3 Cardinals players have reached significant career milestones against Cleveland

The St. Louis Cardinals completed a three-game sweep of the Cleveland Guardians this weekend and are firmly in the postseason conversation as the All-Star break nears. A sweep is always difficult, so achieving that team accomplishment is impressive in its own right, but more impressive is the fact that three different Cardinal players reached career milestones during the series.

Phil Maton, Ryan Helsley, and Nolan Arenado all hit significant milestones against Cleveland

In the first game of the series against the Guardians, manager Oli Marmol called in reliever Phil Maton in the seventh inning in an attempt to maintain an 8-6 lead. After getting the dangerous Jose Ramirez to end the inning, Maton came back out in the eighth inning and faced former-Cardinal Lane Thomas. With a 1-2 count, Maton spun a curveball to Thomas, who swung and missed to give Maton his 500th career strikeout. For good measure, the Cardinal reliever struck out another Guardian hitter to set up closer Ryan Helsley for the save.

Now, it was Helsley's time to etch his name into the record book. After Willson Contreras hit a homer to give the closer a three-run cushion, Helsley faced the top of the Guardians' order. The flamethrowing closer has had his struggles this season but had no problem working through Steven Kwan, Kyle Manzardo, and Jose Ramirez to pick up career save number 100 in the victory. The save total has Helsley sitting at sixth place on the Cardinals' career save leaderboard, 21 behind Trevor Rosenthal. It remains to be seen if Helsley will get the opportunity to surpass Rosenthal after being mentioned in trade talks for the better part of a year.

After pitchers took home the accolades in the first game, it was third baseman Nolan Arenado's turn to hit a milestone in his illustrious career. Against the White Sox, Arenado hit his 350th career home run and had been chasing 400 career doubles since he hit number 399 against the Guardians in game one. In the final game of the series, not only did he reach that doubles number, he also notched career hit number 1,900 earlier in the game with an infield single. In the sixth inning, Arenado inside-outed a Logan Allen breaking ball and pushed it to right field. With the outfield playing Arenado to pull, the ball spun down the right field line and gave the Cardinals' third baseman an easy double. The right fielder then bobbled the ball and allowed Arenado to trot into third base. Another note, that error gave the Guardians an error in 10 straight games. With 400 doubles for his career, Arenado now sits in 193rd place on the all-time two-bagger list.

Even with the lowered expectations for this season, the Cardinals have continued to battle no matter the score. This was evident in the second game of the series when the Cardinals trailed 6-1 early but battled back for a 9-6 win. With Arenado's energy and Maton and Helsley's abilities in the bullpen, the team looks ready to continue pushing to get back into the postseason for the first time since 2022.