JUPITER, Fla — In 2022, do you know how many teams struck out more batters per nine innings than the Cardinals did?
All of the teams.
St. Louis finished 30th out of 30, which, one could suggest, leaves room for improvement. Of course, the Cardinals didn’t have Jack Flaherty for most of the year — and other pitchers thrived on getting soft contact for easy outs.
Still, six of the seven teams with baseball’s best strikeout rates made the playoffs.
Interestingly, here at Cardinals camp, a pitcher manager Oli Marmol suggested could up his strikeout rate was Jordan Montgomery — the guy who had the best swing-and-miss rate on the staff (27.