St. Louis Cardinals’ Playoff Hopes REIGNITED? Adam Wainwright Thinks So!

St. Louis Cardinals’ Playoff Hopes REIGNITED? Adam Wainwright Thinks So!

The St. Louis Cardinals take care of the Cubs on Sunday to win the series. They also just beat the Dodgers and have won four of their last six. And one Cardinal legend has made a bold prediction about the end of the season. Should we start believing in these guys again? This is Locked on Cardinals. You are Locked on Cardinals, your daily St. Louis Cardinals podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. Hey there, Cardinal fans. I’m JD Hafford and I’m your host for Locked on Cardinals, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, covering your team every day. Follow me on X at JD Sports Radio as well as the podcast on X at L_Cardinals. You find us on YouTube, Tik Tok, Instagram at Locked on Cardinals. This is a show that serves Cardinal Nation. Gives the best fans in baseball all of the info about the birds on the bat. Today’s episode brought to you by FanDuel. Football season is around the corner. Visit the FanDuel app today and start planning your futures bet now. Thomas Goane from redwood ranch.com is kind enough to join us on this uh on this Monday to talk some Cardinal baseball. It’s a glorious Monday, Thomas, because as you can see if you’re watching on YouTube, the ugly shirt. It’s here. It’s on again, pressed, ironed, ready to go. Back-toback series wins. Uh they knock off their rival, the Chicago Cubs, thanks to a three to2 win on Sunday Night Baseball. That’s right. The Cardinals won not only on a Sunday, Thomas, which they don’t do very much of this year. Nationally televised game. Normally they get blown out in those games. So you’ve got a Sunday nationally televised. These are things they’ve struggled with. Thomas, how are we feeling about what the boys did this weekend? You have to throw in the rain delay, too, because they keep on getting those buckets. Yeah, I I feel great. It’s always good when you beat the Cubs, you know, especially in a in a big moment like this, early August, heat of the summer. It feels good. Yeah. And uh the Cardinals, and I I’m going to throw this out there. They’re in what we what we call the happy place right now, Thomas. Much like the movie Happy Gilmore and Happy Gilmore 2. I don’t know if you’ve seen those yet, but the new one’s on Netflix. entertaining, not not as good as the first one, but in those movies, happy dreams of, you know, his girl in lingerie, pictures of beer she’s holding, grandma winning money and other stuff in those scenes. And the Cardinals are in a similar spot. Uh they got their Yachty in a uniform in the dugout this past weekend. Uh some decent crowds, obviously not sellouts or anything like that, but some decent crowds, which you know, thank you to the Cubs fans for coming to St. Louis. plenty of at Bush Stadium. And we also got some really good pitching performances in the last week from Sunny Gray who threw two gems. Uh and then on Friday, you had Michael McGrevy who was really, really good. Again, looked strong uh in the opening game of the C series against the Cubs. Who were you more impressed with, Thomas, in the Chicago series by itself? Was it Gray on Sunday or McGrevy on Friday? I’m gonna have to go with Sunonny Gray. Um I know his line’s not going to look as clean. It’s not a shut out. One of those runs. Definitely not his fault. Corman Corman botched that throw over to first base. Yeah. Right. Um seven seven strikeouts, only one walk, seven innings strong. That’s what you look for out of your number one pitcher to to be able to go that long, save the bullpen, and really get those strikeouts limiting runners and the damage they can create. I’m not going to downplay McGrevy start. He was exceptional in his six innings. He held the Cubs at bay for most if not all the game. kept the runners off base, but Gray was just a little bit more dominant in my mind. He also I’m gonna throw a picture up too on uh YouTube right now. If you noticed, Sunny went with the socks up look Thomas, which I always am a fan of. Uh if you you may not like much about Miles Michaels. That that that’s you’re right. But there’s one thing he’s always done and he’s done the high socks and they’ve always looked awesome. Weno used to do the high socks. Like big fan of him. I think it adds a whole lot to the look. Uh but Sunny had him on Sunday night. Uh actually Miles is the one that suggested it to him. Uh John Denton was writing about this where uh or was it Derek Cool? Maybe it was Derrick Cool, but that wrote about it, but uh about how he told Sunny like, “Dude, try it like this because it makes you feel a little bit cooler like heatwise. Um he wore the sleeves in LA to keep his hands drier.” If you remember, all these things