Looking at the St. Louis Cardinals’ schedule ahead
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The Cardinals did not take advantage of a worn out Reds bullpen. They pretty much let their starters go as deep as starters end up going nowadays. They let their starter for hire Kent Emmanuel survive through 5 innings despite about two baserunners per inning, but that’s fine because they won anyway. I was definitely more annoyed they let Rhett Lowder get two outs in the 7th inning. The Reds bullpen exited Monday less taxed than the Cardinals somehow. They also let Andrew Abbot pitch into the 7th inning as well. Meanwhile the Reds offense did basically what I wanted the Cardinals offense to do, at least with regards to working the starters.
So I think they bungled their advantage. If they win later today, that’s okay, I will take 3 out of 5 against any team. It could have been a much better series, but while the Reds offense hasn’t been that good, they’ve been very good at making the Cardinals use every bit of their bullpen, leading to Matthew Libertore needing to stay in to allow a three-run homer, because Luis Gastelum was the only functioning right-handed arm and he threw 40 pitches in the past 3 days! Riley O’Brien, George Soriano, Ryne Stanek, and Gordon Graceffo were all required on both Monday and Tuesday. We saw how Justin Bruhl did yesterday. Peter Strzelecki threw 46 pitches on Monday, so he was still unavailable today I’m sure.
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So you’re going to have to miss me with the “Oli blew it” calls. He had no choice. They had gotten to the point where they needed length from a starter and he just made a bad pitch on 1-2. Not sure why they called a fastball there, but whatever. On a day where he had 9 strikeouts and no walks. A starting pitcher throwing 6 innings with 3 ER at Great American Ballpark should still win most of those games. The offense has been a huge disappointment this entire series in my honest opinion. After a great Cubs series, they have not come through, scoring 2, 3, 4, and 5 runs which I don’t know why we are surprised that resulted in a 2-2 series tie at a huge hitter’s park. Anyway rant over.
The Schedule Ahead
It feels like a lost cause to ask for this, because it does not feel like the Cardinals ever hit well on getaway day games, but Brady Singer is a bad pitcher. He has had a huge home run problem this year, no doubt due to the park he plays in. The offense really needs to show up. 2-3 runs and letting Singer go 6 – I mean that might work because it’s not like the Reds offense is good either, but come on guys please take advantage of this ballpark at least once. This feels like an identical series that we would have if this was played at Busch Stadium more or less.
Michael McGreevy is pitching which I like. But I consider today’s game about as close to a must-win as a game can be in this time of year. It is not literally must-win, because they have enough time to make up for it, but 66-63 and 65-64 is a mighty big difference and the Reds are not a good team. Feel like you kind of have to win these series.
Past the Reds, the Cardinals have a very difficult series in Philadephia. Like if they win today and then they win the series in Philly, I’m going to become a true believer in this team. They have to face Jesus Luzardo and Christopher Sanchez. They are also facing Andrew Painter again and I actually think seeing him for a second time will help the offense. But very clear strategy in this series. Win the Painter game and find a way to win one of the others.
Then they head back to St. Louis and face the Baltimore Orioles for three games. Orioles are an underperforming, but talented team, so I don’t want to overlook them. But they are five games under .500 and have a -31 run differential, so certainly a series you need to win. Then Pittsburgh comes into town for three games. They actually have a +31 run differential, so they may actually be a good team. Let’s hope there’s some unforeseen reason they are badly underperforming there and win that series as well.
You’ll notice, as I go through these series, I’ll never say sweep. That is an unreasonable expectation. My goal is to win every series until the end of the season. I firmly believe if that happens, they make the playoffs. What a sweep allows you to do is give you wiggle room in case you lose a series, which is almost inevitable. But for a particular series, I think you’re setting yourself up for failure to expect a sweep, because they are hard and they don’t happen often. The Cardinals have swept just three teams all year and they’ve been swept twice. It might happen a fourth or fifth time, but I’m not going to predict the team.
