The St. Louis Cardinals do not begin their first-round series with the Philadelphia Phillies as the favorites to win the National League pennant. The Los Angeles Dodgers and Atlanta Braves have far better records. The New York Mets and San Diego Padres have garnered far more attention. The Cardinals were winners in a weak NL Central Division, the fittest of the unfit. This is not their title to lose.
Don’t count out the Cardinals this postseason
Yet the Cardinals do begin their postseason lit by the unmistakable glow of destiny — though in fairness, every playoff team believes it has that shine before a pitch is thrown. But other postseason teams have not seen baseball fates converge in their clubhouse the way the Cardinals have this season. Few teams ever have. Perhaps few teams ever will.
Yadier Molina, Albert Pujols and Adam Wainwright’s last ride together — though Wainwright, unlike Molina and Pujols, insists he isn’t done after this year — has made every stop of the Cardinals’ season a moment for ceremony. Pujols’s spellbinding chase of 700 career homers in some ways obscured the magical offensive seasons of Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt, both of whom bring credible MVP candidacies into October.
All of it combined with the emergence of a new Cardinals prototype in rookie utility man Brendan Donovan and the offensive evolution of infielder Tommy Edman to give the sense that the next generation might slowly be falling into place, even as Dylan Carlson and Tyler O’Neill, whose disappointing regular season was followed by not being named to the Cardinals’ roster for their first-round series, continue to evolve into the everyday players the team hopes they will be.
Injuries have limited promising young starters to bullpen duties in recent years, but now the Cardinals enter October with a handful of flame-throwing young pitchers piled up in their bullpen. Wainwright will join them there, at least for the first two games of the first-round series, meaning the Cardinals will have veteran starting pitching depth if they need it. José Quintana, another deadline acquisition that turned out to be much splashier than it seemed, and Miles Mikolas will start Games 1 and 2, respectively.
The whole thing could have blown up long before this under a young manager whose first dealings with Pujols and Molina were as a minor leaguer in Cardinals camp two decades ago, when they spoke to him and his peers as examples of what should be. It could have fallen apart after injuries picked apart a rotation that was never exactly dominating but built to allow the team’s defensive prowess to shine. The surprising deadline deal in which St. Louis sent Harrison Bader to the Yankees for lefty Jordan Montgomery could have yielded regret instead of better innings than Montgomery had ever thrown in New York. He will begin the series in the bullpen and will probably be a starter in the next round if the Cardinals advance.
More talented or more expensive teams see themselves undone by injuries or happenstance every year. And the Cardinals know better than anyone that all any franchise can do is build a roster and cross its fingers.
Since the start of the 2005 season, only two teams — the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers — have won more regular season games than the Cardinals. St. Louis has won two World Series titles since then. The Yankees and Dodgers have just one apiece. Only the Dodgers have played more postseason games in that span than St. Louis. Molina and Wainwright have played in nine postseasons together. They are legends because of it.
“I always say this: ‘Seasons are long. Careers are short,’ ” Cardinals President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak said. “When you think about a season, how many times do you have a player who has taken 600 at-bats or makes 30 starts? Adam has missed seasons. Yadi has missed time. These things happen. But we’ve really surrounded ourselves with guys who know how to do it because they’ve done it. At the very least, you hope other guys realize what it takes.”
What it takes to get to October one more time, particularly for people who have spent two decades focused on just that, may be impossible for those who do not have to do it to explain. Paul DeJong hit 30 homers in 2019. By midseason this year, he was struggling so much he found himself in the minors.
“The longevity piece is incredible. I think that’s why there’s so many guys that get to that level because of how hard it is,” DeJong said before doing some impromptu math.
“Albert has 2,200 RBI, and he’s played 22 years. He’s averaged 100 RBI for 22 years. It’s incredible to see that.
“It’s amazing to see how any all-time record is set or achieved. Like, you can hit 30 home runs one year, but these guys are hitting 30 home runs for 20 years! More than that. When you start adding it up like that, it really blows your mind.”
DeJong said Pujols was one of the first people to greet him when he got back to the majors, aware of — if not exactly able to relate to — how difficult sticking around at this level can be.
“To have those types of careers, there’s a certain level of adversity that you have to face and overcome,” Cardinals Manager Oliver Marmol said. “Most just face it. They don’t overcome it.”
Marmol remembers a day in May 2018 when Wainwright, coming off offseason elbow surgery, tiptoed through 2⅓ innings against the Padres with a sinker he couldn’t throw much harder than 86 mph.
“The conversation was, ‘I think I’m done,’ ” Marmol remembered one September afternoon. But Wainwright wasn’t done. So that the 41-year-old ended this season with a 7.23 ERA in his last four starts is concerning, sure. But it is not, he has proved, decisive. Wainwright finished this season with a 3.71 ERA. He owns a 2.83 ERA in nine postseasons. He has gotten back up before.
Who knows how Molina would have chosen to end his career if Wainwright hadn’t gotten up the first time. As revered as he is in St. Louis, everyone can tell Molina was not completely present for this Cardinals season. He arrived late to spring training. He left the team when the basketball team he owns in Puerto Rico played in the championship game. He played in fewer games this year (77) than any full season since he debuted in 2004.
But he was there all the same, there to catch Wainwright for the record-breaking 325th time last month, there when the mayor of St. Louis declared Oct. 4 “Yadier Molina Day” in honor of the number he wore for years with the Cardinals — there, or at least certain to be there, when his good friend Pujols was deciding where to sign in free agency this winter and opted to come home. Pujols erupted in the second half, rediscovering the kind of form he hadn’t shown in half a decade, blasting his way to 700 homers and beyond as the Cardinals (93-69) cruised to a division title.
“Having the three of them functioning at a high level for so long, it’s incredibly unique and special. To say I wasn’t thinking about the touchy-feely part of this — I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. I did think that would be a really cool story,” Mozeliak said. “What’s made it an even cooler story is how competitive they’ve all been.”
But importantly, those three haven’t had to be everything. Arenado used an offseason walkabout to rejuvenate himself and finish the season a tenth of a wins above replacement point behind the Padres’ Manny Machado among all third baseman. If it weren’t for Aaron Judge, Goldschmidt would be in the spotlight for having one of the best all-around offensive seasons in the last few years, including the third-highest on-base-plus-slugging percentage in baseball. The Cardinals’ rotation, despite its soft-tossing reputation, has been good enough. Defensive statistics are notoriously fickle, but St. Louis is in the top three in almost all of them.
“It’s unique: We have two all-star-MVP type players in Goldy and Nolan. Then we have this younger group of players who can watch what Albert and Waino and Yadi do every day,” Mozeliak said. “We all talk about leadership and mentorship and making sure we have some sort of succession plan. We’re blessed with it. The young guys can look up and see it in five-ninths of our lineup. That’s remarkable.”
Source: WP
