Share on LinkedIn

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) — In everything we’ve seen from Sonny Gray during his first season as a Cardinal, the 34-year-old veteran starter has never been one to beat around the bush in describing what’s going through his mind when it comes to pitching.

So it stands to reason that when Gray goes through a stretch on the mound like the one he presently endures, there’s going to be some blunt self-reflection involved.

“I pitched like s---,” Gray said after he allowed three earned runs and fell short of navigating five innings in the Cardinals’ 3-2 loss to the Rockies on Thursday night at Busch Stadium.

The game marked the fourth straight start in which Gray has failed to complete six innings, but was the first time all season that he was unable to get through five—something he did successfully even with severe pitch count limits in his first couple of starts off the injured list in April.

Gray held his ERA as low as 0.89 as recently as the morning of his start on May 9 in Milwaukee. Less than a month later, his ERA has risen to 3.21.

“It’s a trend,” Gray said. “I’m trending in the wrong direction. So I’ve got to come in and come up with a plan moving forward and get back on track.”

So that was the bluntness of Gray’s personality shining through—he took ownership of the ‘what.’

His insight on the ‘why’ was another matter.

As reporters attempted to dig into the psyche on why Gray’s recent struggles continued Thursday night, he didn’t have much in the way of a detailed explanation. Multiple questions elicited a mere “I don’t know,” in response, which is telling for a player with a reputation for keeping his dealings with the media on the up-and-up.

“If I knew, I’d tell you.”

The Rockies got on the board against Gray in the third inning thanks to the trickle down effect of a missed call by home plate umpire Scott Barry. Gray unfurled a 2-2 sweeper on Jake Cave, nestling the pitch into the low-and-away portion of the strike zone—but Barry missed it.

Because of the miss, the plate appearance was extended into an 11-pitch walk that came back to bite the Cardinals. After a base hit by Michael Toglia made it first and third for Colorado, Charlie Blackmon grounded into an apparent double play to end the inning and keep a run off the board—until replay overturned the out at first base.

“I mean, I struck him out,” Gray flatly stated about the missed call that eventually led to Colorado’s first run. “But at the same time, he battled after that. I made a lot of good pitches, ended up walking him. That wasn’t—I was okay with that… I felt good going out for the fourth, I felt good going out for the fifth, I just—I don’t know.”

Interestingly, the outing didn’t unravel yet for Gray after the third. He found a rhythm for the final out of that third inning and into the fourth, striking out four consecutive batters over that span, and seemingly finding his groove again.

But out of nowhere came struggles with command as the fifth inning ultimately tanked Gray’s evening. He allowed only one hit in the frame but walked three batters while scattering a pair of wild pitches in a marathon inning that tapped out the right-hander before he could escape the jam.

Though Gray flashed some electric stuff during the four-K stretch leading into the fifth, he took little solace in it considering that he wasn’t able to sustain the momentum into a productive outing overall.

“That’s not the job of a starting pitcher,” Gray said. " The job of a starting pitcher is not to go through spurts of great, and then—the job is to stay out there for as long as you can and put your team into a position to win.

“So, yeah, okay, I struck four hitters out in a row. Who cares? That’s not the point of a start.”

Though Gray wasn’t able to pinpoint where the fifth inning fell apart on him, it’s notable that his catcher didn’t do him many favors behind the dish. Ivan Herrera permitted two stolen bases during the inning and was unable to keep either of the wild pitches dispensed by Gray in front of him, allowing more advancement from the parade of base runners.

The Cardinals were encouraged enough by the strides that Herrera made defensively over the past year to jettison Andrew Knizner in the off-season, leaving Herrera as the primary backup to Willson Contreras entering 2024. But with increased playing time resulting from Contreras’ absence from a broken arm over the past month, Herrera has struggled tremendously in an important aspect of a backstop’s job description—managing the running game.

In 35 starts at catcher this season, Herrera has allowed 36 stolen bases while only throwing out three would-be base stealers. That equates to an .077 caught-stealing rate, the worst among MLB catchers with at least 20 opportunities on the season.

“It’s a tough question,” Cardinals manager Oli Marmol said when asked what he’d like to see from Herrera in controlling the running game. “You’re asking about his arm, specifically and this is something that he’s continuing to work on. It’s not a huge strength of his at the moment. He does other things well. This is something he’s worked on throughout the minor leagues and he’s going to continue to.”

Only three catchers in the league have allowed more than Herrera’s 36 stolen bases—and all three have caught more innings than Herrera to this point in the year. Managing opposing base runners remains a weakness in Herrera’s defensive repertoire that didn’t help matters as Gray’s fifth inning came apart at the seams.

“It’s something that he’s paying very close attention to,” Marmol said. “But it’s also something that’s not going to happen overnight.”