St. Louis Cardinals: 6 MVP candidates in Cubs series sweep

The St. Louis Cardinals have been on a historic run with 16 wins in a row. Here are six players who have really stepped up.

The St. Louis Cardinals are on an unbelievable run in the month of September. With 16 wins in a row and four series wins in a row, the Cardinals seem to have accomplished the unthinkable from a month ago. They are in the second National League wild card position going in the final week of the season.

If you told me this would be the case back in August, I would be seriously concerned about you. And what you’re ingesting.

The Cardinals took a doubleheader Friday winning the day game 8-5 and the night game 12-4. The Cardinals won Saturday 8-5 and on Sunday 4-2.

This steak has seen some thrilling moments throughout, but it felt amped with this series against their rival Chicago Cubs.

Nothing was more exciting than Saturday afternoon’s double play to end the eighth inning.

Rafael Ortega hit into a fielder’s choice double play. The ball was hit to Paul Goldschmidt who threw home to Yadier Molina who threw to Nolan Arenado who threw to Tommy Edman who threw back to Molina who threw to Harrison Bader manning the second base who threw to Paul DeJong. David Bote was out at third and Trayce Thompson was out at second.

You just have to watch it:

You can watch it several times and still not believe what you are seeing! The whole team was in on it. Tyler O’Neill just watching and T.J. McFarland just taking it all in, capping it off with a fist pump. What a play by the Cardinals. Unbelievable, indeed.

Another wild play happened in the ninth inning of Sunday’s game. With Giovanny Gallegos on the mound, Frank Schwindel popped out to third on an infield fly rule. MLB.com explains, “An infield fly is a fair fly ball which can be caught by an infielder with reasonable effort, when first and second … are occupied, prior to their being two outs.”

Now, during the play, Arenado appeared to have lost his footing and fall back. The rule was called at this time. But, Arenado was able to get the ball and toss it to Paul DeJong, who threw to Tommy Edman to tag Rafael Ortega out. None of this was necessary due to the infield fly rule but the umpiring crew did confuse the matter by calling time out. Manager Mike Shildt got heated as he thought the game should have ended there with a double play. Shildt was ejected from the game by home plate umpire Bill Miller.

Here’s a look at the ejection from the Bally Sports Midwest twitter feed.

Gallegos subsequently struck out Ian Happ, earning his 14th save of the season.

Baseball is a wonderful distraction from all of life’s crazy times. To see this team play so well down the stretch is wonderful. Here’s hoping this amazing run can them far into October. The Cardinals have a three-game set at Busch Stadium with the Milwaukee Brewers and the final regular-season series of the year with the Chicago Cubs.

This series had many MVPs, let’s discuss a few of them.