The Cardinals are still hanging around.
After taking two of three from the Los Angeles Dodgers and then doing the same against the Colorado Rockies over the weekend, St. Louis has put itself in a spot that looked unlikely not long ago.
Sunday’s win over Colorado featured four perfect innings from Cooper Hjerpe in his big league debut, and the offense gave him plenty of help. Joshua Báez, Alec Burleson, Thomas Saggese and Iván Herrera all finished with multiple hits.
That latest victory moved the Cardinals back to .500 at 72-72.
There’s not much margin for error from here. St.
Louis has 18 games left and sits four games behind the final National League Wild Card spot. The San Diego Padres are the first club on the outside of the race, and they’re only a half-game behind the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The Cardinals and the Miami Marlins are tied in the standings, both four games back.
For a team that turned the keys over to president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom ahead of the 2026 season, this is already a quicker turnaround than expected. St.
Louis moved on from Nolan Arenado, Brendan Donovan, Willson Contreras and Sonny Gray, and the idea was that 2026 would be the first year of a reset. Instead, the Cardinals have the third-youngest roster in baseball at an average age of 26.6 years old and are still in the playoff conversation on Sep.
Even if the postseason doesn’t happen, this season has already pointed the Cardinals in the right direction. They also have a favorable stretch ahead, with upcoming matchups against the San Francisco Giants, Washington Nationals and Pittsburgh Pirates, all of whom are below .500 right now.
The path is clear: St. Louis has to keep winning, and it needs help. The Diamondbacks, Padres and Marlins all have to stumble down the stretch for the Cardinals to have a real shot.
The odds are still against them. But the dream is alive, and this club has spent the season making people rethink what it can do.
In Other News...
Cardinals Just Made Cooper Hjerpes Role A Lot More Interesting
Cooper Hjerpes first taste of the majors gave the Cardinals a little more to think about than just a promising debut. The left-hander was summoned out of the bullpen against the Rockies and delivered four hitless innings with six strikeouts, an outing that immediately hinted at how unusual his path in St. Louis might be. He was on the roster because Hancel Rincon was optioned after struggling in his first appearances, but Hjerpes performance quickly shifted the conversation from a simple call-up to how the Cardinals might best use him.
Oliver Marmol made it clear the club does not plan to slot Hjerpe into a normal reliever or starter role for the rest of the season. Instead, the Cardinals want to piggyback him while keeping him on a starters schedule, a setup that gives them some flexibility without asking him to fit neatly into one lane. For a team sorting through pitching depth and trying to make the most of a young arms first look, the arrangement now becomes the part worth watching. [Read more 🡒]
Cardinals Fans May Need To Rethink What Counts As A Starter's Workload
The old marker for a starters heavy lift keeps shrinking across Major League Baseball, and the Cardinals are right in line with that shift. These days, a full season no longer means chasing 200 innings the way it once did, and only a small handful of pitchers are even on pace to get there in 2026. In St. Louis, that reality is shaping how the club handles its arms, with workload management becoming less a sign of caution than a standard part of pitching development.
Leahy and Tanner Franklin are two examples of how quickly those workloads can climb when a team is trying to protect a pitcher while still building him up. The Cardinals have been careful with both, reflecting an industry-wide effort to reduce injury risk rather than anything uniquely conservative in St. Louis. For fans used to judging a starter by volume alone, the more important question may be how the club balances durability, effectiveness and the long view as the season wears on. [Read more 🡒]