seem to be working. Uh the question is, can Sunny maintain this level of performance or is this just, you know, couple of good games and you expect it to come back down to earth a little bit? I sure hope he can. I mean, you want he’s being paid the money for it. He’s got the title of number one on the staff for it. If you’re hoping to make a playoff or a postseason push these last few weeks of the season, you need Sunny Gray to be on. You don’t need seven, eight innings every start, but more often than not, you need him to be that ace top rotation type guy. Yeah. And some cool stats. This for sure from John Denton. I I do remember this. 17 wins now at Wish Stadium in the last two seasons. Only TKO, who’s arguably the best pitcher in baseball, has more 18 at Kame Park in Detroit. Cardinals are 13-2 and grace 15 starts at home this year and a major league best 18-6 when he takes the mound yet people still question whether or not he is a number one guy in Major League Baseball. How do how do you feel about this? I mean obviously you always wish you had like three dudes who are better than him to to be your number one but all things considered I mean can we say he’s a number one or should we say he’s not? Pick a lane. Right. Yeah. Right. I mean, you’re getting into semantics at that point. What do you consider a number one pitcher in the league? Is it top five, top 10? What I mean, what are you looking for? Or is it just like a guy who can lead a staff? And I think if that’s the definition you’re going for, it’s got to be Sunny Gray. He’s been a stopper in his career. He’s been able to start runs for the Cardinals. He’s had those spectacular near historic starts. I mean, look at his his complete Cam shut out earlier this year, the Maddox. That’s something that an ace can do. That’s a number one type performance. Is he a top 10 pitcher? Probably not. But how many teams can have like only 10 teams can have a top 10 pitcher realistically unless one team has two and then we’re just getting into finance discussions but we don’t need to go there today. So I I think he’s definitely just go out and buy a bunch of them and uh but hey they got to stay healthy and they’re not healthy. You’ve seen them deal with a lot of injuries out there. So doesn’t always work out that way. But yeah, I mean whether you want to call him a number one or an ace, you want to use these words that trigger people for whatever reason, they get very upset at me when I call him an ace. I don’t know why, but uh he he is your ace. He’s the Cardinals ace. That’s what’s most important. And more times than not, he has pitched like one. He’s been that guy that like when things are going in the crapper, he’s the guy that gives you the best chance to to turn it around or put a stop to it, like you said, being a stopper for this rotation. and uh you know kind of bringing things back to balance for the team because you know you’ve seen these starts that you get from a a Michaelis and a Palante where it just blows up on them and then you’re like oh crap now we’ve used the whole bullpen and we’re screwed and then all right who do we turn to? Sunny Gray’s been that guy for them. So you got to give him some credit and uh whatever you want to call him just know that he is the best starting pitcher on the Cardinals right now. Um it’s been fun to watch this year. Uh more times than not he’s been uh he’s been really really good. So 11 wins now. 11 wins now. Erra is still over four, which you don’t like to see, but a couple of big blowup games are are why they look a lot worse than they are. But you know, if you’re a number one, you’re not supposed to have those games. So I I I understand the uh I understand the argument there as well. Uh I mentioned bullpen. We’re going to stick with pitching next. I want to ask Thomas about uh the bullpen and what has happened since the trade deadline. Who are the guys that are impressing him and we’ll talk a little bit of offense too? Well, uh especially what we’re seeing from, you know, the young guys like uh like Jordan Walker who has looked so much better. So, we’ll get into all of this coming up on Locked on Cardinals. Today’s episode brought to you by Game Day Hugh. So, is this particular hat, if you’re watching on YouTube, uh Game Day Hugh, cool enough to hook us up with a couple of uh their golf caps. Uh these things are clean, they’re beautiful, they’re light. I love wearing them on the golf course. Uh but you can wear them anywhere if you want to wear them to the gym. That’s another place I’ve been able to wear them as well. 