Don’t look now—actually, you can look if you want, there’s no such thing as a jinx—but the St. Louis Cardinals are just one game behind the Chicago Cubs in the NL Central standings.
Well, I'll be darned... pic.twitter.com/JQOGWtvpP2
— Brenden Schaeffer🎳 (@bschaeffer12) May 11, 2025
The Cardinals are rolling, winning eight straight games to improve to 22-19 on the season. After a turbulent start befitting a transition year narrative, the Cardinals are suddenly in position to play some meaningful baseball this summer.
Their efforts at home have been consistently strong throughout the season, as only one team in MLB has more than the Cardinals’ 15 home wins (it’s the Royals, believe it or not). Concern over the Cardinals’ inability to perform on the road, though, has dissipated to an extent after a road sweep of the Nationals in Washington D.C. this past weekend.
We remember John Mozeliak’s famous ‘pitching, pitching, pitching’ mantra from the previous year. But even as the Cardinals took a step back from filling their rotation with free agents this past winter, it’s actually been pitching that has been a key factor behind the recent surge.
The Cardinal rotation just went a full trip through the starting five and posted a 1.01 ERA across 35.2 innings pitched. Four earned runs allowed across five games while the five-man unit averaged more than seven innings per start.
Though it’s come against the likes of the Pirates and Nationals, it’s hard to argue with the consistency that St. Louis got from everyone on its starting staff this past time through.
A more modest workload for the bullpen has coincided with effective results for the unit—Cardinal relievers have held opponents scoreless in their past 20 innings, all coming during this eight-game winning streak. Only Phil Maton was touched up for a couple of runs in Game 1 of the doubleheader win over the Mets on May 4. Since then, the bullpen has been spotless.
Getting those contributions from both ends of the pitching staff, it’s no wonder the Cardinals have been on a roll. But it hasn’t only been the pitching performances in which the Cards can take pride during this winning streak.
The offense has averaged 5.5 runs per game during the streak. Perhaps more important than the raw averages has been the lineup avoiding the true dud games. The Cardinals have scored four or more runs in seven of the eight wins, and have only twice been held below five runs in a game during the streak.
Even the defense has shown up repeatedly with outfielders like Victor Scott II sprawling around the yard to take hits away from the opposition. I guess we haven’t mentioned base running yet, but Vic has that covered, too, even when umpires and replay review refuse to acknowledge it.
If it sounds like the Cardinals are demonstrating an all-around brand of baseball that should not only be conducive to success, but is fun to watch, too—then you’re seeing the same things I’m seeing right now from this team.
And while I’m not putting qualifiers on what we’ve seen from the Cardinals over the past week or so to vault the club from 14-19, and fourth place in the division, up to second place and nipping at the heels of the Cubbies, the remainder of this road trip still feels like a pretty significant proving ground.
When the Cardinals open things up against the Phillies on Monday night at Citizens Bank Park, they’ll do so facing Christopher Sanchez, a tough lefty who held the Cards to one run over 6.1 innings back on April 12 at Busch Stadium.
Jesus Luzardo and Aaron Nola represent the remaining probable starters for the Phillies over this mid-week series before the Cardinals travel to Kansas City to take on a Royals group that boasts the second-best team ERA in the league this season (2.99).
While it has certainly been impressive to watch, racking up wins over Pittsburgh and Washington is a necessity this season for any National League team that wants to be considered a contender. But as the Cubs open up a stretch of their schedule devoid of a single team that holds a winning record all the way until June 6, the Cardinals’ are about to enter a six-game gauntlet to finish up this road trip.
Now the Cardinals look to maintain their recent hot play in just about every facet of the game, and carry it over during this next week against teams whose Octobers won’t necessarily be spent on the golf course.
If it happens, it might be time to put the ‘transition year’ dialogue on the back burner in favor of a summer of meaningful baseball at Busch.