The St. Louis Cardinals are on pace to be the best worst team in baseball history, if you care to see it that way.

Through their first 30 games, the Cardinals have a run differential of plus-43. That’s on pace for a plus-232 mark by season’s end, and yet the Cardinals are only .500 (15-15).

Since 1900, every team that has finished a season with a run differential of plus-200 or better has had a winning percentage of at least .570, Elias Sports Bureau research shows.

By a number of measures, the Cardinals’ offense has been one of the most productive in baseball. Entering Saturday, they are first in extra-base hits (112), second in runs scored (164), tied for third in home runs (41) and third in run differential (plus-43).

So, why don’t they have a better record?

Run polarity

All or nothing The St. Louis Cardinals' offense by runs scored this season Runs Games MLB

rank 8 or more 10 1st 1 or fewer 9 2nd

The Cardinals have scored eight or more runs in 10 games -- the most in baseball -- and they are 9-1 when they do. But when the offense is quiet, it’s really, really quiet. They’ve scored one or zero runs in nine games this season, second to the San Diego Padres. St. Louis is 0-9 in those games.

For context, the three teams that average the most runs per game (other the Cardinals) have been far steadier. The Chicago Cubs, Boston Red Sox and Colorado Rockies have scored one or zero runs nine times combined this season.

A segmentation of how the Cardinals are scoring their runs is drastically different from the norm across baseball, as the image below shows.

ESPN Stats & Information

What is the source of the lack of consistency?

Cardinals by opponent Above

.500 Below

.500 BA .223 .304 AB/HR 41.9 19.3 Runs PG 2.9 7.8 K Pct 27% 17% W-L 4-10* 11-5 * 0 or 1 run in 7 of 14 games

Strikeouts have a tendency to turn into a problem. The Cardinals average 8.3 strikeouts per game, but that number jumps to 11.2 in games when they score fewer than two runs. Though it might seem as if that’s intuitive, that trend is not nearly as significant across the rest of baseball. The other 29 teams average 8.0 strikeouts per game, and that rate rises to just 8.5 per game when the offense scores fewer than two runs.

But it’s more than just striking out more frequently. The Cardinals have a clear offensive discrepancy when it comes to the quality of opponent. Against teams with a winning record, St. Louis is hitting .223 and scoring 2.9 runs per game. Against below-.500 teams, it is hitting .304 and scoring nearly eight runs per game.

Why is this a problem?

Currently, the Cardinals have a 61 percent chance of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2010, according to FiveThirtyEight. Today, the Cubs, Nationals, Mets, Dodgers and Giants and Pirates all have better odds of playing postseason baseball.