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I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention to baseball and the frantic playoff races but if you haven’t then you’ve missed something pretty darn crazy – the St. Louis Cardinals have won 17 straight games and last night clinched the NL’s second wild card.
Talk about a good time to go on a historic run!
When you go inside the numbers and the history of it all it’s even more impressive.
– On Aug. 5 they were two games under .500 and well back in wild-card race. It wasn’t even a thought at that moment.
– On Sept. 7 they had a 2.8 percent chance of making the playoffs, per FanGraphs.
– The streak, which began with a win over the Reds on Sept. 11 is MLB’s third longest streak since 1960. They were 71-69 before that game started. Now they’re 88-69. Not bad.
– It’s also the second longest winning streak in Sept. since the 1935 Chicago Cubs ripped off 21 straight wins. 1935!
– Last night 40-year-old Adam Wainwright, who has spent his whole career in St. Louis, got his 17th win of the year that gave the Cardinals their 17th win in a row and spot in the playoffs.
It’s all just utterly insane.
You know who I feel bad for here? The Giants or the Dodgers because one of those teams is going to have to face the Cardinals in a one-game wild card showdown next week and I wouldn’t want to face this team in that kind of situation.
No thank you.
What the Cardinals have done over the past few weeks will be remembered forever, at least in St. Louis, and there’s no reason to believe this team can’t keep this going in the playoffs.
Which would be bonkers.
Quick hits: Cleveland OF hits homer off his brother… Tom Brady’s funny message about his father’s comments on Patriots… Big Ben is done… And more.
– Cleveland’s Bradley Zimmer hit a home run off his older brother Kyle and then had a sweet reaction to it after the game.
– Tom Brady found a funny way to tell his dad to cool it with his comments about the Patriots.
– Charles McDonald looks back at four key things from Week 3 of the NFL and says it’s time for Ben Roethlisberger to retire. Like, right now.
– Speaking of Tom Brady, he and Jalen Ramsey shared a classy moment after last Sunday’s Rams-Bucs game.
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