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And it’s stuff like this that you can get now and have it ready for and that way you’re not procrastinating. So, get 15% off with code MLB15 at gamedayhw.com. That’s gamedayhue.com. The code even stacks on bundle deals so you can get more. So, now is the time to load up. Let your colors talk because colors speak louder than words. That’s gamedayhw.com code MLB15. Thanks again for making on Carlos first. Listen every day. Leave your comments on YouTube as well as on X or Tik Tok anytime you want. Make sure you guys give Thomas a follow on uh on X. But we love the feedback. We want to hear from you and what you’re thinking about things. Agree or disagree with the things we’re talking about today. One thing I think we can all agree on, Thomas, is that the Cardinals bullpen has been a very strong spot for this team. Overall, all season long, all season long, it was the same way last year. This year, not a whole lot had changed. Like the bullpin was really, really good. But you do what needed to be done at the trade deadline. You end up trading three of those big pieces away and Ryan Hley, Phil M, and Steven Matt. Um, and you needed to find guys that were going to step up in those roles and replace those guys. And so far it’s really been four guys that have stood out to you since the deadline moves, right? Yeah, it’s uh so one of the guys has been around for a long time, Kyle Lehey. He’s been doing it all year. He had a little bit of a blip sometime in June, but since then he settled. U Kyle Lehey, Matt Swanson, Jojo Romero, and Riley O’Brien. Those four seem to be Ali’s favorites at the back of the bullpen, and they’ve been delivering ever since August 1st. Now, let’s talk about let’s start kind of like I don’t the pecking order. We’ll start with Fonson. Okay, he’s the rookie. All right, let’s start with Fonson. Seven games in his last seven games, 12 innings, one run, six hits, 12ks. He’s got a 0.95 erra. We know that he did some closing in the minor leagues as well. Uh what have you liked from him so far? What has impressed you so far about him? And again, in his rookie season, people forget about this. This isn’t like some veteran guy they got. This is a rookie making his debut in Major League Baseball and he seems to have found his niche, hasn’t he? Yeah, he’s got eight strikeouts just the month of August already. He’s been firing the ball in there. He’s stranding runners that he inherits. He’s been exceptional when when called on in leverage situations. And as the season’s gone on, and as always got more comfortable with him since his promotion full-time, he’s been seeing these higher leverage situations, and they haven’t really been daunting to him. He’s handled them well. And that’s part of the thing is that when you had those other three guys there and those are the go-to guys for those situations. Guys like Swanson kind of got lost in the shuffle. You know, they were coming in games and they were just like, I don’t know, am I even that big of a deal? Am I needed on this team all that much? But, you know, it’s it’s just one of those things where some of these guys that you have that are used to, you know, more, you know, high leverage roles in the minor leagues and then you bring them up here and they’re throwing in the sixth inning of a, you know, where they’re losing six to two. Like, it’s different. It’s weird, but it’s different that you just don’t have the same intensity or focus. And, uh, to see him stepping up and becoming better and better as the year went on, I I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it because we all know you can never have enough arms in the bullpen. And uh you know, we’ve saw Chris Royoft and guys like that where it’s just like just this isn’t working. This isn’t good. And Swanson has been able to calm things down and has been excellent uh over the last seven games that he’s been in. Uh Riley O’Brien, another one of those guys. Where’s your trust meter at with Riley O’Brien? Because when I watch his games, I feel personally I’m like very nervous that he’s going to walk some dudes and it’s going to get out of hand. But so far, you go to his numbers and you’re like, uh, this guy’s actually pretty good. 1.74 erra so far this season just six earned runs this year. What are your favorite things about what you’ve seen from Riley O’Brien specifically more recently when he’s gotten called upon more from Ali? Yeah, it starts with his fast ball. Everything develops from there. He’s touching 97 98 with ease. Uh he when you get a guy with high stuff like like Riley O’Brien, you have to be willing to sacrifice balls going haywire and he hasn’t really had that happen to him. in August at least we’ll say that he had some rough patches early in the year too. But he seemed to have settled that down as well. He’s he’s getting pretty decent strikeout numbers. Uh he’s more so getting guys out however that happens. Ground balls, whatever it may be, as opposed to as usual calling card