The St. Louis Cardinals are staring at a piece of history they never wanted.
With five games left, the Cardinals need to win out to avoid back-to-back full-season losing records for the first time since 1958-1959. If they finish below .500, it would mark their first such stretch in the 162-game era.
“Be ready for some history tomorrow, I guess.”
- OnlyCardsFans (@OnlyCardsFans) September 23, 2026
For a franchise that has long been defined by consistency, that’s a jarring marker. But it’s also the reality of a season shaped by a rebuild and by choices made with the future in mind.
St. Louis clearly approached this year with an eye on what comes next, and in the long run those hard decisions could pay off.
Still, that doesn’t make the finish any easier to swallow.
The Cardinals had enough talent on hand to keep themselves in the race for much of the year, and the second half unraveling stands out. Selling at the trade deadline and refusing to force a win-now move made sense for the organization’s broader plan, but it also left the club with less margin for error. Even so, some of what went wrong was still within the team’s control.
Jordan Walker’s offensive slide, Matthew Liberatore’s struggles, and a bullpen that kept showing cracks all helped drag the season down. The Cardinals were at or above .500 through the first four months of 2026, but July’s 10-18 mark, August’s 14-14 record, and a 9-12 September so far have pushed them into this spot. Leads disappeared, the offense vanished at times, and the starting pitching had its own rough stretches.
Injuries didn’t help either. JJ Wetherholt, Masyn Winn, Joshua Baez, Blaze Jordan, Hunter Dobbins, and others all missed time or dealt with issues that made the climb tougher. But that’s part of surviving a 162-game season, and it’s why Chaim Bloom kept adding young talent in the minors, building toward more depth and more high-end talent down the road.
Bloom can’t undo what happened from the late 2010s through 2025. What he can do is steer the organization back on course, and this approach appears built for that. The cost, though, was a step back at the major league level before the bigger picture could improve.
For now, the Cardinals can sit with the disappointment. Fans can be frustrated.
But the organization’s future still has to be the focus, because if years like 2025 and 2026 are going to mean anything, the payoff has to come later. If it doesn’t, then the pain was for nothing.
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