Watch Out For The Cardinals

The Pirates currently sit at top of the National League wild card standings but that spot is anything but a guarantee for the Pirates. There are several teams who could take that postseason bid from the Pirates including the Diamondbacks who the Pirates start a four game set with tonight, but I think a team that Pittsburgh fans are really under estimating are the St. Louis Cardinals.

I can't tell you why but it seems to me that people from around Pittsburgh are just writing off the Cardinals, instead looking just at the Reds acting as if the chance that the Cardinals could go on a run possibly even for the division let alone the wild card is an unreasonable thought. Let me tell you something that thought is not by any means unreasonable in-fact I would say that it's probably likely, not likely that the Cardinals will win the division but rather that they will go on a run putting themselves back in the hunt (not that they aren't in it already).

If your one of those people that disagree with me and think that the Cardinals don't stand a chance, keep reading I might change your mind. In my opinion the second most telling stat of a quality of team in all of baseball besides record is a teams run differential and the Cardinals are not exactly failing in that category. Through 108 games this year the Cardinals have a run differential of +110 the best in all of baseball, 18 runs better then the next closest team in the New York Yankees. Don't value run differential as much as I do? You should because in the last ten years the team with the highest run differential in the league has made the playoffs 100 percent of the time and 9 out of 10 of those same times that team had won their division. Also far all I know this trend might have been continued for another ten years but I can't tell you for sure because I  honestly just didn't feel like looking that much further.

There's no guarantee that the Cardinals will end the season with the highest run differential in the majors but a this point their the top pick and it would be pretty amazing if the team leading the entire majors in that category would miss the playoffs. The Cardinals are just two and a half games of the Pirates in the wild card, really not that much considering there's close to a full two months of baseball left. Luckily for the Pirates they still have six games left against the Cardinals so they still have their chance to hold them off along with the rest of the wildcard teams. Oh yeah and there's one thing that I didn't even mention earlier and that's that the Cardinals and defending World Series Champs!!! If the Cardinals don't have a chance to win the division then I don't know who does.





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