Turbulent yet exciting Cardinals will make this season a thriller to the absolute end
Strap in for a bumpy ride, baseball fans. This team is Jekyll and Hyde all the way.
Now that the roster is mostly locked in, except for waiver additions or further injury (get well, Lance Lynn!), it’s a good time to warn the masses about St. Louis Cardinals baseball: They rarely make anything easy for their fans. Not exactly a mess but troubling every third day, they hold the attention better than last year’s putrid team. I used to tell my hockey readers over at the now-retired fan-made newspaper, St. Louis Game Time, to buy more bourbon for an exciting yet unpredictably turbulent Blues team.
The 2024 Cardinals, or the last ten years of St. Louis teams for that matter, like to go the hard way. If the highway was a clean blanket of concrete, they would take the tree-covered road up to the driveway, or destination. For the Cards, the endgame is simple and direct: get into the postseason. Win the division, and save yourself a do-or-die playoff series. The sting of that too quick defeat against Philadelphia two years ago hasn’t gone away. It’s the itchy mosquito bite that still sits red four days later.
The facts don’t lie. The Cardinals have won a single playoff series since 2014. A year after that, they were bounced by the Cubs. After three seasons of playoff-less baseball, they beat the Atlanta Braves only to be defeated by Washington on their way to a World Series title. They lost two of three to the Padres in the 2020 wildcard series. 2021 was extra brutal. The Los Angeles Dodgers and Chris Taylor knocked the Birds out in a winner-take-all one-off.
2022 was the Philly debacle. 2023 finished far away from a playoff spot. At this moment, the Cardinals are pushing back up towards Milwaukee, gaining two games in the past two days. They are five games back, and have six games to play with their newfound division goal line protector. St. Louis sits a game and a half behind San Diego for the third wildcard spot, with the New York Mets in between.
Following a rousing 10-1 defeat of Texas that gave the Cardinals a series win, they still stand outside the playoff picture. While the Tommy Pham effect didn’t take long to light up inside this team’s belly-he has four hits in five at-bats-St. Louis needs to achieve a less shaky form of consistency. The team that showed up against Atlanta and the Rangers didn’t against Pittsburgh and Washington. That needs to be fixed.
A great start from 2021 first round pick Michael McGreevy (seven innings!) and the incoming Erick Fedde should stabilize a rotation that needed a change of tires. The latter arm makes his debut against the Cubs this weekend. Facing the last place small bears, the Cardinals can’t afford to drop a deuce at Wrigley. All the excitement from this series will be lost.
Like I said, hang on for the final two months. Milwaukee is uneven enough to not run away with it, but that doesn’t mean they are going away. The wildcard spots remain in hot contention. The Cardinals are 56-52, a leap from last year but still needing much more polish. A berserk Paul Goldschmidt or Nolan Arenado would be lovely… like any time now.
Pham should be a nice injection of a special midseason coffee blend called wake-the-fuck-up! He doesn’t care about tomorrow; the man’s avenging the past with every big performance on the field. All that time he spent hurt early on in his career didn’t put out the fire this guy has for playing baseball. He just brings the same level of competition as a football player. Once again, he’s four for his first five as a Cardinal, including a grand slam last night.
Look for Memphis closer Ryan Loutos to help the bullpen, along with new guy Shawn Armstrong. New guys bring their own personality to the clubhouse, and that helps shape their first impression. With a retooled roster, the Cardinals should be set to roll.
Then again, no one really knows what the next week of Cardinals baseball looks like. There’s a fun, reckless abandon in that notion, and a frustrating inability to climb completely over a wall.
Remember the bourbon.