Must-see TV: Bet on St. Louis playing in October
· Yahoo Sports
Heading into Tuesday’s contest against the Atlanta Braves, the St. Louis Cardinals were exactly halfway through their MLB season with an overall record of 43-38.
That puts the Redbirds on pace for 86 wins in 2026. That would be 20 more than what PECOTA (Baseball Prospectus) said they would get. It is 11 more than what FanGraphs projected. It’s 16.5 more than the over/under set by BetMGM at the beginning of the season.
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If you chose the over on the Cardinals winning 69.5 games this year, good job. Now, you can go ahead and hit the bet for them to also make the playoffs.
I’m not telling you this team is going to do anything all that impressive in October, but it will be playing in October.
When I look at the National League playoff picture, I only see one playoff team in the NL West Division and just two in the NL East Division. That leaves three teams for the Central Division.
Right now, that would be the division-leading Milwaukee Brewers, the second-place Chicago Cubs and third-place St. Louis Cardinals.
Milwaukee (51-31) leads Chicago (47-38) by 5.5 games, and the Cardinals are 7.5 games back.
The Brewers have again put together an exceptional regular season thus far. They rank fourth in runs scored (423) and second in runs allowed (301). Their run differential of +122 comes in second to the Los Angeles Dodgers’ +157.
That team will be hard to track down in the Central. The Cubs and Cardinals will likely be fighting for their position in the wild-card standings.
A little over a month ago, I wrote on the Cardinals and Kansas City Royals. On May 22, I said that I would not go all-in on the team from the east side of the state. I still feel that way, except I guess I am telling you to go all-in on their postseason odds.
I’m not sold that a team with a -8 run differential is really all that good, but I think they’re good enough to be a postseason team.
Royals
At that same time, I told you to give up on the Royals and that it will get “worse before it gets better on the west side of the state.” Kansas City was 20-30 overall at that point. It is now sitting at 35-50, going 15-20 since that date.
They can’t hit, and they certainly can’t pitch. This team is doomed. It’s currently the worst team in the American League in terms of win percentage, and only the Colorado Rockies (33-52) in the National League are worse.
Back to St. Louis, it has gone 15-17 since I last wrote an MLB column. It has struggled especially as of late. A win Sunday ended a four-game skid and made for a third win in the last 10 tries.
The Cardinals have been a bit streaky so far this year with two six-game win streaks and a five-game streak as well. But they have also lost four straight three times and three straight twice.
They have to find a way to be more consistent and not let the bad streaks outweigh the good. They struggled to beat bad teams in June. If St. Louis goes to Atlanta and beats one of the best teams in all of baseball, it will finish with a 13-12 record for the month. Otherwise, it will have posted a 12-13 mark and done so against mostly bad teams.
Not including the Braves, the Cardinals have gone 12-12 in June against a group of teams that made a combined record of 323-353 coming into Tuesday’s games.
The best of those were the Miami Marlins, which are currently 45-40. The only other teams St. Louis faced in June that are above .500 are the Texas Rangers (43-42) and San Diego Padres (43-40).
We will know at the All-Star break exactly who the Cardinals are. As they start a three-game series with the Braves (49-33) on Tuesday, they also meet the Cubs (47-38) for three games and then the Brewers (51-31) for five games from July 6-9 ahead of the break. They play a doubleheader Tuesday, July 7.
This is a true test for 11 games in the dog days of the summer. Can they at least win six to get a winning record against these playoff-bound teams?
I have some major keys for the Cardinals to ensure they’re in the postseason come the end of September.
In the last three months of the season, Masyn Winn has to get on base more frequently to help his team reach the postseason. For an everyday player, an on-base percentage of .316 won’t cut it. I don’t care if he starts hitting better (.244 batting average) or drawing more walks or getting plunked by fastballs, he has to find himself on first base for Alec Burleson and Jordan Walker more.
JJ Wetherholt needs to slug the ball a bit better. St. Louis needs more extra-base hits, and he lacks in that area some.
When it comes to pitching, St. Louis might need to find a new option as the fifth starter after the break. Matthew Liberatore’s numbers in June are unacceptable.
He’s posted a 10.34 earned run average this month alone prior to his start Tuesday against a good Braves offense. For the season, he has an ERA of 5.56 and a WHIP of 1.58. I would not be surprised to see a change if Liberatore struggles again Tuesday night.
Lastly, and potentially most importantly, Dustin May has to continue to be a workhorse. He’s been steady since really struggling out of the gates in his first two starts. His ERA was 15.95 after two starts. Since then, it has been 3.18.