Cardinals put Cubs season in a bodybag with never-ending first inning

Let's be quite clear, the 2024 Chicago Cubs season wasn't exactly showing a strong pulse coming into their weekend series with the rival St. Louis Cardinals. While the club remains undecided on their trade deadline plans, they've been seen by most teams to this point as likely sellers given their woefully disappointing campaign to this point.

And if they were teetering on the fence about their plans and what this season could be, it only took one inning to start a Saturday doubleheader with the Cardinals for the Redbirds to truck stick their rivals into selling off parts before July 30.

If there was a glimmer of hope after a Cubs win on Friday night at Busch Stadium and then a Seiya Suzuki home run in the top of the first inning, the bottom of the inning snuffed it out. Chicago starter Hayden Wesneski had a truly awful time in an inning where they ultimately allowed an eye-popping and soul-crushing nine runs to fall behind 9-1 out of the gate.

Cardinals put nail in the coffin of Cubs season with humiliating first inning

It started with three straight singles, the last of which drove in Masyn Winn. Then things got uglier when Lars Nootbaar grounded into a fielder's choice but Wesneski botched the throw, allowing another run. The pitcher then allowed the third run of the inning to come across on a fielding error. He then got two strikeouts and seemed to be on the verge of limiting the damage and the embarrassment.

If only.

With the bases loaded, he hit Michael Siani with a pitch to make it 4-1, bringing up Winn at the top of the order, who knocked a two-RBI single to make it 6-1. Then big Alec Burleson put the exclamation point on it for the Cardinals -- and the nail in the coffin of the Cubs season -- with a three-run home run to left field, giving us that 9-1 score.

Is the Cubs' season actually over after just one inning? Of course not. Nor is it over just because of the eventual 11-3 final score and loss for Chicago. However, that type of embarrassing inning is indicative of why this team's fortunes are linked to selling at the trade deadline and why packing it in continues to look far more likely than the alternative.

Despite retaining Cody Bellinger, despite a home-run signing of Shota Imanaga, and despite more star power, the Cubs just haven't been the product on the field that was promised by Jed Hoyer and Co. They've been mistake-prone, slump-prone and generally frustrating. Blow-up innings -- though this might be the worst -- have happened far too frequently, as have cases of ice-cold bats.

And the Cardinals put all too fine of a point on it by jumping on their hated rivals and beating them into submission. Hope is a dangerous thing and the Cubs might be out of danger after that.