Two months ago, I sat at my summer internship and witnessed my boss hopelessly watch his beloved St. Louis Cardinals on his computer. With his team well out of playoff contention, he remained partly interested only because of a bet with a co-worker.
Four nights ago, I sat in my living room and watched the Cardinals defeat the Milwaukee Brewers to clinch the National League pennant and a trip to the World Series.
Yep, that’s right: The St. Louis Cardinals are in the World Series. For those of you who tuned out baseball after the Reds and Indians dropped out of the race, spent the last few months out of the country, or perhaps just woke up from a two-month coma, that might come as a shock.
After sitting seemingly a million games out of a playoff berth at the beginning of September, the Cardinals won 21 of their final 29 games and were the beneficiary of one of the greatest collapses in baseball history.
With 31 games to play, the Cardinals were 10.5 out of the wildcard. With 20 games to play, St. Louis was 7.5 out, and with merely five to play, the team was three games out.
The Cardinals played well in the month of September, going 18-8, but it was Atlanta’s historic breakdown that allowed St. Louis to steal the final playoff berth on the last day of the regular season.
As a Reds fan, St. Louis’ success is painful, but the historical context of its comeback is intriguing.
In more than 100 seasons of Major League Baseball, the 2011 Cardinals are the first team to be at least 10 games out of first place Aug. 27 or later in the league, division or wild-card race and reach the World Series.
Before the 2011 Braves, the only other team to blow an eight-and-a-half game lead after Sept. 5 was the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies.
The Cardinals were the beneficiaries of that collapse as well and went on to defeat the Yankees in seven games to claim the World Series.
Forty-seven years later, St. Louis is three wins away from again capitalizing on a rival’s colossal collapse.
After earning the playoff berth, the Cardinals completed the remarkable task of defeating the top-seeded Phillies and the Milwaukee Brewers — the team that beat St. Louis for the National League Central crown.
Record performances led the Cardinals to where they are.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the 2011 Cardinals are only the second team in MLB history to win a best-of-seven postseason series in which their bullpen recorded more outs (86) than the starters (73), as they did in the NL Championship Series against the Brewers.
St. Louis also became the first team to win a postseason series when their starters failed to go more than five innings pitched in any of the first six games.
Though the Cardinals were able to win in spite of their starting pitchers, their work at the plate is what propelled them.
Eventual series MVP David Freese finished with three home runs, a .545 batting average and nine RBIs.
According to ESPN Stats & Info, the only other player to match those statistics in a postseason series is Lou Gehrig, who batted .545 with four homers and nine RBIs in the 1928 World Series — against the Cardinals.
The Cardinals also became the only team to score first in all six games of a postseason series. They got some help from Brewers’ pitchers too.
So whether you’re rooting for or against St. Louis, every baseball fan should recognize the significance of its late-season run.
Rob Ogden is a senior studying journalism and assistant sports editor of The Post. Email him at ro137837@ohiou.edu.
