Philadelphia was supposed to be a co-favorite in the National League this year. Their offseason résumé read like a desperate-but-smart win-now push: Bryce Harper anchoring the lineup, Kyle Schwarber re-signed for five years and $150 million, J.T. Realmuto locked in at $45 million more. The consensus had them in the NL’s top three. And yet, as of late April, the Phillies are 8-17 — tied with Kansas City for baseball’s worst record — grinding through a nine-game losing streak that has left their subreddit so shell-shocked it went full Wawa-themed just to cope.
That’s worth sitting with as you check the Cardinals 2026 season standings and feel pretty good about yourself.
How the Phillies Went From Contender to Catastrophe
The cleanest version of what happened in Philadelphia: Ranger Suárez left in free agency, Zack Wheeler had thoracic outlet surgery — partial rib removal, September 2025 — and returned to big league action throwing 92.9 mph when his career fastball has sat at 95.8. Wheeler’s mechanical presence hasn’t stabilized anything. Meanwhile Jesús Luzardo is posting a 7.94 ERA, has allowed 20 earned runs in 22.2 innings (the most of any NL pitcher), and is somehow worse with runners on base, where his ERA sits at 24.55. You could argue some of that is BABIP-inflated bad luck — his .417 strand rate suggests regression could help him — but the team-wide ERA of 5.05 (26th in baseball) and a starting rotation ERA hovering near 5.68 (28th) can’t be chalked up to variance alone.
The Phillies have lost nine in a row.
It’s their longest losing streak since a nine-game skid from Sept. 20-28, 2018. The Phillies haven’t lost 10 straight since an 11-game losing streak Sept. 4-14, 1999.
— Todd Zolecki (@ToddZolecki) April 23, 2026
The offense hasn’t covered for any of it. Trea Turner is hovering around .230 with an OPS near .635 and the words you never want to hear from a franchise shortstop: “Yeah, it sucks. Not having much fun in here, which is tough.” Aaron Nola captured the whole thing more succinctly: “Right now, it feels like when things go wrong, they really go wrong.” President Dave Dombrowski didn’t sugarcoat it either: “I don’t think any part of our team has excelled: offensively, pitching-wise, starting pitching-wise, defensively.”
That’s not a slump. That’s a collapse.
Where the Cardinals Actually Stand in the NL Central
St. Louis is around 14-10, sitting second or third in a crowded NL Central. They just rode a five-game winning streak that featured 34 runs scored, went 10-1 in games decided by two or fewer runs over a stretch, and are 5-0 in extra innings. Jordan Walker hit eight home runs in his first 16 games — NL-leading pace — and briefly posted a .333/.394/.767 slash line that made Cardinals fans feel like they’d found something real. Michael McGreevy is leading the rotation with a 2.53 ERA, anchoring a pitching staff built entirely on homegrown arms and low-cost gambles.
Just keep winning! pic.twitter.com/udrbjsLG6m
— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) August 12, 2025
Masyn Winn said it well enough when he pushed back against the rebuild narrative earlier this spring: “It doesn’t really feel like a rebuild…I mean we still have a good young core of guys. Those are guys we can build around.” He’s not wrong. The Cardinals are legitimately good right now — and they’ve earned the right to feel it.
But Walker’s slash line since April 13? A .207/.281/.276 reality check, as opposing pitchers made the obvious adjustments. The sample size was always too small to build a thesis around, and the thesis is now wobbling.
The Lessons St. Louis Cannot Afford to Ignore
The Cardinals are overperforming their run differential-based expectations. FanGraphs projects them to win just 45.6% of their remaining games — not a disaster, but a meaningful gap from where the eye test wants to place them right now. Twelve players returned from the 2025 Opening Day roster, which speaks to continuity, but the NL Central is not cooperating with anyone’s comfort level. The Reds are 16-9. The Cubs are 16-9. The entire division is playing at a collective .600 clip. Every team in this division is above .500, which is the kind of structural fact that turns a modest road skid into a five-game hole in two weeks.
The Phillies aren’t a cautionary tale because they did something reckless. The Schwarber re-sign was defensible. The Realmuto deal made sense given the catching market. The problem was fragility masquerading as depth — one Wheeler surgery, one Suárez departure, one Luzardo meltdown away from a rotation that couldn’t hold leads. Cardinals fans have been here before. The youth and sustainability of this Cardinals core is genuinely promising, but a homegrown, budget-built rotation is one arm away from the same kind of unraveling.
Philly fans are already invoking the 1964 collapse — six and a half games up with twelve to play, ten straight losses, gone. That’s an extreme parallel. What isn’t extreme is the basic lesson the Phillies are teaching anyone willing to learn it: April standings in a brutal division are a rough draft, not a contract. Enjoy St. Louis sitting at 14-and-something. Watch what the next thirty games look like against this division.
