St. Louis Cardinals: Chicago handles the Cards with ease

After a sweep at the hands of the Cubs, the St. Louis Cardinals find themselves on the verge of missing the playoffs for the second season in a row.

Last weekend, the St. Louis Cardinals were flying high. After seeing the Milwaukee Brewers sweep the Cubs at Wrigley, the Cardinals handed out a sweep of their own against the Pittsburgh Pirates, bringing them closer and closer to a playoff spot. A week later, those high hopes have suddenly become barely a thought.

Entering Friday’s highly anticipated showdown with the Cubs, the St. Louis Cardinals found themselves just a mere three games back of the division-leading Cubs. I wrote about what the Cardinals needed to do over the weekend to get out of Wrigley with at least two wins. Unfortunately, as most of you saw, the Cardinals left Chicago for the last time this season without a win, perhaps with no hope either.

Now the Cardinals find themselves a whopping six games back of the Cubs with just thirteen games to go. Last week I wrote about the Cardinals chances of making a push for the division. In that article I mentioned the Cardinals needing to go 15-7 in their last twenty-two games to make the playoffs. As of today, nine games in, the Cardinals would need to go 10-3 the rest of the way to reach my goal.

Yeah, okay.

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What about the NL Wild Card? If there is any silver lining from this weekend, it’s that neither the Brewers or Rockies really distanced themselves from the Cardinals in the Wild Card standings.

As of today, the St. Louis Cardinals are 4.5 games back of the final Wild Card spot, while Milwaukee is just 2.5 games back of the Rockies.

The lead is not insurmountable by any means, especially considering the Brewers play the Cubs and Cardinals seven more time collectively in the final week of the season.

The Rockies, however, should feel great about their chances, considering they play Giants and Padres this week.

If you are feeling like time has ran out, you wouldn’t be the only one. Plenty of Cardinal fans are saying the same thing, and have been for awhile.

The Cardinals will need some serious help along the way if they want to make it to the post-season. They need help from the Giants, Padres, and even the Brewers to make the playoffs a reality. However, as I said last week, and will continue to say, the Cardinals must take care of their own business. If they can’t do that this week against the Reds and Pirates, we might as well hope we don’t have a losing season.

Next: Adam Wainwright heads back to the bullpen

The St. Louis Cardinals are not completely out of the race. They still have a puncher’s chance of getting in, but they need some help along the way. Maybe we ought to become Giants fans and Padres fans this week?