Top Cardinals affiliate clinches playoff berth with 1st half championship

The St. Louis Cardinals won a slugfest in Kansas City on Sunday to avoid a sweep but the real fireworks occurred at AutoZone Park in Memphis. After missing the playoffs last season, the Memphis Redbirds won the first half International League championship, finishing with a stellar 47-28 record.

The four-game lead in the International League West was the largest in either division, allowing Memphis to clinch the playoff berth in the September playoff series. The Redbirds grabbed a spot in the postseason along with Washington Nationals' affiliate Rochester Red Wings. The Triple-A championship is played between the International League and Pacific Coast League with each league hosting their own championship series before the Triple-A National Championship Game on September 27 in Las Vegas.

The Memphis Redbirds improvement is a testament to Chaim Bloom's Cardinals takeover

In 2025, the Redbirds finished the first half at a respectable 41-32, but that was only good enough for third place in the West. The six-game improvement in the win total allowed Memphis to coast to a comfortable division title and the team had plenty of key contributors during the first 75 games. With Joshua Baez hitting a homer seemingly every game and Quinn Mathews looking more like his 2024 self, the excitement around the Redbirds is creating promotion conversations among the fanbase.

On Sunday, Baez hit his minor league-leading 25th homer to give him seven homers in his last eight games as he continues to bombard the door to a major league call-up. Unfortunately for Baez, the major league outfield is doing just fine with Jordan Walker continuing his breakout season and Lars Nootbaar jumpstarting the offense since his return. In center, the Cardinals opted to give Nathan Church the everyday job after demoting Victor Scott II, so he may have more opportunity in front of him.

Baez is also more of a corner outfielder, flashing massive arm talent to go along with his light tower power and 97th-percentile sprint speed. He has actually spent more time in center field this season than in previous years, playing 39 of his 66 games up the middle. There is no guarantee that Nootbaar is traded this season, so a path to everyday playing time, which Baez absolutely deserves when he is promoted, is currently unclear. This means he may have to continue to lay waste to minor league pitching a little bit longer until things get sorted out on the major league roster.

In Quinn Mathews' case, he is further down the pecking order as Hunter Dobbins and Brycen Mautz have received starting opportunities before the lefty Mathews. Like Baez, a Mathews promotion would need a 40-man roster move and a longer audition than just a spot start so a decision will have to be made on Dustin May's Cardinal future before anyone receives an extended rotation look. It is at least encouraging, though, that he is entering back into the fans' calls for rotation help after bouncing back from a down 2025 season.

Over his last five starts, Mathews has struck out 32 batters in 25 innings and given up just five earned runs. The walk issues continue to show up at points, with at least three walks in three of those games, but he has been able to limit the overall damage thanks to the return of his strikeout stuff. The major league rotation currently misses the swing-and-miss stuff to get out of a big spot, so it would be a welcomed boost to the staff if Mathews could bring that to St. Louis.

Like the 2026 St. Louis Cardinals, the second-half Memphis Redbirds roster could look very different than it does at this point in the year. Whether it is because of prospects being promoted to the bigs or being acquired in trade deadline deals, the Redbirds team taking the field in September may not have many players that celebrated the first-half championship on June 21.

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