Dustin May Takes the Mound Monday, and the Cardinals Need Him to Stop the Bleeding

The St. Louis Cardinals are in trouble. After getting swept at home and dropping three games by a combined four runs, they're limping into Pittsburgh for a four-game series on Monday night with losses in four straight and five of their last six games. They're tied with Milwaukee for fourth in the National League Central, which is frankly wild when you realize every single team in that division has a winning record. That's the kind of brutal environment St. Louis is playing in right now.

Rob Refsnyder's tiebreaking solo home run in the ninth inning did the damage Sunday, lifting the Seattle Mariners to a 3-2 victory. What stings more is that Refsnyder had to successfully challenge a third strike call earlier in the at-bat just to get the chance. Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol tried to find silver linings afterward. "It sucks that you don't win one of these, but when you look at each game individually, there are a lot of positives," he said.

The Bright Spots in an Otherwise Brutal Week

There were genuinely good individual performances buried in this loss. Rookie JJ Wetherholt launched his fifth solo shot in the third inning. Nathan Church cranked his third home run in two games in the sixth, and he's been absolutely raking lately, hitting .406 with 13 hits in 32 at-bats over his last nine games. He's had at least one hit in eight of those nine contests. Marmol praised Church's approach: "When you look at the series Church had, that's awesome. And this is a guy; there's just some grit to him. I like his overall mentality, the way he approaches the game. ... He's here to win."

Still, individual heroics don't matter when the team is 1 1/2 games behind Pittsburgh in the standings.

May Needs to Be the Ace St. Louis Desperately Needs

Enter Dustin May. The right-hander is 3-2 with a 5.84 ERA in his first season with the Cardinals, but here's the thing: over his past three starts, he's allowed just one earned run in each outing and won all three. He's dropped his ERA by more than 10 runs during that stretch. May has one career start against Pittsburgh on his resume, giving up seven runs (six earned) in 5 1/3 innings in a loss last August. That's not ideal, but the form he's shown recently suggests he's a different pitcher now.

Pittsburgh will counter with a bullpen game, sending left-hander Mason Montgomery to the mound for his second start of the season. Montgomery is 1-0 with a 3.97 ERA and hasn't allowed a run in his last seven outings. He faced St. Louis twice in relief in 2025 and allowed just one unearned run over 1 2/3 innings.

First pitch Monday night. If the Cardinals want to stop the free fall, May has to be special.

This article was created with AI assistance and reviewed by Seattle On Tap editorial staff. Always verify information with official team sources.