Herzog Says One Pitch Led to Cardinal Slump

Whitey Herzog traces the St. Louis Cardinals’ recent woes to one pitch.

It came April 24 in the ninth inning of the first game of a four-game series with the New York Mets--the Cardinals’ nemesis in the National League East Division.

Reliever Todd Worrell surrendered a home-run to Howard Johnson with one out and one on. That high fastball enabled the Mets to tie the game, 4-4, and they went on to win, 5-4, in 10 innings.

“That one inning against New York did us in,” said Herzog shaking his head. “That started it all.”

Losing that lead marked the first time in 84 regular-season games that the Cardinal bullpen lost a lead in the ninth inning.

St. Louis lost all four games to the Mets, making it seven in a row without winning, and soon added another five-game swoon. The Mets jumped to a hefty lead in the NL East and the Cardinals fell into last place.

“Runs sure are scarce for us,” Herzog said.

Despite the slump, Herzog said he is still sleeping soundly at night.

“You’ve got to remember it’s just a game,” Herzog said. “It’s not life or death.”

A glance at the statistics shows what is behind the Cardinals’ skid -- a lack of hitting. As a team, the Cardinals were hitting only .209 through May 8. The same team hit .264 last season.

It is no small slump the Cardinals are mired in.

“A little slump?” said Herzog. “This has been a monster.”

In its first 14 games of the year, St. Louis was shut out six times. In its 12 from April 25 through May 7, the Cardinals scored three runs or fewer in the regulation nine innings.

“Hits, it all comes down to hits,” Herzog said. “We start hitting the ball, we’ll start winning. Base hits are conducive to winning baseball.”

Such stalwarts as Jack Clark, Tom Herr, Willie McGee and Vince Coleman got off to horrible starts. Shortstop Ozzie Smith was the only Cardinal immune to the hitting drought.

Herzog, 54, said he has never had a whole team go bad on him in all his years of managing.

“Never anything like this,” said Herzog, who became the Cardinals manager on June 9, 1980. “I’ve had guys be in slumps, but you always have a couple guys hitting. But not everybody.”

Herzog has done everything including lineup changes to try to snap his team out of its doldrums.

“We hit the heck out of the ball the last 10 days of spring training,” Herzog said. “I had no indication of this. I think we’ve got some good hitters on this team and they’ll come around.

“Our starting pitching has been good so far -- really it’s been as good as you’d want. That’s where everybody thought we’d have trouble this year.”

The off-season trade of Joaquin Andujar, who won 41 games the past two seasons, prompted many experts to predict the Cardinals would not repeat as division champions, let alone as kingpins of the National League.

Last year, the off-season loss of ace reliever Bruce Sutter via free agency was supposed to send the Cardinals to the cellar. The Sporting News was not alone in picking St. Louis for last place.

But the bullpen performed well under the juggling of Herzog and was part of the reason St. Louis won a pennant. For his efforts, Herzog earned Manager of the Year honors.

Last year, the Cardinals got off to a slow start but finally began hitting in early May and the wins piled up. Herzog sees some similaries between last year and this season.

“We started off both slow but we hit the ball last year,” Herzog said. “That wasn’t our problem. I really don’t look back. This is ’86. Every year has a new set of problems and this is no different.”

St. Louis and New York were expected to battle it out this year. But the Mets swept the four-game set at Busch Stadium and have not slowed down since.