Celebrating the St. Louis Cardinals making the MLB playoffs in a weird baseball season

The St. Louis Cardinals have reached the conclusion of the most bizarre season in Major League Baseball history, and I still don’t know how to feel about this team.

On one hand, it’s amazing that a team that was idled for two and a half weeks because of a COVID-19 outbreak came back to post a winning record and make it to the playoffs — even if they’re ridiculously expanded, so much so that teams with sub .500 records made the postseason. On the other, the Cardinals had the weakest schedule in baseball for the second half of the season and, with a healthy team back on the field, they were unable to take advantage of the season, losing a lot of games they should have won to some of the weakest clubs in baseball.

I’m glad that the Cardinals won their way into the playoff bracket, handling the Milwaukee Brewers themselves and avoiding a difficult and unfortunate doubleheader Monday in Detroit. Unfortunately, by winning their way to the fifth seed, the Cardinals have earned themselves a three-game set against the San Diego Padres, one of the toughest, hottest clubs in baseball right. But you have to beat the best to be the best. So, while they face a daunting road to the World Series, it really doesn’t matter in what order you play the teams you need to beat to get there.

To put a bow on the regular season, as we have a couple of days to ponder until the playoffs start, here are three things I am grateful for about the 2020 season — and three things I could have done without:

Ranting about the St. Louis Cardinals

• The big concern about a relatively meaningless professional sports season is the fear that players are going to get hurt, basically for nothing. It happened at the tail end of the season, but that’s exactly the case for the Cardinals who saw Dakota Hudson lost for the remaining 2020 schedule -- and probably all of the 2021 season -- with a torn ligament in his pitching elbow. It’s terrible timing for Hudson, 26, who will miss two big years in his prime and a lot of earning power out of the situation. And it’s bad for the Cardinals who, if they were going to be able to add to their offensive firepower over the winter, were likely going to have to deal from their pitching depth to do it.
• St. Louis missed the postseason two of the previous three years and one major reason for the failures was poor defense and fundamentals. The improvements in preventing runs the team saw in 2019 seemed to take a step backwards in 2020. There were far too many mental errors made by a team that should be better with the gloves, on the bases and in moving up base runners because of its athleticism. The Cardinals don’t score enough runs to be sloppy, so this team needs to be better about doing the little things right to separate itself from other clubs. And something has to be done about the strikeouts.
• The reason the Cardinals claimed they didn’t bring back Marcell Ozuna or sign another slugging outfielder to bat in the middle of the order was because the front office types wanted to see what the team’s young fly chasers could do. The answer was loud and clear: Not much. Tyler O’Neill got a long look in left field and turned in a disturbing .175 batting average with and equally pathetic .260 on base percentage. He struck out 43 times in 137 at-bats. Harrison Bader had an impressive last week of the season, including a home run halfway up Big Mac Land in the left field upper deck at Busch Stadium. But he only hit .226 for the year with a .328 on-base percentage. He struck out 40 times in 126 at-bats. Lane Thomas hit .111 and struck out one-third of the time in 40 trips to the plate. Also a disappointment in a make-good season: enigmatic pitcher Carlos Martinez who sought to prove he deserves to be in the starting rotation but left me wondering if he even deserves to be on the roster next season.

Raving about the St. Louis Cardinals

• The best thing that could happen to the Cardinals in 2020 was to see Paul Goldschmidt play like the guy he was back in his Arizona Diamondbacks days — and that’s exactly what the team got. After a ho hum first year with the Cardinals, Goldschmidt turned in a .304 batting average to lead the team. He also led the club in on-base plus slugging percentage by more than 100 points. He could really use some help in the middle next season. But Goldschmidt showed that his 2019 numbers were a fluke and he’s definitely someone the team can build around in 2021.
• I don’t think there were many St. Louis sports fans who held out hope that Alex Reyes was ever going to be the guy we hoped he would be three years ago before a pile of injuries derailed his career. But he showed in 2020 that all the ability is still there, earning an increasingly important role in the bullpen as the season went on. It’s definitely reasonable to think that Reyes could be a major contributor in 2021, either nailing down a spot in the starting rotation or working in high leverage situations out of the back end of the bullpen. I’m glad to see all his hard work to come back over and over again finally pay off.
• It was a great season for two Cardinals favorites, Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina. They both showed that they’re not just nostalgia acts, they were two of their team’s best players in 2020. Here’s to hoping that the right thing happens and that they’re both back with the Cardinals in 2021. It just wouldn’t be right for two legendary players who have earned their way into the statistical realm of the greatest players in St. Louis sports history to end their tenure here in empty ballparks. I, for one, don’t want to remember that Molina’s last regular season at-bat with the Cardinals ended in a triple play. Let’s not fool around with this, fellas. Get Yadi and Wain signed sooner than later. There is no reason for either of those two to ever wear another team’s uniform.

In the end, it was a weird and uncomfortable season with stupid changes like the addition of the designated hitter in the National League, a runner on second base in extra innings and seven-inning games. But, as tough as it was to watch at times, I already miss baseball. Here’s to hoping the Cardinals have a lot of games left in them, somehow beating the Padres in round one and running deep into October.