Philly played their starters including howard who they should have rested. Hopefully they will do the same against the braves next weekend.:)

Wow... These guys know how to battle all of a sudden. We'll do our part, but will Atlanta do enough for the Cards to slip in?

One out away from pulling back to 2 1/2 games back. The Braves won earlier.

Braves playing at Washington next - the Nats have owned them this season. Let's hope that continues this week.

If they do get in, they will make some noise in the playoffs. No one is going to want to play the "hot" team in the playoffs.

Yep the nats and Philly will be tough for the braves.

Detroit?

CHAMBERS!

Seriously - where the **** was this team in August.

Thanks for showing up, fellas.

Typical LaRussa ballclub - his teams relish the underdog role and will absolutely crater under pressure. It's no coincidence that he won his only series here when everyone counted the birds out in 2006. Meanwhile they've bombed under pressure several times in the past.

Pressure's off so they're just out there playing ball and winning games.

They're 8-12 in September. That's not exactly '64 Phillies or the Mets of a few years ago. The Cardinals are just all of a sudden playing real well. Pujols is playing much better in the 2nd half, pulling his season average up twenty five points and getting his power stroke back.

Holy shit for the second night in a row. This is just a blast to watch.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/KVjeheaFfsM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I LIKE IT LOUD.

LaRussa's reaction to the walkoff HR hit by Infante:

http://www.foxsportsmidwest.com/pages/video

I haven't seen LaRussa smile like that in quite a while.

Finally Cardinals baseball as we know it. Hopefully not too late.

Dudes, there is something going on here.Its someone different every night contributing. This just doesn't happen. They are going to the playoffs. No frikking way the Braves hang on or the Cardinals fall apart. :clap:

I have bashed the shit out of LaRussa to my friends and still think he is at the end of his rope but damn this team has woken up and started playing.

I called them heartless and I was wrong. Hope I am wrong the same way about the Chiefs.

If the Cardinals win tomorrow, and that is a huge if, I will be convinced that they can do this thing.

Why tomorrow?

If they lose, they are 2 out. If they win, they are 1 out.

Not a huge difference I know, but still, that 1 game could be the difference in making the playoffs or not.

The Braves are imploding and I know we need every win but I am more concerned with the shit ass Astros killing us the last series. That would piss me off to no end.

Astros on track to lose 100 games and keep us from winning the WC.

Probably the Chiefs fan in me talking.

What makes you think the Braves won;t blow 2 games before the end of the year the way they are playing?

WHERE WAS THIS !@#$ING TEAM!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

All I can say now is that they'd better !@#$ing finish the job here. They've simply pissed away too many games throughout the course of this season for me to be content with moral victories.

Finish this off, Cardinals. Finish it off or all this season will amount to is "what should've been..."

They face the Phillies, who are also struggling.

This is going to be similar to the Giants and Padres last year for the NL West. It may come down to the last day. If they can sweep the Mets and Cubs? I like their chances.

Suck for Luck!

Sorry wrong thread.

Can they end in a tie?

Too lazy to do the math, but I think it is a possibility.

Dude I was too lazy too, you were supposed to pick up the slack.

Winner winner chicken dinner.

I have to say at this point to lose out on the wild card would be a choke.

We will see, we will see.

All I can say this has been a fun month and I hope the Cardinals season does not end in September.

17 games over .500. 12 wins in the last 14 games. 1.5 games out with 7 to play. Braves imploding. This is very unexpected coolness. :thumb:

I don't think the Braves imploding is too unexpected. Kembrel has been over worked and the Braves lost two of their starters to injury this month.

Yes. They both play 162 games. Technically the Giants can still win/tie too.

That would require both the Cardinals and Braves to implode, though.

Hopefully the former does not happen...

There's no way the Giants make up 3 1/2 games over two teams in a week. I was just saying that it's mathematically possible.

Yeah, I also find it highly unlikely that it happens.

This thing could come down to the wire. That's why I think tomorrow's game is important. 1 game back vs 2 back.

You're absolutely right. Atlanta has some tough games left, and we're playing good ball, but these next two series kind of worry me. Two clubs we've beat up on pretty hard over the last decade that would love nothing more than to keep the Cards out of the playoffs.

The thing that the Cardinals have an advantage over Atlanta is they play this game and the Cubs series at home, unlike Atlanta who had to face the Marlins on the road and are about to face the Nats in DC.

The Nats are playing good ball now and the Phillies would love to go into the postseason playing good baseball. That's why I feel more confident now than I did a day or two ago. 1 game back is doable.

This is great to watch, but they can't let up even a little. I'm also concerned about the Phillies resting everybody during their season ending series. That could bode well for Atlanta. And I can't help but think that the Phillies would rather see the Braves get in than us.

The Phillies are playing like absolute crap right now.

They have not only lost 3 out of 4 games to the Cardinals in Philly, but they also lost 2 out of 3 in Houston.

The Phillies won't take their foot off the pedal, I think.

Cardinals will win the WC for sure! They play a series against the Cubs, who are a bad team, then the Astros who are an even worse team!

Meanwhile the Braves have to match up with the mediocre-strength Nationals, and then the very strong Phillies!

Cardinals are a lock for the postseason based on the remaining schedule strength!

As much as I wish that were the case, it's too early to tell.

The Phillies have to put the pedal to the metal just in case the Cardinals lose..

The Cubs and their fans would consider it their World Series victory if they could keep us out of the post-season.

