4 series the Cardinals wish they could do over in 2024

The St. Louis Cardinals won't be in the postseason in 2024. That much is true.

What is yet to be determined, however, is the size of the gap between them and the final Wild Card spot. Prior to games on September 22nd, the Cardinals were eight games behind the New York Mets. That's quite a large gap.

But what if we could go back and change the fate of say, six or seven games to see if the Cardinals could have then been even closer to a postseason berth? What if we could rewrite history to put the Cardinals in the postseason in 2024? Well, it won't happen, but one can dream, right?

I'm going to take a look back at four of the most devastating (and embarrassing) series this year for the St. Louis Cardinals and try to buy eight games one way or another. Then, hopefully, we can all rest easy knowing the season outcome could have been drastically different than it is.

Milwaukee Brewers -- April 19th-April 21st

Early-season series can always be fickle. Teams are still getting into the swing of things, and platitudes like "games don't matter until June" are thrown around like hot rolls at Lambert's Cafe. However, a game on April 19th counts as much as a game on September 30th does for a team's overall record.

In mid-April, the Cardinals faced the Brewers at home. They had Kyle Gibson, Miles Mikolas, and their shiny new ace Sonny Gray going up against a Brewers team that lost their manager and two of their three best pitchers this past offseason. On paper, the Cardinals should have won at least one game in this series. Instead, they were swept at Busch.

The Cardinals entered this series with a 9-10 record. Winning this series would have put them at .500 in the early stages of the year. Instead, they got swept and were sent into a tailspin. Take even one game against the Brewers at home -- preferably the one pitched by Sonny Gray where he allowed only two runs in 6.1 innings and the bullpen was nails -- and the Cardinals can leave ready for Arizona with a happier disposition.

The Redbirds scored only six runs all series while allowing 16 runs -- five of which were compliments of Miles Mikolas. St. Louis was 2-22 with runners in scoring position in the series. Ouch.