The St. Louis Cardinals’ Fate Is In Their Own Hands

The Milwaukee Brewers rallied to tie the game in the ninth inning and beat the St. Louis Cardinals 3-2 in twelve innings, shrinking an already tight lead in the National League Central.

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With the late-inning defeat, the Cardinals are now up only 2.5 games in the National League Central. The Cardinals are going to have to play smart baseball from here through the end of the season. We’ve reached the point in the season where not only every game counts but every win counts!

What we know now is that the two Wild Card teams will be coming from the National League Central and West. The Atlanta Braves won’t be in the Wild Card game.

While Matt Holliday has heated up after the All-Star break, he hasn’t had the numbers that we usually expect from him. Matt Carpenter has neared .300 at times during the season but otherwise, he hasn’t had what we saw from him last season.

Yadier Molina missed some forty games for the Cardinals and when all is said, his injury will come to define the 2014 season for the Cardinals.

One thing that will have to be examined in the future is finding out if players are as healthy as they say they are. Allen Craig‘s late-season injury meant not starting his off-season routine when he usually has done. Moreover, he got off to a very weak start in 2014 and soon found himself without a position on the Cardinals. Worst of all is that manager Mike Matheny didn’t even challenge the outfielder as to whether he was still injured or not. He trusted that he was healthy. Things like this have to change.