Now That's a Little More Like It

On Sunday, the Cardinals were able to do something they had failed at since April: sweep a series. And it wasn’t just any series; it was four games against the Dodgers—who had previously swept the Cards in LA this season—to stretch the Cardinals’ winning streak to five games and put them back into sole possession of first place in the NL Central. 

The first series after the All Star break always feels a little like starting the season over. There’s no way to know if those first games will “set the tone” or anything, but like the first game of the year or the first game of an important series, getting off on the right foot never hurts.

Oddly enough, even though much has been made about the Cards’ tendency to win the first two games of a series only to lose the third, this weekend’s brooming was their second four-game series sweep of the year. But since then, the Cardinals have been beat up by injuries and a baffling inability to stick to the fundamentals of defense, heads-up base running, and hitting in the clutch.

The injuries certainly haven’t let up either. Kyle Lohse just now started throwing the ball around, and he may be back before Brad Penny. Ryan Ludwick is about a week away from returning; David Freese, maybe two. And even though the Cincinnati Reds have played well and keep getting injured players back, the Cards kept them from holding a lead over the division…and the Redbirds haven’t gotten anyone back yet.

But what really made this sweep feel great were the little things. Think about the perceptions this team carried out of the first half of the season, then look at these stats:
 

• They got the sweep after failing in eight previous tries when they won the first two games of the series. Incidentally, though the Cards have two four-game sweeps this season, they do not have a three-game sweep. Does that matter? After Sunday, I’d say no.
  
  
• The Cardinals always seemed to face the question of whether they rely on the home run too much. Can they play small ball? Can they get a base hit with runners on? Well, the final scores over the weekend were 7-1, 8-4, 2-0 and 5-4 and they only managed one home run…from Yadier Molina.
  
  
• The games themselves offered a little bit of everything. The first two produced 15 runs, Adam Wainwright pitched a gem on Saturday to give the Cards a 2-0 win, and the team had to come back from a 4-0 deficit on Sunday.
  
  
• Sunday’s game was full of heroes; some, a little surprising: Matt Holliday, after all his struggles early in the year, came through with the game-winning RBI in the 9^th. Skip Schumaker made some great plays in the field, looking steadier of late. Allen Craig had three RBI, and Brendan Ryan broke a 0 for 22 slump with a hit, two walks, and a run scored. But the day belonged to starter Jeff Suppan, who pitched six strong innings and only allowed one run.
  
  
• The anti-hero of the game definitely had to be Jonathan Broxton of the Dodgers. Broxton came in with one out in the 8^th, allowed an inherited run to score before getting out of the inning, then blew the save and the game in the 9^th. It was the fireballer’s third blown save of the season (that’s two more than Ryan Franklin, by the way).
  

All in all, it was a big weekend for the Cardinals. It was truly great to see the Cards piling on, high-fiving, and all smiling after Sunday’s win. Like I said before, it’s impossible to know how the rest of the season will go and whether this sweep will affect it either way. But Sunday afternoon, St. Louis Cardinal baseball sure looked fun again.

Chris Reed is a freelance writer from Belleville, IL who also blogs on the Cardinals at http://bird-brained.mlblogs.com. Follow him on Twitter @birdbrained.