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.

Chicago White Sox -- May 3rd-May 5th

The Chicago White Sox will finish with the worst record in baseball history this year. They have a winning record this year against just five teams: The Colorado Rockies, the Atlanta Braves, the Tampa Bay Rays, the Washington Nationals, and the St. Louis Cardinals. Of those five teams, only one lost a series at home against the White Sox: the Cardinals in early May.

After winning the first game in the series, the Cardinals would lose the final two, 6-5 and 5-1, respectively. Chicago's two best starters, Erick Fedde and Garrett Crochet, were both pitching in the losses, but the Cardinals tagged Fedde for five runs in 4.1 innings. The issue in Saturday's 5-6 loss was that the Cardinals went just 3-13 with runners in scoring position. They scored five runs in the 5th inning, but they wouldn't score at any other point during the game.

On Sunday against Garrett Crochet, the best the Cardinals could muster was a solo home run by Willson Contreras in the 4th inning. St. Louis had just four hits, and they didn't log a single walk all game. Crochet is an elite pitcher this year, but he had it easy in this game. St. Louis didn't have anything against Chicago's ace.

If St. Louis could have taken even two games in that series, that would have been sufficient. Instead, they walked away with a series loss. Saturday's game felt like the one the Cardinals should have won, as they got to Erick Fedde early, but they couldn't cash in on serious run-scoring chances.

Kansas City Royals -- July 9th and July 10th

The I-70 series is always a fun one. Two teams who are in different leagues but in the same state are able to duke it out for supremacy of Missouri. In 135 matchups across multiple decades, the Cardinals have the upper hand with a 79-56 all-time record. The two split the series in 2023, but the Cardinals had won seven of the previous ten-season series. All signs were pointing to at least a series split for the Redbirds.

Downpours in St. Louis on Tuesday night postponed the first game to make for a double header on Wednesday. Andre Pallante, the team's newest fifth starter, went up against Alec Marsh of the Royals. The Cardinals were homer happy all game, as Nolan Arenado, Alec Burleson, and Paul Goldschmidt all went yard.

Pallante was strong through four innings, but he began to crumble in the fifth, allowing three runs to score. His night ended following a solo home run by Salvador Perez, and the Cardinals would go on to lose game one of the doubleheader 6-4. Game two was another offensive deluge; rookie Gordon Graceffo was called up to start the game against former Cardinal Michael Wacha.

In game two, the bullpen held serve, but Graceffo and Matthew Liberatore gave up six combined runs in just five innings. Meanwhile, the offense just wasn't able to cash in on 10 hits, one walk, and an error. This, too, felt like a series where the Cardinals should have won just one game. A series split against a team that was reeling at the time despite its strong starting pitching would have been helpful heading into the dog days of summer.