Photography courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, pdsphil
For the fourth straight year, the Cardinals are in the National League Championship Series. For the fifth straight time, either the Giants or the Cardinals will be kings of the NL. It’s a little hard to believe. The Cardinals started this stretch with Albert Pujols, Chris Carpenter, and Tony La Russa. They’re ending it with Matt Carpenter, Adam Wainwright, and Mike Matheny. Through it all, they just keep winning.
I know some of the Best Fans in Baseball bristle at the suggestion that the Redbirds’ postseason success in recent years has been surprising, or unpredictable, or random. Any portrayal of the team as Midwestern Cinderellas, locals think, is a clear sign of the national media bias toward major markets on the coasts.
But maybe we should see it as a compliment instead: The Cardinals tend to be good during the regular season, but when the calendar flips to October, their bats turn to magic, their pitchers become strikeout machines, and they pull off historic comebacks and remarkable upsets.
Baseball’s regular season is a six-month, 162-game grind that turns knees to dust and elbow ligaments to jelly. A winning team must overcome the rains of April, the heat of August, and the chill of late September. People mock coaches for their one-day-at-a-time clichés, but in baseball, where every turn of the calendar brings another challenge, it couldn’t be more true. It’s an endurance test, a trial by day games after night games, of endless slumps and streaks and still a game tomorrow.
The postseason isn’t like that at all. In a five-game series, anything can happen. That’s why, so often, the teams that finish with the best records in the regular season, the teams that prove themselves over that long haul, don’t advance in the playoffs.
Just think about these past four years.
In 2011, the Cardinals didn’t win their division and finished with the fourth best record in the National League. But Chris Carpenter beat Roy Halladay and the Phillies in an epic Game 5 duel on the road, the bats and bullpen blew past the Brewers, and in the World Series, David Freese assured he will never pay for another drink in this town.
In 2012, the Cardinals had an unremarkable 88-win season. They only made the playoffs because baseball added a second wild-card berth in each league. But the local nine beat the Braves in a play-in game, thanks to a controversial interpretation of the infield-fly rule. In the decisive Game 5 of the Division Series against the favored Nationals, the Cardinals fell behind 6–0 on the road. But they slowly climbed back, hit by hit, inning by inning. In the ninth, they trailed by two, when Daniel Descalso and Pete Kozma became unlikely heroes, tagging closer Drew Storen for four runs, one of the wildest postseason games in memory. In that year’s NLCS, the Giants were the ones who pulled off the seemingly impossible, overcoming a 3–1 series deficit before winning it all.
Last year, the Cardinals finished tied for the best record in the majors, so you might say their trip to the World Series was less surprising than previous runs. Still, they had to win a tight five-game series against the Pirates, with Freese again playing hero, along with Wainwright. And in the NLCS against the Dodgers, rookie phenom Michael Wacha twice beat Clayton Kershaw, the best pitcher on the planet, maybe one of the best ever.
But perhaps the most improbable series victory of all was this year’s win over the Dodgers. I’ve spent days thinking back over every detail of each game, and I’m still not entirely sure how the Cardinals pulled it off.
First, in Game One, facing Kershaw, they fell behind 6–1. All seemed lost. But Matt Carpenter homered in the sixth inning, and in the seventh, the Cardinals scored 8, capped by a three-run homer by Matt Holliday. They held on for a 10–9 win, completing a mind-boggling comeback.
In Game Four, with the Cardinals leading the series two games to one, the Dodgers again sent Kershaw to the mound. Surely, the likely league MVP and Cy Young winner, the four-time defending ERA leader wouldn’t lose four straight playoff games to the same opponent. If he could win, a Game 5 in Los Angeles with fellow ace Zack Greinke on the mound would have favored the Dodgers. Again, for six innings, Kershaw was practically unhittable. And again, the Cardinals entered the seventh inning trailing, this time 2–0.
With two runners on, Matt Adams came to the plate. The burly, left-handed first baseman hit just .190 against left-handed pitchers this year, and here he was facing the best lefty in the game. Of course, he turned on a hanging curveball and launched a three-run, game-winning home run just over the wall and into the Cardinals bullpen. Madness.
Now, the Cardinals face the Giants in the NLCS. In the division round, upsets happened everywhere. The 98-win Angels, 96-win Nationals, and 94-win Dodgers are all gone, clearing the path for the Cardinals to win it all yet again.
St. Louis has a franchise built for success. It puts a winner on the field year after year. The Cardinals beat teams with bigger payrolls. Their farm system is among the best in the game, and they’ve developed a core of young Major League talent that should keep them competitive for many seasons to come. They play the game the Cardinal Way, and while I happen to think that’s a bunch of mumbo jumbo, there’s nothing wrong with living out your values. The Cardinals don’t have anything to apologize for.
But if someone points out that the random breaks of October baseball have favored the Cardinals over the past few years? Yeah, that’s true. And it’s something to celebrate—with champagne in the locker room, humongous trophies, and shiny rings.
