153 games down and 9 to go with the Cardinals owning a 2 1/2 game lead over the Brewers for the 2nd wild card spot in the National League. Ironically, that’s exactly the same advantage that the Braves held last year over the Cardinals with 9 games to play. That didn’t work out so well for the Braves. The lead proved to be insufficient as the Cardinals caught and passed the Braves in game 162. Will a team like the Brewers or Dodgers make a run and catch the defending World Series champs at season’s end?
Probably not.
The chase pack as it were has dwindled in size to just 6 teams with a mathematical chance of catching the Cardinals. However, the Redbirds have managed to get the magic numbers for eliminating each potential rival down to single digits.
- Brewers – 8
- Dodgers – 7
- Diamondbacks – 6
- Phillies – 5
- Pirates – 4
- Padres – 1
Insert adage about not enumerating poultry prior to birth <here>.
Facing Fernando Abad for the 2nd time in less than a week should help keep attention focused on the game at hand. The Cardinals only got to Abad for 3 runs in 5 innings the last time they faced off. Scoring early and often would help take some of the pressure off, and it might even save Jason Motte‘s arm tonight.
Motte has made appearances in 8 of the last 11 days. Although he has only exceeded 20 pitches once during that time span, it’s worth noting that his 69.1 innings pitched this season represent a career high for Motte. Also deserving attention is the fact that Motte currently leads the NL in saves with 40.
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TIDBIT: Current Cardinals have hit fairly well against Fernando Abad.
- Carlos Beltran 2/5
- Jon Jay 1/4
- Matt Holliday 0/3
- Daniel Descalso 1/3
- Allen Craig 0/2
- David Freese 0/2
- Pete Kozma 1/2
- Yadier Molina 1/2
- Matt Carpenter 0/1
- Tony Cruz 0/1
- Shane Robinson 0/1
Allen Craig currently ranks 6th among all NL players with a .312 batting average. Only 12 players in all of MLB have an OPS of .900 or higher, and Allen Craig is one of them.
{ 2 comments }
You forgot the magic number of 1 to eliminate the Padres out.
It’s hard to believe that Motte caught the 40 save mark this year. Just seems like we never won ball games by less than 4 runs.
Fixed.
The hard part to imagine for me is that he could finish with a fairly high save percentage and a high SO/9 rate. Crazy stuff.
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