Cardinals Capitalize On Costly Mistakes, 2 Back From The Braves

The Cardinals were staring their third straight loss in the face going into the 9th innning today at Busch. Since that 9th inning collapse to the Mets Thursday, today looked like the day to begin losing hope. Sure Atlanta was losing to the Nats, but so were we going to the 9th. It was a 1 run affair in which we were on the losing side and we all feared we finally hit our wall.

Since the 9th inning Thursday where the Mets capped their unfathomable 6 run 9th to take the game 8 to 6, we just seem to be rattled. It was one thing to then let the Cubs take Game one Friday night, but today our offense yet again just seemed out of it.

The team who scored 67 in their last 15 was finally having trouble driving in runs, and against the Cubs of all teams.

Maybe I was playing Fortune Teller on that call, but we always seem to struggle against the Cubs when we are fighting for playoff spots and they are well out of it. That’s what makes this a terrific rivalry I imagine though, it keeps it alive and well. No matter how long the “Cubbie Curse” is in swing, they still always seem to one up us when we need a victory the most.

Saturday marked the return of Matt Holliday and we thought this would really just keep that recent hot trend going. Kyle Lohse pitched well but gave up the games lone run in the first in this fairly boring game. All seemed lost and we really began to lose hope thinking today would dwindle the Braves magic number to two.

The tough Carlos Marmol took the ball in the 9th and everything just seemed to fall apart for the Cubs.

With one out, Matt Holliday singled to kick start the rally before David Freese strikes out, two away. Yadi and Skip are walked to load the bases before Marmol foolishly walks in the run to Ryan Theriot to tie the game. Rafael Furcal comes in to play the hero and Marmol throws a wild pitch to score Adron Chambers.

The only thing that beat the Cubs today was….the Cubs. Well, Carlos Marmol to be more specific. We got lucky.

For the team that lost a tough one Thursday to a fluke rally that should have never happened, this is an important turn of events. The team just looked dejected today, I turned it off for a few innings because I thought they were going to beat themselves with the attitude I saw on display. Frankly speaking, the Cubs handed them the greatest present of all today on a silver platter and hope is alive and well once again.

Both the Cardinals and Braves are down to four a piece and the schedules definitely favor the Cardinals greatly. The Braves number to clinch is three and anything can happen with the way these two teams have played the last month or so. The best the Cards can do is come in and win, if they win out, they got this. I see the Braves losing 2 of the next four at least, three or four would of course be amazing.

Tomorrow is going to obviously be the turning point as to whether this is really going to happen or not. Worst case scenario, Braves win and the Cardinals lose, the magic number thus becomes 1 and the Cards are all but done. If we copy the results today, we move a game behind them and things really get interesting.

All we can do is build upon the result today and hope from here on we can keep it together to finish strong. From there it becomes a waiting game and our playoff hopes rest on two East Coast teams that are more than capable of helping us out.