Home Baseball Living in the Cardinal Nation Bubble

Living in the Cardinal Nation Bubble

by

When I describe myself as a sports fan, I call myself a Cardinal’s fan and a football fan. The distinction being I will watch any game of football no matter who is playing, but when it comes to baseball, I very rarely like watching anybody else other than the Cardinals. So I admittedly live in the Cardinal bubble. Naive? Maybe. And I could be way off base but I do not think I am alone on this one. I think that when the Cardinals start playing like they have this last week, panic mode begins to boil. Worry sets in. What are we going to do if our home team isn’t playing in October?  Well move on with our lives to begin with, but also, like I have said before, lets wait until we get there to start getting upset. A helpful reminder that the season isn’t ending today, tomorrow, this week or even this month. This last week has not been pretty, getting the tar knocked out  of us from the Baltimore Orioles  hurt, but if we are going to look at who beat us, it was the AL East leading team who has been hot the last week. Not to mention an AL team having home field advantage already makes those games an uphill battle. And if I understand correctly, Oriole Park is a very homerun friendly stadium, like as I am sure most of you noticed. There is also the fact that the Cardinals seem to have trouble putting more than three wins together. Seemingly every two to three days we are watching an early game collapse or a lead get away from us in the waning innings. The last time the Cardinals swept a series was in the middle of June against the Nationals. Since the All-Star break, our birds have played in eight series, The birds have lost the first game of those series six times, already putting pressure to win two in a row. With all of these losses piling up, the Cardinals seemingly are getting eliminated every day, fluctuating between second and third in the division.

But allow me to counter the negative with the positive. The Cardinals have won 22 of their 37 completed series thus far, and that doesn’t include splits. Even after the break we are up four out of seven of the series we have completed. Only three games out of first, and here is something that gets far too ignored I feel when we talk about the birds on the bat; the Cardinals still have hold of a wildcard spot. And there is plenty of room to be optimistic. There are 45 games left and 23 of them are against the contending teams in the division (sorry Chicago, get above .500 if you want anyone on this side of the river to take you seriously). Against those same teams (Brewers, Pirates, and Reds) we have taken 7 out of 11 of the series so far. We seem to have their number.

The point I am trying to make is that we are so focused on the team in front of us that we don’t always see that the teams immediately around us (in the division, because holy cow Royals!) are not miles ahead of us. We are used to the redbirds getting 90 wins or at least close to it. This year doesn’t seem like it is going to happen, but we don’t need to it to play in October. Even though we are not in first place, we have a solid chance of being able to take the important games and tumble into a playoff spot where the Cardinals are very good about getting their act together. This is not over until we are more than 10.5 games out of the running.

Picture by: Elsa/Getty Images North America

+ posts

Related Articles