CINCINNATI _ A winning team when they last played in St. Louis, a team with a strong rotation, a team with a reshaped bullpen, and a team still in need of better offense when they started on this road trip, the Cardinals return home with less than what they had.
Except for wins.
They have the same amount of wins.
The Cincinnati Reds completed an emphatic sweep of the Cardinals with a 5-2 victory Thursday afternoon at Great American Ball Park. The Reds ended the four-game trouncing by striking out Yadier Molina, a favorite foil of the team and its fans, so much so that they once booed him during the All-Star Game introductions here.
The loss left the Cardinals 0-7 on the road trip.
And it's worse than that.
The lineup still hasn't perked up. Matt Carpenter homered for the second consecutive game, and his return to leading off has been the brightest spot of these doldrums. The starting pitching failed to pitch into the sixth inning for the third consecutive day. The bullpen was blistered. Again.
The Cardinals were no-hit through three innings and had only two hits through six innings.
Both were singles.
Only one led to a runner getting into scoring position.
Referring to the losing streak, manager Mike Matheny said: "We've got a lot of guys who have been through runs like this. This is baseball. It's heavy right now, there's no doubt about it. In the long run, we're going to snap out of this. It's just hard finding what that key is."
While there weren't wins to show for it and the offense was rarely there to support, the Cardinals bullpen had somewhat of a foothold through the first four games of this road trip.
In more than nine innings they had a sub-2.00 ERA.
The release of Jonathan Broxton opened up the bullpen for some more churn through arms. John Gant came and went. John Brebbia joined. Tyler Lyons was moved out of the long relief role, and yet appears back into it. Brett Cecil made seven consecutive appearances without allowed a run. All of that has flipped in the past three appearances.
After Joey Votto cranked the Reds to a 5-0 lead with a two-run homer off Lyons, the Cardinals bullpen has an ERA approaching 12.00 in the past three games, including Thursday afternoon.