Be very very very weary of that Cubs series - that's not going to be a walkover by any stretch of the imagination. Then we have a series in the Houston house of horrors (Enron Field has made a living out of terrorizing us w/ Crawford box shots for our opponents and 420 ft outs to straightaway center for us).

Lets not start sucking each other's dicks just yet. The Cardinals absolutely need to finish the sweep tomorrow because I think it's very likely they lose 1 in both the Astros and Cubs series and we will need that game in hand.

I agree with Rams Fan about tomorrow being HUGE.

Westbrook always makes me nervous.

You know what I would love to see? The Brewers and Cardinals in the NLCS with the Cardinals finishing the Brews off by Carpenter striking Nyjer Morgan in similar fashion as Waino did to Beltran in 2006.... Of course, a strikeout against Morgan in that situation would be more personal.

From the Stl Post Dispatch

The Cardinals led the NL in several significant offensive categories such as batting average (.272), on-base percentage (.339), slugging (.422) and runs scored (719), entering Wednesday's game. The Cardinals also lead the league in batting average with runners in scoring position and two outs (.268), and their .290 average with runners in scoring position at any time far outpaces the second-best Phillies' .266. The Cardinals lead the NL with an on-base-plus slugging percentage (OPS) of .828. The next closest is Cincinnati's .772.

Is it officially time to eat crow on Mac as hitting coach?

got tickets to the saturday game against the cubs. should be interesting. anyone else going?
sec

The Puma, reportedly, has signed an extension.

It's a one year deal, per the Cardinals Twitter account.

I don't have a problem with this. He would be a decent safety net in the case Albert doesn't return for 1 season.

Went last night, going again today.

First baseball I've watched since the August series in Chicago.

Good to see them playing decent ball again.

yes we would :D

Looks like a one year, $12M deal for Berk. Pretty nice that the Cards avoided a second year.

Looks like the earlier season tendencies showed up again.

"- End of Inning (6 Runs, 3 Hits, 2 Errors) "

Ugh.

That's the team we know and love.

Not only does this put us two games back, it's so deflating to lose a game like this.

Wow, Pathetic 9th today! 8 innings of great baseball, they could've pulled w/in 1 game of ATL w/ just another good 1/2 inning.

They need to rest Motte.

Turned the TV on right after the game ended. ****ing Motte.

Oh well. Six games left, I figure they can afford to lose one more game.

****ing Motte.

:cuss:

Motte has been over used lately. We couldn't really expect to win every single game. Hopefully its a fluke game and not a trend. It's much more fun to watch the team play to its potential than fail around.

They win 5 out of 6 they will be in the playoffs.

That game was a perfect encapsulation of the Cardinals' season. Perfect. LaRussa overmanages the team to the extent that four of the six best hitters on the team are on the bench for the bottom of the ninth, horrible defense opens the floodgates, and the bullpen completely implodes.

Everything that has gone wrong throughout this season happened in that inning. That inning is also why I just can't trust Motte. No matter how good your fastball is, if it has no movement and you lack a secondary pitch you aren't going to be able to get guys out in high leverage situations. When he did get to two strikes, the batters easily fouled off that fastball until he missed the zone.

Of course, it never should have gotten there, as Furcal made a two out error.

Oh, and Rzepczynski and Salas are worthless.

I couldn't believe my eyes as I watched the of the 9th inning unfold before my eyes while playing trivia at Buffalo Wild Wings. Just ridiculous.

KEMVP!!!

FU POOHOLES

Like many have said since the very beginning, this pen is a sack of shit and the reason the team doesn't go to the postseason. It wasn't just Franklin. Top to bottom shitfest in high pressure situations.

Whether they make the playoffs or not, despite being hamstrung with a shitty pen and LaDoucha's micromanaging nepotistic bullshit, this final run has been fun to watch. I hope they respond positively to yesterday's debacle. In any event, they finished far better than I thought they would.

Yesterday's game was tough to watch. But like Berkman said in the postgame, they probably weren't going to win out anyway. If they get 5 of 6 and miss the playoffs, so be it.

I think the truly disheartening aspect of yesterday's meltdown was that you could see it coming from so far away. It was such a perfect, 2011 Cardinals way to lose.

Many of the usual suspects who had played so terribly all year were still there, and in spite of Motte's brilliance after the ASB, it's hard to completely wash your mind of all those past screwups, walks, HBPs, etc.

Once Salas came in, I told my wife I didn't care if he started lobbing pitches underhand, I just wanted them over the plate.

When your pen is that bad it's a completely helpless feeling. I don't mind TLR swapping out all those pitchers yesterday, but taking all of his power bats out of the lineup with a bullpen that is still prone to garbage was a risk we just couldn't afford to take.

Sure enough, who do we have hitting for us in that all-important 9th?

Punto, Descalso, and Yadi.

Still, Motte, Zep, and Salas should all be charged with six losses for an inning like that.

No matter how anyone tries to spin it, that was a critical loss. They "probably" wouldn't have won out, but you never know. The Rockies won about elventy billion games in a row to make the playoffs the other year. Now, they have to hope Atlanta continues to shit the bed.

And the bullpen delivers the killshot. Thanks, McClellan.

What should have been one game yesterday is now three. Pack up shop boys, this one's over.

Yeah, Soriano put on his troll face with that jack.

Well it was fun while it lasted. If we had just an average bullpen we would have won another 10 games this year. Be in first place and thats without Waino and losing Freese, Craig and Holliday for lengthy periods.

Well, the Cubs outsucked the Cards today - Marmol pulled a Franklin and gave the game away in the bottom of the 9th. Looks like we'll be back within two with four to play.

But I don't hold out much hope at this point.