The Cardinals are in.
With last night’s 6-2 win over the Brewers, the St. Louis Cardinals continued their historic win streak, extending it to 17 games while also clinching the second NL Wild Card.
Many moons ago, the Cardinals looked dead in the water. In fact, on June 27, they sat in fourth place in the NL Central with a 37-41 record. Jack Flaherty and Miles Mikolas got hurt, and they only seemed to be winning when Adam Wainwright took the mound.
Even when they got their heads back above water, inconsistencies still plagued them. The offense was feast or famine, and the bullpen couldn’t hold leads. Come September 8, St. Louis was just a game over the .500 mark.
Since then, they’ve only lost once. Fast forward to today, and they’ve won a franchise record 17 consecutive games.
“To start, it’s been fun. Secondly, it’s just been professional,” said Harrison Bader, who’s offensive turnaround played a key role in the Cardinals run. “There were games where we were behind to start, but it was just head down. We didn’t know who was going to do it, but someone’s going to do it, and that mentality is contagious, it’s dangerous, it’s intentional. And being around a group of guys like that, man it’s just an absolute blast day in and day out.”
Pitching plagued them through the first few months of the season, but the acquisitions of J.A. Happ and Jon Lester gave a faltering rotation a much needed boost and helped propel them to October baseball.
“It’s been a total team effort every single night,” said Adam Wainwright, who picked up his team leading 17th win and is now on track to start the Wild Card game next Wednesday. “Everybody’s bringing their hero card on every given night. It’s a lot of impact players on this team and they’re showing up every day and doing something cool.”
One of those impact players is Nolan Arenado, the Cardinals big offseason acquisition who endeared himself to the fans immediately and earned an All-Star Game start along the way.
“I’m just thankful to be a part of this team,” said Arenado. “This team is unbelievable. We’ve carried each other. I’m just happy to be a part of it, I mean this is why I’m here, having this chance to go to the playoffs. And to be able to do it in the first year is a great feeling.”
On August 8, St. Louis was 55-56 and 8 ½ games behind the Padres for the second Wild Card. Since then, they’re 33-13, while San Diego has collapsed and been eliminated from postseason contention.
“These guys have not stopped fighting and it’s been fun to watch,” Jack Flaherty said. “I’ve watched a lot more games this year than I wanted to, but it’s been fun to watch these guys continue to fight. We always knew there was going to be a point in the season where we were going to put everything together, and it’s been fun. It’s been a lot of fun to root for these guys and it doesn’t seem like anything’s stopping anytime soon.”
St. Louis will now wait and see what happens in the NL West, as whoever is the runner up, the Giants or Dodgers, will be their opponent next week in the playoffs.
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