ESPN report: Three favorites ex-Cardinals could be candidates fit to be the teams’ manager if……read more.

If the St. Louis Cardinals decide to part ways with manager Oliver Marmol in the end, they could have some interesting options.

If the Cardinals decide to remove Marmol, three well-known contenders could be considered for the manager position. This information was published on Thursday by Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Heyman notes that the most obvious contender is Skip Schumaker, the manager of the Miami Marlins at the moment and a former Cardinals title player. But Heyman also mentions two other very interesting options: Yadier Molina and Albert Pujols, two terrific players from St. Louis. Heyman adds that Molina is reportedly interested in managing (as long as his family approves). Pujols is reportedly also interested.

Of the three, Schumaker, 44, would undoubtedly be the most qualified. After steering Miami to an unexpected postseason appearance in the previous season, he is the current NL Manager of the Year. However, Schumaker, who can become a free agency at the end of the season, is facing reports that he will likely leave Miami because the Marlins are an MLB-worst 13-32 this season.

Regarding Molina,41, and Pujols,44, they rank among the most cherished players in the history of the Cardinals organization. Despite the fact that neither has any prior MLB coaching experience, Pujols just accepted a manager position in another baseball league, while Molina recently returned to St. Louis in a front office capacity.

It’s very probable that the Cardinals opt to part ways with Marmol, who finished first in his first season as manager with 93 victories and a division title, but has had a dismal record ever since (St. Louis is a dismal 18-25 this season). Although Schumaker would be the ideal alternative for the Cardinals, any one of those three former players would probably be welcomed back as manager by the supporters.

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With little time left to turn things around, the Cardinals come home for a three-series home stand.

The St. Louis Cardinals had more than enough reason to be concerned at the actual quarter mark of their season. They had only won 16 of their first 40 games following a humiliating series loss to the Milwaukee Brewers over the weekend. They were behind 4-0 four innings into Monday night’s eventual victory over the Los Angeles Angels.

Though optimism can only last so long, a strong win in game two and a comeback in that game might be sufficient to lift morale and delay the arrival of reality. The club from last season did, in fact, have a worse record through 40 games than this one; they had 15 wins, compared to this season’s 15. They were 17–26 at the end of game 43, which was once more one game below the season average. The Cardinals might perhaps achieve a 75-win season by adding one win every quarter, which would satisfy no one and force the team to take a route that it has refused to take for the entirety of its current ownership.

The starting pitching staff’s underwhelming performance in recent weeks is concerning, as if they wanted to put out any additional fires.

The main signings from the summer had come in exactly as expected, and the solid pitching had carried a completely lost offense through the first month of play. However, it was reasonable to wonder how long those pitchers would be fortunate to be at the top of the performance curve given their ages and histories. Lance Lynn’s batting average allowed has increased by 50 points, his OPS against has increased by nearly 100, and his 2.64 ERA from March and April has soared to 7.36 in May. After posting a 1.16 ERA in four starts in April, Sonny Gray’s 3.50 ERA in three starts in May was mostly associated with an increase in his home run rate.

With back stiffness that the team was aware of and chose to let him pitch through, Steven Matz made his final start of the season on April 30. As he recovers, he will now likely miss the entire month of May. The advances Matthew Liberatore made this year as a reliever seem to have vanished as a result of being unfairly forced to switch roles in the middle of the game before having the opportunity to establish himself as a starter. Instead, he has been moved into his position as a substitute.

The reason Liberatore is there is because Zack Thompson, who made the Cardinals’ second start of the season, is under his supervision in Triple-A wrestling. Additionally present is Andre Pallante, who is attempting to develop a backup pitch. Gordon Graceffo, Adam Kloffenstein, Michael McGreevy, and Sem Robberse don’t seem to have enough faith from the organization to cover what is only a temporary hole right now, so a complete off-season’s worth of work might fall apart in a way that is uncannily similar to what happened a year ago.

An offense that is just barely getting going provides a background for all of those issues. During the just concluded road trip, Paul Goldschmidt doubled his season tally of home runs, and Pedro Pagés and Iván Herrera have played well enough to keep that element of the offense going after Willson Contreras’s season-ending injury.

But Nolan Arenado still finds power generally elusive. Even if Nolan Gorman and Lars Nootbaar’s at-bats are showing more patience and helping them become the cornerstone hitters this team needs them to be, the outcomes have still been more akin to a drip. There is less time to wait if they want it to happen for them this season, therefore it must happen soon.

If the series against the Angels had gone differently, Thursday’s off day may have been a game-changer for the team. A day off at home before a lengthy homestand is the kind of event on the schedule that gets marked with cautionary red pen, especially in light of the fact that John Mozeliak, the president of baseball operations, advocated for responsibility over patience during his appearance on KMOX on Sunday. Mozeliak’s special assistants, such as Chaim Bloom and Joe McEwing, have been touring the minor levels to get a sense of the players, coaches, and system even as the major league season has been going on. High-profile employment changes don’t appear to be coming soon, but “yet” can go quickly.

That’s what separates a road trip that ended in three or four wins from one that may have ended in just one. The latter would have reached a fever pitch, making it nearly hard to ignore and raising the whistling kettle cries of the fan base for that “accountability” that inevitably entails “firing people.”