Cardinals latest implosion wasn't all Oli Marmol's fault after all

The St. Louis Cardinals had an unpleasant flashback to 2023 last night in Houston.

Leading the Astros 4-3 in the bottom of the eighth, St. Louis gave up a four-spot which allowed the Astros to come back and take the series opener from their former NL Central rivals. JoJo Romero had an uncharacteristic outing, which opened the door for Houston's comeback.

Many Cardinals fans want to blame manager Oli Marmol for the late implosion, and while he could have managed it better, it wasn't all his fault. As Katie Woo of the Athletic explains, there were certain weapons in the 'pen that were unavailable, and Marmol trusted Romero over everybody else.

St. Louis Cardinals implosion isn't all Oli Marmol's fault

Marmol did have left-hander Matthew Liberatore available, so he could have potentially gone to him while Romero was tiring.

But Houston had a ton of right-handers coming to the plate and his options from the right side were severely limited. Andrew Kittredge had already been used, and Ryan Fernandez was down. That would have left Ryan Loutos and Kyle Leahy as the only options.

Another thing to consider is that the Cardinals did not play a clean game defensively. They committed two errors, one of which was made by the usually sure-handed Masyn Winn at shortstop. One of the four runs allowed by Romero was actually an unearned run.

The Cardinals also stranded two runners in the top of the eighth when they had a chance to add on and put the game out of reach. So, while Marmol could have handled the situation better, his hands were somewhat tied, and there were other factors that played into the Cardinals' late collapse.

Once again, the Cardinals have missed a chance to get back to .500. They reached that mark on Wednesday in Cincinnati, but fell back below in Philadelphia. Heading into Tuesday's game, St. Louis owns a record of 28-30. They sit in third place in the NL Central, seven games back of the Milwaukee Brewers.

St. Louis also had sole possession of the third Wild Card spot in the National League despite their record heading into the series with Houston, but they dropped into a tie with the Chicago Cubs with their heartbreaking loss.

They'll have a thin bullpen heading into the second game of the series behind Andre Pallante, who makes his second start of the season after a six-inning effort against the Reds last week.