It has a lot to do with the pitcher who recently concluded his latest meeting with team doctors.
A club that entered spring training with a wealth of options for the rotation and even more confidence than arms backpedaled into the second week of August trying to cover a hole.
Bigger than any of these, though, is the name even a dedicated consumer of Cardinals baseball might now forget when listing the rotation rescuers who never arrived.
Because he was on the major-league roster at the time of his Tommy John surgery in 2017 and his back injury in 2018, Reyes is on the cusp of a raise through arbitration, meaning the cost-conscious Cardinals soon will have to increase the salary of a question-mark pitcher who has averaged fewer than six major-league appearances per season since 2016.