It would be hard to blame Cardinals manager Oli Marmol and his players for feeling like they floated to Colorado. They’re undefeated in August, after all. But now is no time to celebrate.
What it’s time to do is knock the Brewers out of this thing.
Milwaukee is on the ropes, folks.
The National League Central’s defending division champs messed with the baseball gods when they traded All-Star closer Josh Hader, especially to a strong NL opponent in the Padres.
They got a closer (Taylor Rogers) back. They got other players as well. Hader was going to make a big chunk of cash in arbitration before next season. Some argued the deal made sense. That it was sneaky smart. Some were wrong. Really wrong.
All you had to do was watch a few of the player-reaction videos that came out of Milwaukee’s clubhouse to sense air was leaking from the Brewers in a major way after that Hader trade. Did you see the one of St. Louis local and key Brewers reliever Devin Williams? When he was asked about Hader going to the Padres, Williams looked like someone told him Williams had been traded to the Pirates.
San Diego had the biggest trade-deadline party, adding Juan Soto, Hader and a whole lot more. The Cardinals had a modest celebration of substantial additions in the form of two solid starters and a reliever who will take the ball whenever asked. The Brewers? They got a kick in the shin from their front office, and it should surprise no one that Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell’s club is playing like it.
When you have to try too hard to convince yourself a nonconventional idea is smart, there is a chance it is actually quite dumb. The Brewers’ front office is smart. It tried to get too smart. Trading your All-Star closer during a division race is dumb. Unless the Brewers know Hader’s performance is about to collapse. We’ll see.
But for now, the Brewers have lost six of their last seven games. Five of the losses came after the trade-deadline disappointment. Three came either by one run or in extra innings. This slide, combined with the Cardinals’ season-high seven-game winning streak that started the day of the trade deadline, has presented Marmol’s club a real opportunity to slam the door on this division. Check the numbers.
FanGraphs’ postseason projections have had the Brewers ahead of the Cardinals for months. Not anymore. The Cardinals now are assigned a 59.7% chance to win the division title compared to the Brewers’ 40.3% chance. The Brewers are down, but they are not out. And it would be silly to expect them to stay flat. But the more the Cardinals can pile on now, the harder a Brewers rally becomes.
During a homestand that flashed the Cardinals’ postseason potential, newly named NL player of the week Nolan Arenado explained how he views the NL Central standings. The Brewers won the division title last season. It’s their division until proven otherwise.
“We have to take it from them,” Arenado said.
The Cardinals left for Colorado two games up with an invitation to tilt the picture for good. Fourteen of their next 17 games come against teams with a winning percentage below .450. The other three games are against Milwaukee, at home, where the Cardinals are now 35-20 this season, owners of the NL’s third-best home winning percentage.
While the Brewers will be spending a large chunk of the rest of their August clashing with winners such as the Rays (two games), the Cardinals (three) and the Dodgers (seven!), the Cardinals receive an opportunity to feast on the NL-West trailing Rockies (six games!), the barely better Diamondbacks (three) and the last-place Cubs (five).
Sweeping the Yankees over the weekend was a heck of a statement. Turning what was expected to be a close division race to the very end into a one-team topic before the Braves show up for the final home series before September would be another, and it would mean a whole lot more. It’s within reach.
The Cardinals are taking care of business against bad teams this season. They’re 38-21 against clubs on the wrong side of .500. But they’re tied in head-to-head meetings with Milwaukee (6-6), and their division lead has never been higher than mid-June’s brief grab of a 2½-game advantage.
The sustained momentum the Cardinals finally found here at home is coinciding nicely with the Brewers’ self-caused slide. It’s time for the Cardinals to take it.
