Cardinals were as underwhelming on Opening Day as they were in most of 2023

Many years, one of the biggest challenges which accompanies a tough loss on opening day is having to wait through a built-in buffer in the schedule, leaving the field in a foul mood on Thursday and leaving a team unable to redeem itself until Saturday.

The good news for the St. Louis Cardinals is that opening the season in southern California’s reliable weather should allow them to get right back to business tomorrow. The bad news is that the Los Angeles Dodgers will still be waiting for them.

Thursday’s season-opening 7-1 loss recalled in flavor some of the more underwhelming and overwhelmed performances of a 2023 season that the team is seeking desperately to leave in the dust. The Cardinals recorded only three hits, all by first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, including a solo home run.

“Offense will come together,” manager Oli Marmol said. “Today wasn’t the day for it. Their pitchers did a really nice job. [Dodgers starter Tyler] Glasnow did a really nice job. They’ve got some good starters, they’ve got some good guys in the ‘pen. It’s gonna be a dogfight. Today was tough for the offense, and we’ll get some rest and do it all over again.”

On what was meant to be Sonny Gray’s debut as the rotation’s ace, he instead was a continent away, rehabbing a hamstring strain in Florida and leaving Miles Mikolas to grind through 4 ⅓ tough innings, allowing five runs on seven hits, including homers to two of the three former Most Valuable Player winners at the top of the Dodgers lineup, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman.

Sandwiched between them, Shohei Ohtani reached base safely in each of his three at bats against Mikolas in his breathlessly anticipated Dodger Stadium debut, though he made a baserunning error in the bottom of the first inning to provide Mikolas a partial lifeline out of a 29-pitch inning in which he did not record a single swing and miss.

“I don’t think it’s my worst opening day, but it’s certainly not what you want,” Mikolas said. “All jokes aside, I thought I made some good pitches. Just a couple I want back. A lot of weak contact there in the first. Bloopers, that ball sneaking through the infield there, gotta hang with ‘em. I wish I had some of those home runs back.”

The ball to which Mikolas referred was a first inning single by Freeman, which plated Betts after leaving Freeman’s bat at 86.4 miles per hour and skipping through the drawn-in infield. Freeman would later come around to score himself to account for the second Dodgers run of the inning, a margin from which the Cardinals were unable to recover.

Betts’s home run led off the third inning. Freeman’s followed two batters later, the two sequenced on either side of an Ohtani walk.

“I think we have a pretty good idea of what we have with Miles,” Marmol said. “Swing and miss isn’t a big part of his game.”

“I think the biggest thing we can do individually and as a team is just take it day by day,” Goldschmidt said. “There’s going to be some ups and downs. Just not getting too down on yourself, especially when [losing] happens.

“We’ve all played this game long enough to know that’s going to happen, and you’re just trying to stay level headed, keep working, and hopefully over the long run, play well.”

Rookie Victor Scott II, making his career debut in center field, reached base in the fourth inning on a tough error charged to Betts on a slow chopper to shortstop. He waited until the third pitch to Masyn Winn to secure first career stolen base, though the 6’8” Glasnow ducked after the first pitch of that at bat, anticipating a throw down to second base without Scott even being on the move.

“Being a speed threat, the pitcher has to think about other things,” Scott said, “and I’m the other thing.”

Andre Pallante and Riley O’Brien each allowed a run in relief and struck out two Dodgers apiece, and Matthew Liberatore tossed a crisp, perfect bottom of the eighth inning in his first regular season appearance since his full transition to the bullpen.

Last season’s 91 losses do not count against this season’s ledger, and there is little to no appetite around the team to relive them. In his office before Thursday’s game, Marmol was not interested in discussing the possibility that he looked forward to this opening day before last season reached its conclusion. That was then, this is now, and they will look forward.

For more than a decade and a half, a consistent streak of winning seasons bought the organization credibility and a belief that their water would find its level. After finishing 20 games below .500, though, that credibility has been drawn upon more fully than any rogue translator could ever dare.

The wait for game two will be much more brief. It will not be much less anxious.

Thursday began with a blue carpet worthy of Hollywood, laid out from the centerfield gate through the outfield, down which the Dodgers’ parade of stars strolled. They were introduced by Emmy-winning actor Bryan Cranston, and multi-hyphenate performer Josh Groban sang the national anthem, all decked out in Dodger Blue.

Goldschmidt, who said he didn’t watch Cranston in Breaking Bad but did remember him from Malcolm In The Middle, was characteristically more focused on his opposition than the glitz and glamor.

“Their roster’s probably as good as any roster that’s ever been put on a major league team,” he said. “We understand that, but on any day, anyone can beat them.”

“[Defectate] or get off the pot,” Mikolas added. “We’ve got to win some ball games. If we want to be in the playoffs, [these are] teams we’re going to have to beat so we don’t get an early exit, and there’s teams you want to test yourself against early.”

The first test was not passed. The Dodgers are not in danger. They are the danger.