Blame Oliver Marmol? Cardinals club leaders say it’s not the right move.

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ST. LOUIS Paul Goldschmidt was not a fan of the premise.

It was suggested to the reigning National League MVP after Wednesday’s latest loss that the Cardinals’ continued collapse to last place is nearing the point where some will continue or continue to call for the firing of second-year manager Oliver Marmol.

Goldschmidt wanted to clarify two points after Wednesday’s 8-5 loss to the San Francisco Giants took the loss from the jaws of victory thanks to a Giovanny Gallegos meatball and ensuing collapse. The first was that the first baseman isn’t very interested in outside speculation. The second was that this topic has no traction where it spends most of its time.

Who is going to have these conversations? asked Goldschmidt. There would be nothing in this clubhouse. Other than that, there’s no way I know what people are saying outside the clubhouse. But not inside.

Goldschmidt said his confidence in Marmols’ leadership is higher than it has ever been.

It’s pretty simple, Goldschmidt added. We have to play better. We didn’t play well enough to win, and that’s why we lose games. You can’t blame the coaching staff when we don’t perform. We are the ones playing there. We haven’t performed as well as we should. We haven’t played better than the teams we play against. It wasn’t good enough, and they beat us. We’re the ones playing there, and we haven’t done a good enough job.

The Cardinals are 27-42. Their streak of 15 consecutive winning seasons under president of baseball operations John Mozeliak is officially in jeopardy. They get lost in the kind of territory that calls for a real sellers position at the trade deadline, followed by a second half of the season that prioritizes 2024 instead of a post-season mirage of 2023. .

These are the facts, and they are ugly. And yet, I will not lead the fire-Marmol charge. Why not? Mainly because I have yet to see or hear a convincing argument for why he is suddenly the big problem on this team.

I would rank a clubhouse full of players freezing at the worst possible times above. Same thing for the front offices which neglect the improvement of the rotation necessary this off-season. And don’t forget an organizational approach that allows for and explains the erosion of championship standards and expectations. When you continually lower the bar of what should be accepted and even celebrated, the bottom can suddenly disappear. Marmol, like former Cardinals manager Mike Shildt, never changed his tune. He wants to win championships, and everything else is a disappointment. Fans loved it, back when Marmol’s franchise was acclaimed instead of questioned.

This does not mean that Marmol is beyond reproach. No one is when a season goes as badly as this one. And those who have followed for a while know very well that a trend during difficult times has developed here. Anyone not protected by a shield that covers the most senior members of the front office of this team can get the boot if things go bad enough. Lists change. Coaches change. Managers change. It has become the trend, rightly or wrongly. So I’m realistic. Managers who don’t earn enough tend to get fired. Some earlier than others.

What bothers me though, I admit, is the why of some of the arguments that are made to claim Marmols’ work.

Fire him just to change something else? Hey, at least it’s honest. But some of the other things are scope, or worse.

The Willson Contreras temporary post kingpin message was a total disaster, and I described it as such at the time, but there were many hands involved. And did you see the photos of the canoe on Tuesday evening? There was Contreras, after beating a cooler in frustration as his continued collapse worsened, sitting with a distraught gaze on the bench. And there was Marmol beside him in the otherwise empty dugout, consoling the furious receiver. They were the only two there. If there’s a silver lining to the self-created chaos, it’s how close they came together.

The revisionist story of Tyler ONeills baserunning Marmols early season call is the farthest reaching, backed more by fiction than fact. ONeill’s Marmols challenge came with the support of the clubhouse. How, then, could this be the reason why Marmol, according to some, lost the clubhouse? The relationship between Marmol and ONeills being on the rocks has a lot more to do with ONeill and the teams relationship being on the rocks than managers standing with players not named ONeill.

As Marmol shared his thoughts on Wednesday after the Cardinals’ worst loss of the season, one that came less than 24 hours after what I thought was their worst loss of the season on Tuesday, some of the biggest names in the Cardinals clubhouse went to bat for Marmol.

Our coaches, they work hard, said Nolan Arenado. They are prepared. They make sure we are ready. We just don’t execute. That’s exactly what it boils down to. We don’t execute. I can see why this is a topic, because it’s easy to blame them. Easy to blame them. I can’t think of a coaching staff trying to prepare us more. All. They work hard. And we just don’t execute. I think it’s the players. You can identify trainers as many as you want. But it’s the players. It’s us, as a group. We don’t execute. That’s why you see us failing and playing really bad baseball. Because we don’t execute. Everyone, including me. I was terrible with runners in scoring position. I was not consistent on either side of the ball. It’s the players. We don’t execute at all.

Some will ignore these comments, and to be honest, I understand this answer. What are guys supposed to say, right? But these were not lukewarm opinions. The Cardinals players were defending their manager. With more fighting, unfortunately, than they showed on the pitch. What they need to know, though, is that words don’t win games and Cardinals managers who don’t win enough end up being former Cardinals managers.

Unfortunately, we’re not keeping our end of the bargain, said Adam Wainwright, who can speak as freely as he wants while his clock is ticking in retirement. He (Marmol) pushes us. He challenges us. He is positive when necessary, but he also tells us that this is not acceptable. What more can a manager do? It’s about the players. It’s not about the coaches and the manager.

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