With last night’s loss at the hands of the Cubs’ very-post-clinch lineup, the Cardinals have been eliminated from postseason contention before the final day of the season for the first time in literal years. And it was the Cubs that did it. Not just last night, thanks to Leonys Martin’s dagger catch in the 11th, but also thanks to what the Cubs did to the Cardinals all season long.
Care to take a guess at the season series record, if you didn’t already know? It was 19 games. How many did the Cubs win?
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14. Yes. The Cubs went 14-5(!!!) against the Cardinals this year. Theo Epstein was quite right that the Cubs don’t fear the Cardinals anymore, and they rightly haven’t since the moment that Hector Rondon got Stephen Piscotty to flail helplessly at a nasty slider to end the 2015 NLDS.
This will always be a rivalry, and a damn good one. But right now, the Cubs own the Cardinals.
Elsewhere in the Wild Card race, the Rockies were idle, while the Brewers beat the Reds to pull back within 2.0 games of the Rockies. The magic number there is two, with just three games to go. So basically, the Brewers need to sweep the Cardinals this weekend, and have the Rockies win just one game against the Dodgers. (Or, they need to take two of three from the Cardinals and have the Dodgers sweep the Rockies. Given what each team is playing for, that seems very unlikely.)
The Cubs gave the Brewers a nice boost by eliminating the Cardinals now, as they will probably start resting guys who’ve been battling bumps and bruises, and could give young players more time this weekend.