The defining moment of the St. Louis Cardinals’ 2011 season may have happened in the 10th inning of Friday night’s game against the Atlanta Braves, the team they’ve been chasing for the NL Wild Card.
With his team’s season literally hanging in the balance at 7.5 games behind the Braves for that final playoff spot, Nick Punto lofted a fly ball to center that traveled just as far as it needed to go, giving Matt Holliday more than enough time to score the game winning run.
Suddenly, the momentum in the race shifted and whatever post-season golf plans the Redbirds had were shelved. For now, at least. The Cardinals rode the momentum from that sacrifice fly through the weekend, sweeping the Braves and bringing themselves within a very reasonable 4.5 games of the Wild Card.
Suddenly the Braves’ once solid stranglehold on that final playoff spot doesn’t seem so solid anymore.
After underachieving most of the season, the Cardinals finally seem to have hit their stride, having won 12-of-16 at a time when they simply cannot afford to lose a game.
And if they can survive a four-game set in Philadelphia, it appears they’re going to have a chance to do a lot more winning throughout the season’s final 2 1/2 weeks.
The club begins a three game set against the Pirates tonight before traveling to Philadelphia. They’ll wrap up with series against the Cubs, Mets and Astros, all of whom are just playing out the stretch at this point. Pujols, Holliday and company seem to be playing with a purpose, as though someone finally woke them up and reminded them that there’s a pennant race to be played out.
Tony LaRussa’s flavor of the month in the closer’s role, Jason Motte, has been solid over the course of his last ten outings yielding only one run while converting all five of his save opportunities. Given that the back end of the bullpen has been such a major source of consternation for the Cardinals this season, Motte’s emergence as a dependable late-inning guy has got to be reducing the amount of Tums bought throughout the greater St. Louis metropolitan area.
While the Braves have a similarly favorable schedule (home-and-home sets against the Marlins sandwiched around a three game series against the Mets before finishing up against the Nationals and Phillies) the club is reeling. Atlanta has gone 3-11 in their last 14 games and doubt appears to be seeping into the clubhouse at the precise time when doubt is an unwelcome visitor.
Of a road trip that saw the Braves drop six of eight, Chipper Jones put it bluntly:
“We did nothing right,” Jones told reporters following the sweep.
To be fair, he’s not entirely off base in his assessment. To make it all the more painful, four of those six losses — including all three to the Cardinals — were by one run. The good news for the Braves is that while they’ve still got six road games remaining, those games are in Florida and Washington, two towns not exactly known for their large crowds or intimidating atmospheres.
One thing’s for sure though — they’ll be doing more than their fair share of bird watching throughout the rest of the season, keeping an eye out on the Cardinals’ fortunes as they play for their playoff lives.
