If one had not been fixated on the St. Louis Cardinals' record in 2023 and lacked a complete picture of the team, they might think that things had been going alright, or at least not catastrophically.

Nolan Arenado has put his slow start behind him and could go into All-Star break with 20 home runs and 60 RBIs. Paul Goldschmidt is posting another solid season. Top MLB prospect Jordan Walker has been every bit the reliable hitter he was advertised as in the minor leagues. Young Nolan Gorman has delivered a nice burst of power. Jordan Montgomery continues to be one of the most reliable and underrated pitchers in the National League. There is plenty to like this season.

But all of that ceases to matter when taking into account the ghastly pitching staff, insufficient defense, underachieving star free agent (Willson Contreras) and injuries (Tyler O'Neill, Adam Wainwright, Tommy Edman and now Montgomery) that have all combined to form an unrecognizable bottom-barrel baseball product.

Though, perhaps the most devastating trait of this club is the staggering number of blown leads and one-run losses (19), which is the antitheses of the Cardinals brand fans have become so conditioned to seeing for more than a decade. The nightmare continued Friday.

St. Louis took a 5-1 lead versus the Chicago White Sox into the sixth inning before the bullpen imploded. The team responded strong the next half-inning to recapture the lead but soon gave it right back after walking in the game-winning run. Manager Oliver Marmol is probably getting exasperated watching the same movie night after night.

“We’ve been there before,” he said, per MLB.com's Joey Pollizze. “We’ve had the lead more than twice in certain games and blown it. With our pitching staff, we can’t give away outs, and we did a decent amount of that today.”

Marmol is right, the margin for error is razor-thin when relying on one of the worst pitching staffs in baseball. The Cardinals have overcome shortcomings in the past, but nothing is breaking right for this group in 2023. This most recent collapse against the equally embattled White Sox just days before the All-Star break is incontrovertible proof of that.