The team was especially fortunate to have some excellent pitchers like Paul Viole, Jason Quintana, Nathan Holcombe, and Jimmy Lane. The answer is simple. They were a brand-new team. The only player to return from last season was Nathan Holcombe. All the rest of the players had never played together on the same team.
Major leagues have spring training to allow the new players to get used to the team.
The Valley League has no such luxury. The players finish school for the year and then arrive in Front Royal to begin the season. Whatever experience they gain as a team must come during the season. Cardinals fans will remember that in the last half of the season, the team did remarkably better than in the first half. More than half of the games the Cardinals won were in the last half of the season.