Sure it is easy to say they still have a shot with 5 games against the Cubs and 3 against the Brewers left on the schedule.

But with that said, I wonder how many more opportunities to move closer or take the lead can a poor team throw away and still have a realistic hope of winning the division. Such a team has a small margin of victory, even when completing against the like of the Brewers and Cubs. Can the Card:

Loose 5 out of 6 on the road against the Pirates and Nationals.

Split a 4 game set at home against the Pirates.

Have the likes of Matt Albers and Jojo Reyes dominate you.

Get swept in the desert with the teams top 2 starters going in the series.

Get swept in the desert after holding a lead in all 3 games.

Go 5-12 in road games in August.

The fact is that the Cards could suffer a few of these things and still win the NL Central.

But all of them? No.

I sure hope that handsome devil Joel has some sort of trick up his sleeve; I don't think I can stand to watch the Cards lose a fourth in a row.  If I were a southern woman, I would fan myself and collapse onto a nearby Davenport when confronted with watching this team any more.  However, given my sex and background, I'll stick with excessive game time drinking and occasional couch cushion directed tirades.  Huh.  What an odd tangent.  

You see, it's a joke! Revised a lyric from a song by THE Zombies and related it to OUR Zombies.    Ok, I'm sorry.  

Moving on...I am trying to make some sort of point about how I think we are pretty lucky to be in the position we're in, and it might be time to revise our goals for the season (one of many revisions throughout the year for sure).  I also agree that our Pythagorean record is likely to catch up with us, so I've decided that I'm rooting for .500. That would put us as of now at +8 better than our Pythagorean record, which would be quite a feat.

I'll take 81-81.  Secondary goal would be having a better record than the Cubs; maybe 81-81 will do that, who knows.  

I don't subscribe all to well to that theory and heres why:

Blow outs/Mop ups.  When the white flag is raised on either side you rest your banged up vets, put in your experiments and just take her nice and easy at the ball park.  You leave your starters out there to get roasted to save the bullpen, when that fails you put in Aarron Miles and Scott Spiezio on the mound, thus tacking more worthless runs on the the differential (I know they both have a 0.00 era but still).  You don't put in Franklin/Izzy after Wells & Co just gave up 7 runs.  You put in Jiminez and Dove to add even more runs to the down side of the run differential.

Even if you leave your starters in tact they're not going to be playing 100% or close to it.

Runs simply change value and in the cardinals case it's extreme.  5 more runs when you're already down by 6 doesn't mean anything except a distorted pythagorean.

I just did a quick and dirty re-adjustment.  I simply erased all the blowouts (win or loss of 6 runs or more) and came up with a closer to record W/L.

523 Runs Scored vs 540 Runs Allowed which is a 68-72 record.  

I've been meaning to do a Blowout-Free Pythagorean but been procrastinating, I'll do it tomorrow ;)

It'd be something where you only get credited/debited runs past a certain point in a game (i.e. if you lose 12 - 0 then it should only count as a 5 - 0 loss or such)

You could even make it more personal by team and game.  I.E.  After Maroth gave up 4 runs in the first 1/3 inning.  The bullpen was fried so he left Maroth in there to give up 4 more then normally he'd be pulled. Tony then threw in all his bullpen experiments. they also got blown out giving up 5 more runs, thus a white flag total of say X.  If the game was "ran" at 100% the entire way Maroth would have been pulled earlier, more reliable Relievers would have been put in, their average would be Y.  

Adjusted Run Differential would now be X - Y.  

Same can be applied for hitting too.  Take your average runs generated prorated for the rest of the game and compare that with the scrubs you replaced them with.

We've got a 6 man rotation and only 2 pitchers who seem to be able to pitch: Wainwright and Suppan 2.0

I havent seen any of these guys pitch expect for Looper who seems to dominate the cubs, but for the next 2-3 years i see Wainwright, Carpenter, Mulder (maybe not?), i dont know your farm system too well so maybe one of your prospects is near major league ready.

Source http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/boxscore?gid=270910116

Just to bring this up: In 1973 on this date, the St. Louis Cardinals stood atop the NL East with a 72-71 record.  The New York Mets, in 4th place, were 69-74 (3 games back).

The Mets finished the season at 82-79, a 13-5 record to finish out the string.  The Cardinals came in at 81-81 (9-10) to finish 1.5 games back.

Here's to the Cardinals avenging that letdown!

j/k

Looks like the ball is carrying out to left.  We need to get our boys to start pulling the ball for righties, and pushing the ball for lefties.

C'mon you Redbirds!

As I say this, he gets squeezed.

Love it.

Pretty even game.

Pineiro is done, not fooling anyone anymore.

Three loses to the Dbacks and losing to the Cubs.  Ya gotta help my Rocks.

BTW:  There is no misery that is too bad for a Cub fan.

and the cardinals season is slipping away. . .

Boston, Chicago and Philly are the worst places in america.

Now if we can have a season without everyone getting hurt next year, that's be fun.

Sure, I second guess and question his moves sometimes, too. Show me a knowledgable fan of any club who never has occasion to do the same.

But I defy anyone to show me a manager who has been able to pull off this much with this little. Injuries to Rolen, Eckstein, Pujols, Edmonds, Duncan, Molina, Encarnacion, Wilson, Spezio, Carpenter, and the death of Hancock. That's pretty ridiculous.

I'd wager that the Cubs would be smelling the Pirates' asses if Ramirez was ineffective due to shoulder problems and eventually shut down, Zambrano was on the DL for the whole year, Howry'd been killed in an accident, and Kendall, Lee, DeRosa, Jones, and Floyd had all been injured.

Anyway, I'm rambling. My point is that the boys have done well to get this far this year, with all of the problems they've had.

Wow, class just oozes from the bleachers.

Way to make him pay So!

Perhaps the Cardinals can pull some magic out of their arses but if they are going to do it, the 8th would be the time with Pujols potentially up with RBI opportunities.