Cardinals early-season embarrassment could hit a new low on Wednesday

The St. Louis Cardinals lost 14-1 to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday night. Steven Matz did not pitch well, yet manager Oli Marmol came away...somewhat impressed.

"I actually thought it was one of [Matz's] better outings to be quite honest with you," Marmol said. "The line doesn't show that, but from a pitch standpoint, velo was there. Walking the nine hole in that inning, that kind of led to some runs, wasn't ideal..."

As you can tell, evaluating starting pitchers is not a strength of the Cardinals organization. In fact, they traded away one of their best starters in recent memory on Jordan Montgomery. Montgomery led the Texas Rangers to the World Series and won, only to leave via free agency for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Montgomery will face off against his former team on Wednesday. An impressive performance would put the cherry on top of the doom and gloom sundae that has been St. Louis's season so far.

St. Louis Cardinals season can go from bad to worse thanks to Jordan Montgomery

The Cardinals rotation isn't terrible, necessarily, but it leaves much to be desired outside of ace Sonny Gray. As was pointed out by FanSided's Curt Bishop, John Mozeliak initially promised the Cards would sign multiple top-level starting pitchers this past winter. While he landed Gray, Mozeliak did little else to truly fortify the St. Louis starting rotation. Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson do not count, though the former has had a surprising turnaround in 2024.

Montgomery was readily available for any MLB team, including the Cardinals. Monty never shot down the idea of a reunion in St. Louis. The Cardinals just never offered, and certainly not at Montgomery's asking price.

As much as baseball fans want to blame Scott Boras for that fact, the Diamondbacks ended up signing Montgomery for an affordable one-year, $25 million deal. Mozeliak and the Cardinals should've been able to afford such a splurge.