ST. LOUIS — The bases were loaded with no outs in the top of the first Tuesday night, and the Pittsburgh Pirates had already scored a run. Andre Pallante stood on the mound at Busch Stadium, took a deep breath and tried to collect his bearings. This was a situation the 26-year-old right-hander had become quite familiar with. The opposing team was threatening to put the game away before the St. Louis Cardinals even had a chance to hit, and Pallante’s recent track record in preventing that has not been promising.

Desperate to stop that trend from continuing, Pallante reared back and delivered a first-pitch 95-mile-per-hour fastball to Andrew McCutchen, and then watched in dismay as the 17-year veteran smoked it to right field for a two-run single. The Pirates scored four times that inning before the Cardinals could record an out, with run No. 5 coming on a sacrifice fly. They scored eight total runs off Pallante that night (seven earned). The Cardinals lost 8-3.

Such has been the nature of Pallante’s start days as of late. He holds a 7.91 ERA since the All-Star break and has sharply declined in August in particular. In the five starts he’s made this month, Pallante has recorded at least four earned runs in four of them, including an especially egregious outing against the Chicago Cubs in which he allowed six earned runs over 1 2/3 innings.

But Tuesday’s outing marked a low point for Pallante, who was noticeably upset in his postgame interview. He has worked all year to find a way to be more effective against left-handed hitters. He’s tried to integrate more spin, mix up his arsenal, use his curveball more — all to no avail. Pallante’s underlying metrics show his stuff to be similar to 2024’s, and suggest his results should be better. But that has not been the case where it matters, in the box score.

“I’m definitely frustrated,” Pallante said Tuesday night. “I want to give quality starts, good starts for this team, so we go out there and win games. It’s frustrating, but I’m doing the work that I can, showing up each and every day, trying to improve myself and be better.”

There’s no questioning the work ethic, but there is plenty to question about performance — particularly if Pallante should remain in the rotation. It was a main discussion point over the last couple of days among manager Oli Marmol, pitching coach Dusty Blake and president of baseball operations John Mozeliak.

“We have to take a look and figure out what’s best for (Pallante), but also take into consideration all the other variables of what we have below,” Marmol said Tuesday night. “There are more moving parts.”

Yet after multiple days of deliberation, the Cardinals came to the same conclusion. Sometimes the best option — to use a common baseball term — is to wear it.

Pallante will take his next scheduled start Sunday against the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park, Marmol said Thursday morning, before the Cardinals’ 4-1 win over the Pirates. It’s a decision that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense from a game score perspective. But what the Cardinals are trying to accomplish with the remainder of their season is far bigger than wins or losses.

As St. Louis prepares for a rebuild, fortifying its pitching will be at the forefront. Given the astronomical prices of starting pitching on the free-agent and trade market, the most sustainable way to do so is to invest in homegrown options. This is also the route that will take the longest; there is no instant fix for developing a pipeline of pitching.

Next year’s rotation is far from set. Miles Mikolas will be a free agent, and though Sonny Gray has one year remaining on his deal, there is a chance he’s a trade candidate over the winter. Top pitching prospect Quinn Mathews has a 3.74 ERA in 18 games in Memphis this year, and 2025 first-round draft pick Liam Doyle projects to be a quick-riser through the organization’s minor-league system. But the Cardinals, especially under a new front office in Chaim Bloom and Rob Cerfolio, will not rush their top arms for the sake of need, not when developing internally remains a priority. The problem? Pitching depth, specifically in the upper levels of the farm system, is scarce.

There is a scenario coming next spring in which Pallante, Matthew Liberatore and Michael McGreevy make up the bulk of the 2026 Opening Day rotation. If that’s the case, the Cardinals should be giving Pallante every opportunity to get right against major-league pitching — at least until it becomes detrimental to his own development. That there are few viable alternatives doesn’t leave the club much of a choice anyway.

To say the Cardinals have no options in Triple A would not be true. The club signed two right-handers — Aaron Wilkerson and Curtis Taylor — to serve as minor-league depth options. Both have performed well in those roles. Wilkerson has a 3.27 ERA over 33 innings for Memphis after coming into the organization halfway through the season. Taylor has made 20 starts for Memphis with a 7-4 record and a 3.30 ERA.

But there is a vast jump in talent from Triple A to the major leagues, and there’s no guarantee that either arm will fare better than Pallante. Could the Cardinals give either pitcher a shot, just to see? Sure, but the organization does not view either arm as a factor for 2026, and it does view Pallante as such. By continuing to start Pallante, the organization risks sending a message of complacency to an already apathetic fan base, one that recorded a record-low in single-game attendance of 17,675 in Monday’s series opener. But if the Cardinals are truly committed to this rebuild, they must become comfortable with decisions such as these.

Pallante knows exactly how he wants to attack hitters. After his outings, he also knows exactly what went wrong and what he should be doing to fix it. The problem isn’t a lack of understanding; it’s a lack of execution.

“The big goal is to continue to throw strikes,” Pallante said. “So continuing to pound the zone early in counts, land my curveball and slider and keep my fastball down to the left side. When my fastball is elevated, that’s when I get hit. I’d say those are the three most important things.

“I’d like to see the ability to generate weak contact with my offspeed, the ability to throw my curveball in competitive locations that can get outs in the zone,” he added. “That’s something I really haven’t done a lot of. ”

The Cardinals would rather give Pallante another chance to see progression in those categories because they believe that is what’s best for the long-term outlook of the organization. If this were a different season, one when the Cardinals were still competing for a playoff berth, this probably would not be the direction they’d take. But at 66-69 and seven games out of the National League wild-card picture, their fate is all but sealed.

Individual performances will take priority in September. That includes Pallante — regardless of what the performance looks like — at least for the immediate future.

(Photo: Megan Briggs / Getty Images)