is with strikeouts. But it it’s the stuff that starts from there. It’s the fast ball low. That’s that’s where it goes for Brian. Yeah. that uh like so much movement and that’s the thing is you’re seeing like uh you know it’s we hear it a lot soft contact but his movement is so good that that’s why people aren’t hitting him quite as hard. Yeah, they’re putting it in play and you hope to get more swing and miss out of him but um not a whole lot to complain about when it comes to Riley O’Brien. He’s been pitching a lot better as he’s getting more frequent work uh and he’s staying healthy. Obviously, that’s been an issue for him since he’s been a part of this organization. He has been able to stay on the mound and uh at least recently, fingers crossed, things have stayed healthy for him. And so, we want to keep it that way because he’s you see why they they are they’re kind of drooling over him. And it’s kind of a shocker that other organizations have let him just move on and uh so far the Cardinals are are taking advantage of that. Um Kyle Ley, as we mentioned, been really really good. had that rough June that that you mentioned where, you know, he’s really good at the beginning of the year. Spring, we’re like, where’s this dude coming from? Um, but over his last nine games, 16 and two/3s innings, two runs, eight hits, 19ks, the RA at 1.08. Uh, he’s really been a lot of fun to watch and has been a bright spot for this team as well, hasn’t he? He has. And a lot of other people, beat writers, have been talking about his personality and how it lends him to being calm, cool, and collected regardless of when he’s called upon. He is that multi-ining reliever who can come in high leverage. He can shut down bothhanded batters. It’s he’s been reliable as all get out and and he seems to be mentally handling the load really well. Yeah. And and we think we forget about that sometimes of the mental toll that it takes on these guys uh to to be out there and in the situations that they are where you got a team like the Cardinals where we’re not score, you know, outscoring a lot of teams. you know, they’re tight ball games and it’s just like over and over you’re just in these one, two-run ball games and uh pressure is real, man. It’s it’s not an easy job. If it was, everybody’d be doing it and we’d find bullpin arms all over the place. But it’s not easy. Uh there has been discussion about possibly stretching him out and letting him become a starter for next season, similar to what they did with Matthew Liberator this spring. um are with the way the depth is in the organization, you know, you’ve seen the injuries to guys that they were hoping might be able to step up. You know, it’s Kar Roby and Cooper Jerpy and Sim Robertson and uh you know, Quinn Matthews has had his issues, although he just got named international uh pitcher of the week, which is really good. He’s looked better uh recently, but he’s had his health issues. Teen Kent has had health issues. The way things are, are you cool with that? Are you cool them doing the liberatory thing again where they kind of taking a weapon from a strong spot which is the bullpin and moving it up to the rotation if they decide they’re not going to go outside the organization and pay for anybody? Yeah, I think there’s a few different statements in baseball that ring true. One of them is that you can replace a bullpen piece pretty easily. They’re they’re cheap. They’re easy to find on the open market or on waiverss. I would love to move Kyle Lehey into a rotation spot for next year. At least give him a chance in spring. Michaels will be gone. That opens up a spot. I think there’s an argument. You think he will, do you? I hope he will. If he’s back, I think that we’ll be seeing numbers in the 10,000s next year in attendance. I think Andre Kate should probably get his second look as far as where he fits for next year, too. And then you always need that depth. You mentioned a bunch of prospects we have. Um, throw Kyle Lehey in there and it gets you have it’s insurance at that point for the rotation. I don’t know if he’d be an amazing starting pitcher. I’m not saying that, but he could be very serviceable towards the bottom of the rotation with maybe some upside. Yeah, we saw him pitch uh you know, it was like what? He got stretched out over a few innings and everybody’s like, “Oh, okay. Maybe we do this with him.” So, u obviously this won’t happen until the off season. And then, you know, we don’t know what’s going to happen this offseason either. If He bloom is what’s he going to do to kind of reshape things and how they look? you know, is he willing to deal some of the position players to go find some other pitchers to give him uh, you know, more more uh depth there at the starting rotation position. So, uh, but