The 2011 Cardinal Coaster pt.1

©2007 Eric Giesz

For a Cardinal fan, the last week has been a roller coaster of emotion that might have given some a case of whiplash. Oh wait, the last two months have been that way.

Of course, if this were a real roller coaster, we'd have looked at the beginning of the ride and demanded a refund. There might have been some small ebbs and flows to start, but about halfway through it seemed to slowly decline with little hope for going back upward.

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Backing away from the metaphor for a moment, everyone knows the major blow the Cardinals received before the first Spring Training game. Losing one of your pocket aces, Adam Wainwright, before the first hand would dishearten any team. The Cardinals, however, pressed on putting the best they had on the table.

Of course, they had to mix and match with their pitchers and hope the end result could at least be satisfactory. Let's face it, the first half of the season was full of experiments and hope. Kyle McClellan had never started a Major League game before 2011. He made the most sense to start, within the organization, but it was still a long shot.

Then there was the signing of Lance Berkman. At 35 years of age, Berkman had come off his worst season since he began his career. According to Baseball-Reference.com, Berkman's batting average, home run total, and RBI totals from 2010 were only better than his numbers in his first year back in 1999.

Granted, he did switch leagues during the season, not just teams, but age was certainly on everyone's mind as well.

However, health remained the biggest factor of the St. Louis season. After Wainwright was out, Fans couldn't have imagined things getting much worse. Unfortunately, they did. Matt Holliday missed a ton of games because of anything from an appendectomy to a wrist injury and even missed the end of a game because a moth flew into his ear. Yikes. He missed 38 games during the regular season, and I don't think most of those were because he just needed a break.

The Cards got few breaks for themselves. On June 19th, against the Royals, all of Cardinal Nation made one unified gasp as they saw their star go to the ground in pain on collision at 1st base. If anyone was going to carry their team through the tough times, it was going to be Albert Pujols. Now, it seemed like all hope would fade away when news came that he would miss 4-6 weeks.

Everyone knows that Pujols is super-human, but no one thought he could recover as quickly as he did. After the minimum 15 days on the disabled list, Albert was back on the field to put the St. Louis Cardinals on his massive back once again, even amongst the multitude of injuries that continued to plague the Cardinals.

Some fans couldn't believe
what the bullpen was doing.

One thing Pujols couldn't carry on his back, though, was the Cardinal's bullpen. The bullpen struggled in the beginning with blown save after blown save by Ryan Franklin, and on June 29th the Cardinals decided they had had enough. They cut Franklin from the roster altogether to make room for newcomers. Franklin lost the closer role early after a slew of blown saves, and he finished with an 8.46 ERA in 2011.

So, the ride was falling downward and maybe even beginning to spiral a little bit. Many fans had lost or were losing hope for the season. That's something especially rare for a fan base that is rarely out of contention and has such a rich history of winning. However, the trading deadline proved to be new life for the Cardinals. By July 31st, the Cards had sured up their bullpen with Marc Rzepczynski, Octavio Dotel, Edwin Jackson, and later claiming Arthur Rhodes.

Things were finally starting to fall into place, or were they? The Cardinals only won 15 of their 28 games in August. Be that as it may, an important date fell during that month, August 25th. That date in the regular season will be remembered as the beginning of one of the greatest runs in baseball history.

The Cardinals were 10 1/2 games behind the Atlanta Braves in the Wild Card, and with the Brewers continuing to roll it looked liked the Cardinal coaster was about to turn toward the end. However, on August 25th the cars went into another gear along the track. The Cards went on to win 23 of their last 32 games from that date on. Including a huge series against the Braves that they swept.

The 1969 Mets found winning ways.

The improbable was becoming more possible with each passing day. However, the goal was still in the distance and still a long shot. Hope was beginning to rise, but skeptics still held the majority. Only the 1969 Mets came back from that kind of deficit. The Mets were 9 1/2 games back of the Cubs in August. They won 39 of their last 50 to win the NL East division by 8 games.

The 2011 Cardinals won 31 of their final 50 games, but they couldn't blow past their competition. Every game leading into the final week grew heavier and heavier with importance. The Cards were inching closer and closer. The work of nearly seven months was coming down to the wire.

In fact, it almost came down to a 163rd game playoff against the Braves, but the Philadelphia Phillies would help bring the Cards to the post season by defeating the Braves in an extra inning affair.

The practically impossible had happened. The Cardinals had crawled up from hopelessness to hopefulness. They now had their sights set on a showdown with the Phillies. They were going to play the team that helped them into the playoffs. The team regarded by many as "the best team in baseball."

Tony La Russa knew what lied ahead, and he was ready...