St. Louis Cardinals: What if this is as good as it gets?

Heading into tonight’s contest against the Reds, the St. Louis Cardinals currently sit a who game out of the wild card second slot.  With the remaining schedule, is this as good as the 2016 team can expect?

St. Louis Cardinals fans are spoiled indeed.  After four straight seasons of postseason baseball, we expect our birds to play in October and demand it without question of the team and its leadership.  This season, however, we are not seeing similar results.

I don’t want to belabor the point that we have all come to understand too well that these St. Louis Cardinals just aren’t as good as they should be.  We agree with that without worry.  Before the first pitch tonight, the Cardinals find themselves outside looking in at the wild card.  And by a whole game.  Can they improve?

The St. Louis Cardinals have tonight and tomorrow to face the Cincinnati Reds for the final time in 2016.  The Reds are weak on paper but this meant very little on Monday when they absolutely shellacked the Cardinals.  The absence of Billy Hamilton and Zack Cozart should help the Cardinals.  That is, however, if the Cardinals can help themselves.

Tuesday night’s game showed the power these Cardinals can present when they help themselves.  Having power off the bats of Matt Carpenter (despite his “injured” finger), Jhonny Peralta, Randal Grichuk, Matt Adams, and the emotional grand slam from Aledmys Diaz shows just how formidable these boys can be.  If only they believed in themselves as we fans WANT to believe in them…

Looking ahead, then, the St. Louis Cardinals have only the Pittsburgh Pirates remaining on the schedule after they finish this bought with the Reds.  The Pirates are gasping for breath too and maybe these birds can steal some wins against them.  That said, I thought they would steal a great number of wins against these Reds.

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As it relates to those the Cards are chasing, the Giants face the sputtering-but-still-danger-laden Rockies (whom they defeated last night) tonight and tomorrow before finishing their season against the Dodgers.  The Dodgers are division champs already.  Resting their players would make sense and this might help the Giants.  This rest for players means not risking injury and that might allow the Giants an easier path to wins.

The St. Louis Cardinals are also behind the New York Mets for the wild card.  The Mets have the easiest schedule of the wild card teams.  They are facing the Marlins tonight (are currently tied in the fourth inning) and then face the nothing-to-lose Phillies.

Let’s jump to the chase… What if one game out is how the 2016 St. Louis Cardinals will end their campaign?  Will that be okay?  Will that be enough for us fans?  Many of us, myself included, have ground our teeth at this team until we are now only able to each soft foods.  To us, this ending might be not enough.

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In all honesty, with all the injuries and struggles, this ending might be the most appropriate for the 2016 Cardinals.  It is time for us all to come to terms with this and look toward 2017.  Redbird Rant writers are excited to cover the offseason and we want YOU to stay with us for it all!