something to think about. Something to think about. And then, of course, we’ll wrap it up bullpen wise with Jojo Romero. I mean, what can you say bad about Jojo? Uh, since April 27th, he’s been almost unhitable. You know, 35 appearances, 32 and a3 innings, 33 strikeouts, two earned runs in 35 appearances. That is freaking nuts. the RA 0.56. The guy found his thing at playing golf, man. He went to the the driving range and figured out to get his hips into something and he’s been incredible ever since. I mean, is this the closer? Is this the guy moving forward or do you think this is just something that’ll happen, you know, for the rest of this year and then they’ll re-evaluate things next year? Yeah. He’s got three saves since the deadline that would lend you to believe he’s the closer. I I think bullpen should probably be a little bit more flexible than like this is my closer here. Especially since he’s the only lefty in the bullpen. You’ll see him like we saw against Otani and Freeman and Betts at one point in the game against the Dodgers. You’ll see him when they need him most, but if possible, I think Marva will hold them through the ninth in a close game. Yeah. And um yeah, it is strange that they just don’t have any other lefts or they got the the waiver wait for John King to come back. Hold on. Yeah, wait on John King to come back as well. But I don’t know. I’ve kind of enjoyed not having to see him so far. Uh no offense, John, but things are working pretty well without you. So, um yeah, just take your time, buddy. Get healthy. Uh offensively, real quick, we’ve seen Jordan Walker appear to be turning a corner with his game since coming back from the IIL. He has he’s had uh 20 games, hitting 315, Thomas, 359 OBP, only the one home run. I get it. Eight RBI’s, three stolen bases. But what what have you liked most about what you’ve seen from Jordan Walker since coming off the IIL? He is swinging the ball a lot more in August or he’s swinging out the ball a lot more in August. And it’s not like he’s swinging at those fast balls high, breaking balls down and away. His inzone swing rate has gone up quite a bit. Uh he’s now up to 61 and a half percent. His out of zone swing rate has dropped in this month. I mean, I was I came prepared today. You got statistics on me. it dropped from over 50% in June and July down to 30 and a half. So, he’s swinging more, but it’s at pitches in the zone. He’s not necessarily generating hard contact as often. His average exit velocities down, but when he hits the ball and when he barrels it, man, that thing’s a bullet coming out of the box. Yeah. And and it’s a shame because there’s been a couple times where he’s had balls that look like they were going to be home runs and he gets robbed or like and I don’t know why they just have been dying at certain spots, but uh yeah, that one that he hit this weekend was freaking missile. Like that was he had he had two against the Diamondbacks too, didn’t he? In that series like close to home runs. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s just like ah because you know you had a couple of them in there and you’re like thing things look so much more different just by a couple of them going an extra 15 feet. But, um, it’s great to see. I don’t know anybody that’s been rooting against Jordan Walker. I mean, this franchise really needs a superstar player to get behind. I think Mason Win is on his way. Obviously, you’re seeing it defensively and he’s been really, really good in the second half offensively, but, you know, it’s it’s always been Win and Walker. Win and Walker. Those are the guys that, you know, we’re really kind of banking on. And it’s been tough, uh, you know, for for us watching Jordan struggle, you know, and you’re like, “Wait a second, this guy was the the top right-handed hitting prospect in all of baseball just a couple years ago.” Like, what has happened? And, you know what, he’s still 23 and he’s still young. And sometimes it just takes a little bit before things finally click. And so far, I can’t really complain about what we’ve seen uh, since he’s been back. Also, shout out to to Nolan Gorman hitting 304 in August with a with a home run and five RBI’s in seven games. The Aronado injury has been huge for him, hasn’t it? Offensively, yeah, defensively, we don’t got to talk about that. Yeah, we don’t we don’t talk about that. Yeah, offensively it’s been great. He’s been he’s a guy that’s streaky and for the streaky guys, you need to get them regular playing time and he’s gotten that. He’s gotten 35 out of 40 starts this year in his appearances. He’s logged uh seven games in August alone, 25 played appearances. That’s that’s huge for a guy like him who needs those consistent at bats, play appearances, experiences. His OPS is still slightly below 