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Did anyone expect the St. Louis Cardinals to be this good in 2025? With May winding down, the Cardinals find themselves in 2nd place in the NL Central with a 27-21 record, trailing their rival Chicago Cubs by only 1 game. This is solely due to their impressive 9-game win streak in May that has brought them back into relevance. With a team record of 14-19 to begin May, it has been quite the turnaround. With summer knocking on the door, can the Cardinals continue this success? Or is this just a hot stretch that will fade away and the team will go back down to preseason expectations? Let's look at what has made the Cardinals a serious threat for postseason contention and what remains in question that can put a stop to this success.
Reasons to believe: hitting and defense
What has changed the identity to the 2025 Cardinals has been their offensive performance and their top-of-the-league defense. New hitting coach Brant Brown is getting universal praise from Cardinals fans for finally producing a consistent offense. After nearly a decade of under performing team offense behind several different hitting coaches, the team has finally tapped into their potential. The team as a whole is ranked 2nd in batting average and hits across the whole league. 2nd in doubles, 5th in OBP, 7th in RBI, 9th in SLG, and top 10 in strikeouts. It takes runs to win ballgames, and the Cardinals have been doing this at a very high level in 2025. Contributions from their young talent like Brendan Donovan, Lars Nootbaar, Victor Scott, and Masyn Winn have made a notable difference to the overall production.
What has made the biggest difference is the overall team defense. An organization that has taken much pride in their defensive prowess, the team lost their ways over the past couple seasons. In recent memory, players such as Kolten Wong, Tommy Edman, Harrison Bader, Tyler O'Neill, Brendan Donovan, Paul Goldschmidt, and Nolan Arenado have all won a Gold Glove wearing the birds on the bat. But the team slipped up in 2023 and ranked 24th across all of MLB in defense per FanGraphs, and 17th in 2024. But so far in 2025, the Cardinals are ranked 2nd. When looking at outs above average, they are far ahead of the next best team. From the old adage used in football, "defense wins championships," the Cardinals in 2025 are taking this to heart.