The Cubs, Brewers, Pirates, and Reds last night: “Pfft, we coulda done that.” Heck, the Cubs did just sweep the Phillies in three games last month, so maybe they would’ve done better …
All five NL Central teams are at home now, same as the others. Planning for next season.
The Cardinals losing two games to the Phillies, mind you, does not PROVE anything about the quality of their team, much less the quality of the division going into next season. But I do think it is a reasonable moment to remind everyone that (1) the Cardinals were clearly not among the best of the best teams in the playoffs (regardless of that series outcome), and (2) no other NL Central team made the six-team playoffs this year. There will be some improvements in the division going into next year, but also some regressions. It will not project to be a very strong division come March. The opportunity will be there for the Cubs to put together a mid-80s-on-paper-win team this offseason, and then really compete for an NL Central title in 2023.
Now that the Cardinals’ season is over, they can plan out how to be most annoying to me, personally:
A 2023 Cardinals team that has Willson Contreras replacing Yadi Molina and Jose Quintana somehow continuing to rediscover the best ball of his career would be … a nightmare.
A St. Louis Post-Dispatch column is HARSH on the Cardinals (but … ):
October is over. Cancel Halloween. Might as well just get winter going here in St. Louis — Paul Goldschmidt’s swing can help blow in a cold front — because the Cardinals, once again, have abbreviated the 10th month with an uncharacteristic splat. Well, at this point, maybe it’s characteristic? After embarrassingly losing the National League Division Series in 2015 to the Wild Card Cubs, the Cards missed the playoffs all together in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
In 2019, they won the NLDS but couldn’t even muster one win in the next round.
In 2020? Lost in the first round.
In 2021? Lost in the Wild Card Game.
And now, in 2022 the Cards didn’t win a game in the best-of-three series that they hosted. On Saturday, the Phillies shut out St. Louis, 2-0, the same score of the series.
The Cardinals Way has become the Cardinals Wait — one everyone in this city has had to endure, year after year.
Speaking of harsh:
I am happy that Kyle Schwarber is happy, and that he helped beat the Cardinals:
Borrowing this thought from Luis, because I agree – it would be nice if the Cubs would soon give Boog Sciambi some moments like this to get loud about:
Speaking of that Guardians-Rays game, holy crap:
That is the guy I want calling ALL my games. Adam Hamari called THAT well over 15(!) innings. I’d never heard his name before, which is usually a great sign on an umpire.
Jacob deGrom continued his trend of being borderline human last night (gave up a couple runs over six innings), but this is just ridiculous:
If you were anywhere near social media during the Mets-Padres game last night, this image came across your feed – so I had to have some fun with it:
Crossover content I can REALLY get behind:
Today is the last day for the end-of-season sale at Obvious Shirts:
NEWSLETTER
