The St. Louis Cardinals, my favorite baseball team ever, clinched the National League Wildcard spot by beating the Houston Astros 8-0 and helped by the Atlanta Braves losing to the Phillies 4-3 in extra innings. So there will be post-season play for my Cards this year!
After a great season start, the Cardinals hit a rough patch after the All-Star break and skidded downward and out of first place. Milwaukee stepped up and into that spot and with some nice play, the Brewers held onto first in the Central Division. Congrats to the Brew Crew!
The low point was when St. Louis trailed Atlanta by 10.5 games on August 25. But then the battle began and the Cards won 23 of their last 31 games to finish the unbelievable finale. The Braves helped along the Cardinals’ surge by losing 18 of their last 27, the last an extra inning (13) loss to Philadelphia.
Who would have thought Chris Carpenter could throw a game as good as he did? Not me. He recorded another complete game shutout, giving the overworked (and somewhat pitiful) bullpen a much-needed rest.
Carp has struggled this year to find himself. At the beginning of the season, he just sucked - no control or placement. Occasionally he'd have a good game, even a great game, but then he's have two or three starts where he'd struggle again. I used to be so confident of a win when Carp was pitching but this year I'd lost that confidence.
So going into last night's game I wasn't hopeful. I just didn't want to be disappointed. I wasn't at the point of reciting the Cub fans' manta of "wait'll next year" but I also wasn't hanging that pennant on my wall either.
Wow, what a game and what a regular season ending!
I fell asleep before the Braves recorded the loss and found out just this morning when I logged onto Yahoo Sports for the final score. YAY!!!
So now I get to listen to more Cardinal baseball starting this Saturday. Of course it is on TV but on cable channels and I don't have cable. So I will listen to Mike and John's call on the radio. They're so much better than the TV announcers anyway.
Go Cardinals!!
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