800, which you don’t love to see like a little bit more slug out of him. However, you’ll still take it. Yeah. Yeah, we’ll take it. And uh you know, these guys are finally here in August. You’re seeing the runway that uh we heard so much about all off season. And uh we’re done with that word. you eliminate the the log jam that you got and some of these bats are coming in more for these guys and uh you’re seeing some of them step up. So, uh positive thoughts uh right now going on with the Cardinals and now you got the Rockies in town. We’re going to talk about them and the division wildcard race that the Cardinals technically are still a part of. And uh one former legend actually thinks things are going to come down to the very end of this season for the Cardinal. He’s got uh he’s got a bold prediction. So, we’ll talk about that more coming up next on Locked on Cardinals. August 26th is officially FanDuel Futures Day, a brand new holiday for football fans who live for bold predictions and preseason hunches. For just 24 hours, FanDuel is giving you deals on NFL season predictions. So whether you’re calling your MVP or you’re eyeing a long shot division winner or you’re ready to crown your Super Bowl champion before week one even kicks off, this is going to be your moment. So let’s talk MVP. All right, Josh Allen last year. Very, very good, right? Who’s complaining about Josh Allen? But rarely do guys win back-to-back MVPs anymore. Aaron Rogers was the last one to do it when he was with the Packers. But it’s almost always a quarterback. So, if you’re going to choose one, who you going to roll with? Personally, I’m I’m kind of on the Bengals Joe Burrow bandwagon right now. Uh, finally healthy in the preseason has always been hurt during the preseason. Looked really good in their first game. And, uh, I’m hoping that that slow start that normally plagues him and the team won’t be there because he’s healthy finally, but he’s got all the weapons. Jamar Chase, T. Higgins, Chase Brown, that’s the guy I’m eyeing for the for the MVP. So visit the FanDuel app today and start planning your futures bet now. You can go with what I say. You can pick your own. Maybe you go Lamar Jackson. Maybe you go Josh Allen again or maybe you go Patrick Mahomes possibly. These are all up to you. But visit the FanDuel app today. Start planning your futures bet now because futures day is one day and one day only. FanDuel, play your game. Thanks G for making lockdown. Carlos your first listen. for your second list and check out locked on MLB game night every game every night all season long. You can find MLB game night on locked on MLB’s YouTube channel or wherever you listen to your podcast. Thomas Goain from redbrance.com with us. Uh Cardinals lost two of three in Colorado. Got shut out in that last game. Most people thought that was the dirt on top of the Cardinals coffin and that would do it. Game set, match, season’s over. Uh now you’re looking up and you’re like, “Okay, three and a half back in the wild card. a lot of these other teams ahead of you were slumping. Do we start to believe uh you’re going to have to beat the Rockies though? Is anything less than a sweep a failure over the next few games? Uh if you look at the overall season against the Rockies, you go 500 against them. I think that’s not good at all. That’s what it would take if we go two out of three. Uh I’ll take two out of three though at this point just to keep the ball rolling. Series win is a series win. You look at the matchups. We’ve got Chase Dollarer tonight 6.68 RA. So that should bode well. Right-handed pitcher, we got some lefties. However, the next two nights, it’s Kyle Freeland and then Austin Gomeber. Both lefties. Even if you look at their RA, you shouldn’t be overly confident given how the Cardinals have hit against left-handed pitchers this year. We’re at BCH, which suppresses offense a little bit more too than than Korsfield obviously. So I I’m confident the one series sweep will be lovely. I’ll take a just a victory. Isn’t that crazy though? We sit there, we look at this, and we’re like, between those three pitchers, they have four wins, Thomas. Four the whole season. And we’re like, well, it’s going to be tough. Like I see, those are the That’s why I’m always like, it’s hard to trust anything that the Cardinals have done this year because they they always these these struggles happen. These left-handed pitchers come in and for whatever reason, they can’t hit them. And it doesn’t make any sense at this point. Although having Ivon Herrera back is something that has really helped even things out and has them playing a lot better and at least offensively hitting a lot better uh against those kind of guys. But yeah, I mean these guys are terrible. Like they there’s no excuses for not