St. Louis Cardinals show no signs of slowing down

Despite losing many of their top producers both on the mound and in the batter’s box, the St. Louis Cardinals continue to find a way to win as the end of June nears.

That success may speak to the work of manager Mike Matheny, or it could be an indicator that guys aren’t afraid of the moment and simply apply the age-old philosophy when key guys go down to injury: “Next man up.”

Despite his stated desire to return before the end of the season, it looks like ace Adam Wainwright is out for the year along with first baseman Matt Adams – an absence that leaves a big void in the heart of the St. Louis order.

Jordan Walden is still a bit of a question mark and the club has already gone stretches without on-base machine Matt Holliday, outfielders Jon Jay and Randal Grichuk and pitchers Jaime Garcia and Lance Lynn; the list goes on and on.

Yet, with Tuesday’s win over the Miami Marlins, the Cardinals keep thriving under the pressure, as they maintained their six-game edge in the NL Central, despite both the Pirates and Cubs picking up wins.

The pitching has not been too shabby either which helps off-set significant blows like the ones the St. Louis Cardinals have had to overcome in the first few months of the season.

Michael Wacha has truly been a staff ace, Garcia has been filthy since his return in May, Carlos Martinez continues to dominate, having given up three runs or less in his last seven starts, John Lackey has been steady and Tyler Lyons has done a decent job since Lynn went out with an arm injury.

Speaking of Martinez, he had another solid start last night and did a tremendous job of staying poised after the game got off to a rough start – bouncing back to turn in a quality start.

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After the St. Louis Cardinals fell behind 3-0 early in Tuesday night’s game against the Miami Marlins, what did the team do? They continued to battle and fight, and ultimately came back to tie the game and later win 4-3.

Other teams are taking notice of how great the Cards have been thus far in 2015, including opposing team’s managers, such as the Marlins skipper Dan Jennings, who spoke to media, including mlb.com, after the game.

“There’s a reason [the Cardinals] have the record they have, and when you get leadoff guys on, you’ve got to get them over and get them in, and unfortunately we didn’t do that tonight.”

To be a complete team, you obviously need little things to go right for you over the course of a 162-game schedule as well as timely hitting and pitching and after 70 games, those boxes all have checkmarks by them.

It also helps that you get strong production out of guys that step up their level of play when guys go down and that can be said about Randal Grichuk, Jason Heyward and Yadi Molina – who has carried this team for years.

All three have helped carry the offense especially as of late with the struggles of Matt Carpenter and Kolten Wong. The added production should help the club along with the efforts of recent Triple-A call ups Xavier Scruggs and Greg Garcia.

Can this trend continue for the St. Louis Cardinals? That is the question on everyone’s mind and is a legitimate one, but they have quite a few games still to play, so we can answer that question after the season.

Next: Cardinals have three in tight ASG races