ST. LOUIS — Paul Goldschmidt was not a fan of the premise.
It was suggested to the reigning National League MVP after Wednesday’s latest trapdoor loss that the last-place Cardinals’ continued meltdown is nearing the point where some will — or will continue to — call for the firing of second-year manager Oliver Marmol.
Goldschmidt wanted to make two points very clear after Wednesday's 8-5 extra-innings loss to the San Francisco Giants clawed defeat from the jaws of victory thanks to a Giovanny Gallegos meatball and the collapse that followed. The first was that the first baseman is not much interested in outside speculation. The second was that this topic has no traction where he spends most of his time.
"Who is going to have those conversations?" Goldschmidt asked. "There would be nothing in this clubhouse. Outside of that, there is no way I would know what people outside of the clubhouse are saying. But not inside."
Goldschmidt said his confidence in Marmol’s leadership is, “as high as it’s ever been.”
“It’s pretty simple,” Goldschmidt added. “We have to play better. We haven’t played good enough to win, and that’s why we are losing games. You can’t blame the coaching staff when we don’t perform. We are the ones out there playing. We have not performed as good as we need to. We have not played better than the teams we are playing against. It hasn’t been good enough, and they have beaten us. We are the ones out there playing, and we haven’t done a good enough job.”
The Cardinals are 27-42. Their run of 15 consecutive winning seasons under president of baseball operations John Mozeliak is officially in danger. They are losing their way into the kind of territory that calls for a true seller's stance at the trade deadline, followed by a second half of the season that prioritizes 2024 instead of some 2023 postseason mirage.
Those are the facts, and they are ugly. And yet, I won't be leading the fire-Marmol charge. Why not? Mostly because I've yet to see or hear a convincing argument that states why he is all of a sudden this team's big problem.
I’d rank a clubhouse packed with players who freeze at the worst possible times above it. Same for the front office's neglect of needed rotation improvement this offseason. And don't forget an organizational approach of allowing and explaining away the erosion of championship standards and expectations. When you continually lower the bar of what should be accepted and even celebrated, the bottom can suddenly disappear. Marmol, like former Cardinals manager Mike Shildt, has never changed his tune. He wants to win championships, and anything else is a disappointment. Fans liked that, back when Marmol's bluntness was cheered instead of questioned.
That's not to say Marmol is blameless. No one is when a season goes as wrong as this one is going. And those who have followed along for a while know quite well a pattern during bad times has developed around here. Anyone unprotected by a shield that covers the highest-ranking members of this team’s front office can get the boot if things get bad enough. Rosters change. Coaches change. Managers change. That’s become the trend, right or wrong. So, I'm a realist. Managers who don’t win enough tend to get fired. Some sooner than others.
What does bother me though, I’ll admit, is the why behind some of the arguments that are being rolled out to call for Marmol's job.
Fire him just to change something else? Hey, at least that's honest. But some of the other stuff is a reach, or worse.
The message on Willson Contreras' temporary position pivot was a total disaster, and I described it as such at the time, but many hands were involved in that. And did you see the photos from the dugout on Tuesday night? There was Contreras, having thrashed a cooler in frustration as his ongoing slump worsened, sitting with a distraught look on the bench. And there was Marmol next to him in the otherwise empty dugout, consoling the fuming catcher. They were the only two there. If there is a silver lining to the self-created chaos, it's how they have grown closer.
Revisionist history about Marmol’s early-season call out of Tyler O’Neill’s baserunning is the bigger reach, one supported more by fiction than facts. Marmol’s challenge of O’Neill came with support from the clubhouse. How, then, could it be the reason Marmol, according to some, lost the clubhouse? Marmol and O'Neill's relationship being on the rocks has a lot more to do with O'Neill and the team's relationship being on the rocks than the manager's standing with players not named O'Neill.
While Marmol was sharing his thoughts Wednesday after the Cardinals' worst loss of the season, one that came less than 24 hours after what I thought was their worst loss of the season on Tuesday, some of the biggest names in the Cardinals' clubhouse went to bat for Marmol.
“Our coaches, they work their asses off,” Nolan Arenado said. “They are prepared. They make sure we are prepared. We just don’t execute. That’s just what it comes down to. We don’t execute. I can see why that’s a topic, because it’s easy to blame them. Easy to blame them. I can’t think of a coaching staff that tries to get us more prepared. All of them. They work their butts off. And we just don’t execute. I think it’s the players. You can pinpoint the coaches all you want. But it’s the players. It’s us, as a group. We don’t execute. That’s why you are seeing us fail and us play really bad baseball. Because we don’t execute. Everybody, including myself. I’ve been terrible with runners in scoring position. I have not been consistent on either side of the ball. It’s the players. We don’t execute – at all.”
Some will shrug off these comments, and to be honest, I understand that response. What are guys supposed to say, right? But these were not lukewarm opinions. Cardinals players were defending their manager. With more fight, unfortunately, than they have been showing on the field. What they have to know, though, is that words don't win games, and that Cardinals managers who don't win enough wind up being former Cardinals managers.
“Unfortunately we are not holding up our end of the bargain," said Adam Wainwright, who can talk as freely as he pleases as his clock ticks down on retirement. “He (Marmol) is pushing us. He’s challenging us. He’s positive when he needs to be, but he’s also telling us this is not acceptable. What more can a manager do? This is on the players. This is not on the coaches and the manager.”
