 0 0 1 2.36

ӣ����Ƶ IP H R ER BB SO ERA

Mikolas, W, 5-6 52/3 2 0 0 1 6 4.94

Matz, H, 6 11/3 0 0 0 0 0 3.28

Leahy 2 2 1 1 2 1 3.10

Inherited runners-scored: Rutledge 2-2, Matz 1-0. WP: Soroka(2). T: 2:32. Att.: 21,141.

With the fifth pick in the 2025 Major League Baseball draft, the ӣ����Ƶ Cardinals select a player they’ve so rarely had a chance to pick in their history and could help shape the organization for the decade to come.

If not sooner.

Due to the fortuitous bounce of a lottery ball, the Cardinals scored the No. 5 pick in Sunday’s draft, and regardless of the outcome, it will be a seminal one for the club. Assistant general manager Randy Flores, leading the team’s scouting and draft preparation for the 10th year, called the pick “unprecedented.” For the first time since 1998, the Cardinals pick as high as No. 5, and for the first time in the six decades of the draft, they have top 10 picks in back-to-back drafts after selecting JJ Wetherholt at No. 7 overall a year ago.

This pick will also bridge two eras — it will be final first-round pick with John Mozeliak as president of baseball operations and the first to enter as Chaim Bloom’s group leads development and he takes over later this season as president of baseball operation.

This past year’s draft has already produced five players who reached the major leagues, and the Cardinals’ pick, Wetherholt, homered in his Class AAA debut Wednesday. The fifth overall pick this season will present the Cardinals a choice between a pitcher with college polish who could move fast and younger players with high ceilings who will take longer to arrive. During a lunchtime conversation Thursday between his meetings with scouts in ӣ����Ƶ, the Post-Dispatch asked Flores if a team’s view of how soon it can contend influences the selection.

“I think that the amateur draft in baseball is so much different than basketball and football in the success rates in hits on those picks that it makes pretending that you know the impact (or) the precise proximity and you’re able to predict the injures — it’s too many variables,” Flores said. “To pretend, you risk overweighing it in your decision. It’s different than someone at No. 2 who is picking a quarterback in the NFL and you already have a starting quarterback. I don’t think baseball is there yet.”

The Cardinals can count on one of the top college pitchers being available at No. 5, and it is likely that the second-rated prep infielder and college infielder will be there for the picking, too. Three years after his oldest son, Jackson, was the first overall pick, Cardinals Hall of Famer Matt Holliday’s younger son, Ethan, is Baseball America’s prep player of the year, a power-packed infielder and a possible No. 1 overall pick. It is difficult to see a scenario where he gets past the Colorado Rockies at No. 4.

If he does, the Cardinals are waiting.

Otherwise, at least one of the top college lefties Kade Anderson (LSU), Liam Doyle (Tennessee) and Jamie Arnold (Florida State) is likely to be on the board. Arnold is considered a swift mover who could help a team as soon as 2026. Also likely to be available and assuredly of interest to the Cardinals is Oklahoma prep standout Eli Willits, former big leaguer Reggie’s son. The shortstop is one of the youngest players in the draft, and that has appealed to the Cardinals with past picks.

Other established college players, pitcher Kyson Witherspoon (Oklahoma) and shortstop Wehiwa Aloy (Arkansas), are projected as first-round picks in that Nos. 5-15 range. Auburn's Ike Irish has draw the Cardinals' attention in that same range.

Flores said he did not want to enter the meetings this week focused on five names and ordering them — certain they would get one of them. He wanted to start with a list twice that size to narrow it down and “make sure that we’re convicted at the top half of that board.”

Proximity to the majors is a consideration but not a driving one, he said.

“It’s not the thing that leads the discussion,” Flores said. “It’s part of it. In general, we’re trying as best as possible to evaluate the player’s career — which is impossible, but we’re trying to do so. This is a game of longevity and so you try to measure an attempt to evaluate the chance of this player having a successful career. That leads it. ... I think any time you lean too far one way on proximity, you miss out on chances like Jackson Holliday or other high school picks who have excelled, including some of our own.”