After that, the Cardinals head to Los Angeles to face the Dodgers. Let’s hope that the Dodgers continue coasting on the fact that they know they’ll make the playoffs, because aside from winning two straight against the Rockies, they haven’t really played all that well in the 2nd half. Facing the Dodgers in September is not the worst thing honestly, especially if they just take it for granted that they’ll win their division. Still a tough series to win.
And then they head to Colorado to face the Rockies at Coors Field. Unfortunately, Coors Field is always a tough place to play so despite the Rockies being bad, it’s not a sure thing they win this series. I mean we’ve seen this in recent years. The Rockies have played pretty well against the Cardinals. They then have three games in San Francisco, which I want to pencil down as a series win, but I am forever scarred by the 2010 Giants teams and I think they might have a voodoo doll of every Cardinals player.
They then head back to St. Louis to face the surprising White Sox. I confess I don’t know much about the White Sox this year, so I’ll just trust their record and say they’re going to be a hard team. There is a part of me that views them as the anti-Blue Jays though where in the back of my mind, I’m thinking “they aren’t actually this good and some team is gonna show them.” Why not the Cardinals?
And then the Giants meet us in St. Louis. After that, the Nationals play the Cardinals for three games in St. Louis. This is quite the extended stretch of bad teams, and also the White Sox in the middle of it. Ignoring the White Sox, let’s say the two Giants series, the Rockies series, and the Nationals series. The Cardinals need to figure out a way to win three of them and sweep the fourth. So I don’t care how they do it, it would be extremely helpful to the Cardinals playoff chances if they could take advantage of this weak stretch and go 9-3 in those four series. That’s asking a lot, but they may need a lot.
So you have to like the Cardinals’ odds honestly if they manage to survive through the next few series with series wins. That’s why I’m emphasizing series wins. Philly, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and LA is not a tremendously difficult stretch, but if they can come out of it with the equivalent of four series wins – if one is a sweep and one is a series loss, I don’t care – then they are really well-set up, because it’s a bunch of weaker teams after that. And the White Sox, who again I don’t know anything about but because they won 60 games last year, I kind of find it hard to fully buy into their record. My only point is that if the White Sox is the difficult team in a stretch of 15 games, that’s a pretty easy stretch. And they’re at home against the White Sox too, though that’s bad for the offense.
They do finish the season with two difficult opponents, albeit one of them will likely have zero to play for. They face the Pirates in Pittsburgh for three games. The Pirates might be out of it at this point, but they’re a young team and they’re going want to knock the Cardinals out of the playoffs I’d think. So I am worried about this series. And then they finish the season in Milwaukee. Which I am not as worried about because there’s a very good chance Milwaukee will have absolutely nothing to play for, so they’re going to hold back their toughest starters for the playoffs. Milwaukee is of course good enough that they can still win, but the last series of the year being against a team who has already locked up a playoff spot isn’t the worst thing. Same logic as my Dodgers comments, but even more so here.
Weirdly, going over the schedule has somehow made me more optimistic about making the playoffs. Not that i expect it, but there’s a route to it for sure. The next week is going to be critical. Today is going to be critical. Their toughest opponents are arguably in the next week and a half. I say they need to win the series, but they just need to make sure they’re still in it really. Don’t get swept. Maybe some teams ahead of us help us out and we still look okay after the Dodgers. So some of it is in the Cardinals’ control and some of it isn’t. The Phillies are our direct competitor so that one is in the Cardinals control, although it won’t be easy.
But really, the main reason I’m more optimistic is because I feel like a sweep or two might actually happen? As a fan, I will not expect a sweep when the Cardinals face a bad team. But if they face 6 bad teams in a row, you have great increased the chances of one of them being a sweep. And the Cardinals are facing enough bad teams the rest of this year that it would almost be weird if they didn’t pull off one more sweep. They might bungle the playoffs in other ways and probably will, but one of the bad teams is surely going to stink it up and the Cardinals can’t let them off the hook like this series.
So win today, survive the next week and a half to get to a weaker part of the schedule, profit?