Cardinals soar up national power rankings after recent surge

The St. Louis Cardinals have been on an incredible surge since the calendar has flipped to May, and the national baseball crowd is starting to take notice. After the Cardinals were ranked in the lower half, or worse, in previous power rankings, both Bleacher Report and The Athletic have them ranked 11th or higher.

Bleacher Report ranks the Cardinals 7th and The Athletic ranks them 11th in most recent power rankings.

Coming into May, the Cardinals were sitting in fourth place in the NL Central with a 14-17 record thanks to a miserable record on the road and a long stretch of games against playoff hopefuls. That schedule did not get any easier this month, though, with five of their past seven series coming against teams with records over the .500 mark. The Cardinals have answered the call in impressive fashion. After putting together a nine game winning-streak beginning with a doubleheader sweep against the Mets, St. Louis has a 13-4 record thus far in the month.

This incredible surge has brought the Cardinals within one game of the division-leading Cubs, who have taken advantage of a soft schedule to maintain their place atop the league. The Cardinals currently have a +45 run differential and have improved their road record to 11-15 after only having four wins away from Busch Stadium coming into May. While fans are taking notice and hopefully taking the opportunity to pack Busch, the national media is finally starting to believe in the team.

Coming into the week, Bleacher Report had the Cardinals ranked 13th in the previous iteration of their power rankings. On Monday, though, the Cardinals bumped up to seventh, just two spots behind the Cubs, and are being named a "legitimate playoff contender" by the writers at BR. They also note that Matthew Liberatore and Kyle Leahy have been important pieces to solidify their pitching.

The Cardinals made another huge jump in a The Athletic, and the subscription-only piece went into more detail than just their recent May surge. After being ranked 17th in their past ranking, the Cardinals were pushed up to 11th, and they mention the defense is reason to believe that their recent success can be sustained. St. Louis has committed the fewest errors (16) in all of baseball and boasts the best fielding percentage in all of baseball. For the updated baseball fan, they are also first in Outs Above Average (OAA) by a large margin.

After multiple lineup changes starting with moving Masyn Winn to the two-hole and pushing Willson Contreras to fifth, the Cardinals have been on fire. The most recent lineup that resulted in an 11-4 win over the Detroit Tigers featured another lineup change, with Nolan Arenado being pushed from the cleanup role thanks to Contreras' improvement and Ivan Herrera's return to mashing baseballs.

The current Cardinals team looks poised to be contenders for at least the near future, with Winn, Herrera, and Victor Scott II becoming exciting building blocks while Alec Burleson is heating up and Jordan Walker has shown slight signs of improvement. The pitching rotation will continue to be a question if they can maintain their success for the long haul, but the current results have little to argue with. As with most teams looking to make an extended playoff run, it would not be a surprise to see the Cardinals shore up their bullpen and even add a starting pitcher or bench bat for depth purposes. With more stretches like this, the Cardinals will continue to surge up the rankings and bring fans storming back to the gates of Busch Stadium.