Feud between St. Louis Cardina...

So, what on earth happened?

Most of the biggest, most bonkers story of the first week of the Cardinals’ season is easy enough to follow. Down three runs with two out in the seventh inning on Tuesday night, Brendan Donovan lined a single to Atlanta’s Ronald Acuña, Jr. in right field.

Tyler O’Neill, on second base, got an objectively underwhelming secondary lead, took an awkward turn around third, and was thrown out at home by several strides, squashing the rally. Immediately, replays were unsympathetic to O’Neill.

Prior to this season, he’d never been below the 97th percentile in sprint speed as measured by Statcast. In a tiny 2023 sample, he’s in the 81st percentile. That’s fast. That’s not a burner. That’s what gets you thrown out at home plate rather than scoring with little difficulty. All of that is simple enough to understand, and set the stage for the mess which followed.

“We’ve got a lot of guys playing really hard,” manager Oliver Marmol said to leadoff Tuesday’s postgame presser, in which the first question was about the play at the plate. “That’s not our style of play as far as the effort rounding the bag there. It’s unacceptable.”

As a reporter (this reporter, in fact) sputtered for an appropriate follow-up question, the unprompted follow-up answer came: “That’s pretty clear, right?”

Mr. O’Neill, your rebuttal?

“I think he was pretty blunt about it,” said the outfielder. “He didn’t think I gave the best effort. I’m out here every day grinding my (rear end) off. You know, giving it my all and trying to stay on the field for 160 games out here.”

Start before Marmol did. Whatever your opinion on his airing that particular view of a player in public, know with confidence it was expressed to the player privately before that happened. Both parties confirmed as much, and Marmol explained the next morning O’Neill was permitted to finish Tuesday’s game because the manager wanted to review video and make sure his player hadn’t been playing through an undisclosed injury.

The video showed what Marmol saw in real time. O’Neill insisted he was healthy. And so the first fork in the road arrived.

There was a way to stop the story from spilling over. Marmol, for instance, could have professed to address things internally. O’Neill could have gone a step further in accepting blame once it was offered publicly. Either could’ve stomped the flames. Both chose not to.

Wednesday, which might’ve calmed troubled waters, ratcheted up the storm.

‘There’s a standard’

The explanation Marmol offered in his office that morning was a doubling down on Tuesday’s statements, which is well within his rights, especially given his consistency.

“There’s a standard,” he said. “You either do it or you don’t. I don’t see any other way around it. That’s how I do life.”

As far as his player’s professing a desire to stay on the field? “Everybody wants to stay healthy,” Marmol rebutted. “Arenado, (Goldschmidt), Donovan, Edman. You go down the list, I’m sure everybody wants to stay healthy.”

From there, the disagreements were lower grade. O’Neill told reporters Wednesday morning his absence from the lineup was due to a scheduled off day. Marmol, asked if his player was benched, would say only, “Dylan Carlson is in centerfield today.” Asked if O’Neill would be back in the starting lineup Friday in Milwaukee, Marmol assessed that as “not an important question.”

A fair question, he admitted, but not one he was eager to answer.

What is the ‘why’?

If all of this seems petty, it’s because it seems to rub up against some of the most fundamental and fundamentally strange aspects of baseball culture. One of the worst things a player can be accused of — on the field — is dogging it. One of the most frustrating things for a manager is to see a coach — in this case, Pop Warner at third base — take the heat for a player he believes made a mistake.

All the while, the Cardinals find themselves having cleared out room for O’Neill to become their starting centerfielder, and for better or worse, clearly don’t feel they’re getting the expected return on their investment.

Still, that is all “what.” Where on earth is the “why?” What’s the upside — either for the team or the player — in making this a public situation five games into the season? Discontent in a clubhouse is nothing new and not every manager and every player in the history of baseball have had a wine and roses relationship.

But this situation is perhaps the most public dispute between two parties in these positions since Mike Matheny and Yadier Molina got into a spat over whether Molina was “tired” during the 2017 season.

Smolder or doused?

There are no passive-aggressive — or, just aggressive — Instagram posts in the offing here. O’Neill pinch hit and played two innings in left field to finish Wednesday’s matinee. If he’s back in the rotation and out of the penalty box, perhaps Thursday’s off day will allow things to cool down rather than boil over.

For everyone’s sake, that’s the best possible outcome. When these situations burn hot, they certainly need to burn quickly, and be doused.

If allowed to smolder, it’s impossible to say how bad the next flare up might be.