Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt have both gone on hot streaks for the St. Louis Cardinals, but the team is still waiting for them to coincide.
When the St. Louis Cardinals acquired Nolan Arenado, they believed pairing him with Paul Goldschmidt would solve their offensive woes and vault them to the top of the National League playoff picture.
It has been anything but that. Their offense remains inconsistent. They trail the Milwaukee Brewers by nine games in the NL Central. And while both Arenado and Goldschmidt have been good, they haven’t been great, and neither have gotten hot at the plate at the same time. Cardinals manager Mike Shildt, however, remains hopeful that happens — sooner than later.
“It’s like a movie premiere. Coming soon … to a ballpark near you,” Shildt said, via Katie Woo of The Athletic.
But is it actually? We recently wrote about how Goldschmidt has turned his season around, as he is hitting .325/.413/.550 in his last 28 days and .419/.514/.742 in his last 14 days. Arenado, however, is hitting only .213/.281/.425 in his last 28 days and has often been seen slamming his bats out of frustration.
The Cardinals’ start to the second half, a series win against the NL-leading San Francisco Giants, was a good start. But if they have any chance of catching the Brewers, let alone obtaining a Wild Card spot, they need both Arenado and Goldschmidt to get hot at the same time and carry their offense.
The good news for the Cardinals is that Arenado has typically been a better player in the second half of the season. He is hitting .296/.353/.550 in the second half of seasons as opposed to .289/.345/.534 in the first half of seasons.
It’s not a huge disparity, of course, but it’s a reason for Cardinals fans to be somewhat optimistic that Arenado and the offense will be better during the playoff push. But they will need both Arenado and Goldschmidt to step up and be the players they’ve been for the first 10 or so seasons of their respective careers. Their season depends on it.