St. Louis Cardinals begin season’s final stretch in control of own playoff destiny
Perhaps no visual better summed up the St. Louis Cardinals trip to New York than that of Harrison Bader, sitting in front of a camera for a postgame interview with two pieces of pizza stacked on top of each other, devouring the pile for all the world to see.
“New York-style pizza, New York-style bagels, it’s just good for the soul,” the Bronxville, NY native explained between bites.
How about New York-style baseball?
With their first Amazin’ sweep in Queens since 2001, the Cardinals vaulted themselves back into a playoff spot, in control of the second wild card as their closest opponents — the San Diego Padres — arrive in St. Louis for the most crucial weekend series of the season. With 17 games to play, their magic number is 17. Win, and they’re in.
The brand of winning ball they found this week leaned largely on their defense, as the wizardly spanned from a game-saving, tenth inning double play pivoted around Paul Goldschmidt in Tuesday’s tenth inning to a lead-preserving, full extension, tongue out over the wall snag by recently inserted Lars Nootbaar on Wednesday.
Again and again, the strongest phase of their collective games stood up, and for perhaps the first consistent time this season, it was supported by a crafty pitching staff and a suddenly relentless offense that battered the Mets for 25 runs in three games.
It was their highest scoring three-game series of the season.
“I would say that’s accurate,” Cardinals manager Mike Shildt said when asked if his club was playing its best baseball of the season. “Ultimately the best baseball is when you’re doing it all together. You’re getting the hitting, you have consistent at bats, you’re getting the quality pitching.”
They’re getting it all at the best possible time. The head-to-head matchup with the Padres will present a direct test of where the team truly is, but the trend lines don’t lie. The Cardinals have won seven of their last 10 games entering play Friday. Of the four teams still reasonably competitive in the wild card hunt, the Padres and Phillies have won four of ten and the Reds and Mets three of ten.
If the Cardinals were waiting for the right time to get hot, they appear to have found it.
It’s a drastic turn-around for a team that, barely a week ago, looked like they didn’t have enough gas to crawl across the finish line. Given the brutality of the 2020 season and the expended exhaustion it’s required to march through 2021, the Cardinals could almost have been forgiven for capitulating. They could’ve put up a representative fight but packed it in all the same, nods given toward next year.
Enjoyable New York trip
And yet the team’s first trip to New York since June of 2019 seemed to land like a spa retreat. Bader, the hometown boy, climbed up into the stands down the third base line during pregame work on both Monday and Tuesday to shake hands and take pictures with seemingly every little league player for five boroughs. Yadier Molina, Edmundo Sosa, Luis García and others did extended interviews with Spanish language media outlets, taking the opportunity to reach out directly to fans on the occasion of MLB’s celebration of Roberto Clemente.
Several pitchers met with representatives of the commissioner’s office to test drive prototypes of tacky baseballs which may yet resolve the game’s fight against foreign substances. Some simply racked up good Instagram content, hitting the city’s most famous landmarks for the first time in their careers — or, in the case of 33-year-old Kwang Hyun Kim, the first time in his life.
“Last year was very sterile, as we know, so it’s good to see everybody back,” Shildt said. “It’s about the next generation of the game, and what that looks like. And so it’s great to be able to play in front of people and get together like this.”
“I don’t know if we ever take for granted people being around, but now we definitely don’t take it for granted.”
‘It’s really special’
Bader’s fourth inning homer Wednesday was an object lesson in the value of the presence of people. As he skipped across home plate and headed back to the dugout, he stopped at the screen for some celebratory high fives — his parents and Uncle Joseph were in the front row, more than happy to see him hit.
“I mean, it’s really special,” Bader said. “There’s no doubt about it.
“My mother and father, they’ve seen me since I was four or five years old picking up a wiffle ball bat, and now we’re where we are. So for them, it’s very special. And I’m just very happy that they’re around to experience it with me.”
The mental struggles of the game can be mitigated by creature comforts and professional accommodations, but it seems that nothing is more soothing for the mind than a victory. For all of the positive talk and pointing in the right direction, ripping off a few wins goes an awfully long way toward making a tired team look suddenly like they’re primed for take off.
‘We’re gonna build off what we did’
It’s now, again, a race to the finish.
“We’re gonna build off of what we did,” Shildt said. “We feel good about it, obviously. And we’ll get back, we’ll take a day tomorrow and we’ll get ready to play on Friday and hope to play good, clean, solid baseball, regardless of the game. We’re gonna put it all together and go get after it. I can promise you that.”
It comes down to reality, and it’s fine with them ‘cause they’ve let it slide.