When last the Cardinals had the fifth overall pick, they helped change the draft by picking J. D. Drew and signing him to a record bonus in 1998. Drew debuted later that same year and in 2003 was part of a trade that brought back Adam Wainwright, who won 200 games for the Cardinals and helped define pitching in ӣ����Ƶ for more than a decade.

It was a transformative pick for the Cardinals.

In 18 years, from 2004 to 2021, the fifth overall pick produced a player who reached the majors 17 times. A dozen of those 17 were position players — suggesting how rare surefire hitting talent is and also how few times the Cardinals have had access to it.

“A lot of pitching is development,” said Flores, a World Series champion with the Cardinals as a lefty reliever. “You see pitchers who change drastically with increases in velo(city). You see pitchers who change drastically with changes in arsenal. You see pitchers who change drastically with changes in usage. You see growth or different arm angles. Pitching success — long-term pitching success — can happen from a lot of spots. Hitting a baseball is so difficult that I think it is less likely to have long-term, tremendous hits the further away you get from the top of the draft.”

The Cardinals enter the draft with the seventh-highest bonus purse, at $14,238,300. The slot value for No. 5 is $8,134,800, positioning them to surpass last year’s club record bonus of $6.9 million. Last year, the Cardinals had the seventh overall selection and did not pick again until No. 80. This year, they’ll have four picks on the first day of the two-day draft: Nos. 5, 55, 72 and 89. That gives them some flexibility to be strategic with their spending and aim for over-slot offers in rounds outside the first or second.

In the 13 drafts with a bonus limit, the Cardinals are one of four teams to spend beyond it every year and pay the tax for an overage of 5% or less.

“What I read is the top five, six, seven or eight are unsettled, and I bet someone would ask me, ‘Are you unsettled by that?’” Flores said. “I think it’s actually an opportunity. If the board was set on the top four — like dead-set — maybe we would be like, ‘Oh, I wish we were in that top four.’ But I think the unsettledness provides us an opportunity to have our board different than another team’s board and hope that we’re on the right side of it.”

Fedde gets ‘another shot at it’

After a week of discussions within the baseball operations group, the Cardinals chose to remain with their current rotation, as scheduled, and start Erick Fedde on Saturday despite the right-hander’s run of turbulent starts. The decision goes beyond the results on the mound, manager Oliver Marmol agreed when asked Thursday afternoon.

Fedde had an abbreviated four-out start Sunday night at Wrigley Field and allowed three runs and six base runners. In his past three starts he’s allowed 17 runs, and the veteran right-hander is winless in his previous 10 starts. Over that time, he’s struggled with his sinker and cutter, and the lack of familiar fastball has left him vulnerable to walks and damage. His ERA has climbed by a run in his past three starts, and he’s allowed 53 hits, 24 walks and 78 base runners in his past 47 1/3 innings.

The decision to start Fedde relates to the team’s plans at the trade deadline and the possible attempt to generate interest him ahead of a move to create a spot in the rotation for a prospect, right-hander Michael McGreevy.

“We’re going to give him another shot at it,” Marmol said of Fedde. “My hope is that we can get on the other side of (what) his last couple of outings have looked like.”

No catch to Herrera’s return

Ivan Herrera (hamstring) began his rehab assignment Thursday with Class AAA Memphis, and the plan is for the right-handed hitter to spend the weekend as designated hitter for the Redbirds and not catch at all during his rehab assignment. If he catches at all in the second half of the season, it will be limited after two leg injuries this season, Marmol said. That puts Herrera and his .320 average and .925 on-base plus slugging percentage at DH most of the time in the second half.

The Cardinals will decide on Herrera’s availability coming out of the break based on his first two games with the Redbirds. He may be able to find at-bats at the team’s complex in Jupiter, Florida, if necessary over next week’s All-Star break.

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