winning two of three if not sweeping. I mean Dollar two and N as you mentioned, 6.68 RA. I know he throws hard. I know he’s a big prospect for them. So there’s going to be some strikeouts in this one, but come on man, you got to hit this guy. And then uh Freeland 2 and2 RA 5.53 and GMER they hit well in Colorado so I’m not worried about them 0 and6.52 erra very familiar with the former Cardinal there. Um but again we look at these these standings dude uh three and a half back in the wild card. Adam Wright posted this. I’m looking at the schedule. I’m calling it now. The Cardinals shock everybody and are playing for a wild card spot on the last series of the season against the Cubs. Cubs cards last three days of the regular season would be wild. Now, are you buying into this or do you think maybe he was just really excited because Yachti was back in town and it got the better of him? What are your thoughts? Uh, probably a little bit of both, honestly. I mean, he knows a thing or two about late season comebacks. You look back at 2011 alone, especially. Yeah, I know. Yeah. So, he knows a thing or two about late season comebacks. Um, I I would love it. Why not go for it? That season is that series against the Cubs has always been on my mind since they released the schedule last year as a series. That should be a big one towards the end of the year. Why not go for it? Get a wild card birth. See what happens. We’ve missed the playoffs here in St. Louis for too many years. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s um it would be it would be something. It’d be another you know how Detroit kind you know they traded things away at the deadline and then they just kind of they clicked and things started to work. And so that could be something that’s happening. I mean, you’re kind of seeing it around the league where some of these big city teams, you know, both New Yorks have been having a really rough go and you’re seeing, you know, the Cardinals are sneaking back in and all of a sudden the the Guardians are a half game out of the wild card. Um, you know, there’s a lot of baseball still to play. I mean, we’ve got almost two months left. So, uh, anything can and usually does happen, but got to take care of business, right? One game at a time. We’ll use all the cliches, but you’ve got the Rockies in town for three. No mercy, dude. You gotta take care of business and you gota at least do a sweep needs to happen, though, in my opinion. And that’ll that’ll really get the juices flowing once again after uh two big series wins uh against the Dodgers and of course the Cubs. All right, Thomas, thank you so much for joining us today. Uh find him at Thomas Goane on Twitter, on X, whatever you’re calling it these days. Uh anything new at redwoods.com that you’re uh you’re working on right now? I’ve got a pretty interesting Cardinals history piece coming out August 16th and then I will be at the game on Saturday with the Yankees. So, if anybody wants to come find me, be like a little where’s Waldo type thing. Go for it. All right. Excellent. Excellent. Do you know where you’re sitting yet or you just know where you’re going? Ah, somewhere 200’s third baseline. I can’t remember exactly. So, I’m honestly I don’t want to tell I don’t want to tell people where I actually am. So, you may not, you know, I’m going have people hunting me the whole time or something. Probably not. Everybody stalk Thomas and his family on Saturday when the Yankees are in town. And, uh, go say hi to Thomas and say hi to the say hi to the the wife and the kids and stuff. So, uh, looking forward to hopefully a strong week with the Rockies and the Yankees uh, games coming up. So, thank you guys for making lock on Cardinal First List every day. If you haven’t already, give us a follow on at LOL_cardels at JD Sports Radio. Tik Tok and Instagram, Lockdown Cardinals. Of course, on YouTube as well. If you haven’t seen the visual side of things, come check us out. You guys are the best fans in baseball for a reason. We’ll see you next time on Lock on Cardinals.

Cardinals stun Cubs and Dodgers. Is a wild card run on the horizon?

JD Hafron breaks down St. Louis’ impressive victories, highlighting Sonny Gray’s dominant pitching and the bullpen’s post-deadline resurgence. The discussion covers Jordan Walker’s offensive turnaround, Adam Wainwright’s bold prediction, and how recent performances are reshaping the Cardinals’ playoff chances. Thomas Gauvain from RedBirdRants.com offers insider perspectives on Walker’s improved plate discipline and the team’s wild card outlook.

Don’t miss this in-depth analysis of the Cardinals’ late-season push. Will St. Louis defy the odds and clinch a playoff spot in their final series against the Cubs?

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