Since the deadline has passed up when the world champions defeated the Colorado Rockies by a score of 11-to-1, the team has managed to win twelve games in their previous twenty. Following tonight's 7-to-0 win in the series opener against the Houston Astros at Busch Stadium; the Cardinals trail the Pirates by just one game for the Wild Card spot; and by still a mere eight games--which while it seems like a lot right now--just remember what the team did last season when they captured their eleventh world championship in franchise history.
As the deadline passed this season, the team didn't do much--but what they did add has seemed to help us out so far as we are approaching late August. The team made deals such as the following acquastitions that seen the team acquire Brian Fuentes from the Restricted Free Agent list--as well as a return from Jaime Garcia--who continues to make this teams' starting pitching rotation even more deeper than it was--especially with the likes of Lance Lynn making noise early, Joe Kelly helping out the bullpen, Wainwright returning to his old form, Kyle Lohse continuing arguably his best season yet--and pretty good innings from Jake Westbrook.
While the bullpen kept causing a lot of choas with some under-achieving performances throughout the season, the unit has managed to total an ERA of 3.67 overall--as well as a batting-average for the opponents' of .254. Since Fuentes came and joined the team, he has an ERA of 9.00 as he has pitched just five innings in six appearances--and while it seems pretty bad, he has made some big outs and has allowed just one home run and five runs--but has also walked just five batters and struck out six.
Lance Lynn had started out cruising this season--and while it seems to feel that the innings are catching up to him--he leads the team with thirteen wins and has a team-leading 143 strikeouts. Also, impressively, he has twelve wins on the season, and has an earned-run average of 2.61.
The offense has been scorching at times so far--but some more consistentsy would be huge coming down the stretch. Carlos Beltran leads the team in bombs with 28 long ones; while Matt Holliday has hit 23 and Allen Craig with eighteen.
Yadier Molina has had by far the best number of his career so far without a question. Molina has a team-leading batting average of .323 following tonight's three hit performance in the win--he also has hit a career-high in home runs with sixteen--which also he is still the best overall catcher in the game--defensively without a question.
The Cardinals still have a lot of work to do--but at this moment and time--they don't need help from many other teams' in either race as long as the team continues to win games at the end of the next month and a half--but remember, if there is one team that can make this thing happen--it's most definently the St. Louis Cardinals.
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