Cardinals History: Rare trade with rival bolsters roster for run to World Series

It's not often that you see the St. Louis Cardinals make trades with their rivals, and it's even rarer for the deal to involve a player that was a major foe of theirs just a few years prior.

On August 30th, 2013, the Cardinals swung a deal for right-handed reliever John Axford from the Milwaukee Brewers in what seemed like a pretty minor depth move for their bullpen, but Axford actually played a pretty big role in helping the club reach the World Series that year.

The Cardinals made a late August trade for rival reliever John Axford that strengthened their run to the World Series.

Backing up a little bit first, Axford was a beloved player by Brewers fans for his quirky facial hair and elite work for them as their closer during the 2011 season. Axford was actually added to the Brewers' "Wall of Honor" this year for his contributions to the club.

But during his fifth season with the club, Axford was in the midst of his third straight year with an ERA north of 4.00, and with the Brewers out of the playoff mix, they shipped Axford to the Cardinals for a player to be named later, who turned out to be Michael Blazek. Blazek actually had a great year out of the Brewers' bullpen in 2015, but was mostly ineffective otherwise in his career.

Axford, on the other hand, joined a special Cardinals bullpen that featured Trevor Rosenthal, Kevin Siegrist, Randy Choate, Seth Maness, Joe Kelly, Carlos Martinez, and many others. Edward Mujica did a masterful job as the Cardinals' closer for most of the year, but ended up losing his job to Rosenthal in late September due to a decline in performance related to a back issue. That made the addition of Axford all the more important.

In 13 regular-season appearances, Axford posted a 1.74 ERA, looking far more like himself from his early years in Milwaukee. When the Cardinals got to October, Axford pitched in six of their games during that World Series run, including 2.1 scoreless innings against Boston in the World Series and 1.1 scoreless against the Pirates in the NLDS. Axford did allow one run in two innings in the NLCS, but was otherwise a gem for the Cardinals in the back of their bullpen.

Nowadays, trades like this no longer occur after trade deadlines, so we don't see those random small moves that help propel a team over the final month of their season and into an October run. But even when these deals were normal, this deal was especially interesting given the bad blood between the two teams and how important Axford was to the Brewers' run in 2011.