It's certainly not a bad thing, but it does make you feel a bit wistful as a Cardinals fan to realize that the club is playing some of its best baseball of the year now that none of it matters anymore.
After six innings late on Tuesday night in San Francisco, the Cardinals trailed 8-3 to the Giants, yet found a way to emerge a short while later with a thrilling 9-8 win. Had the Cubs been able to hold the 6-1 led they held over the Mets earlier in the night, the result would have been even more noteworthy as it would have brought the Cardinals to within 2.5 games of New York in the wild card standings.
As it stands, though, the next loss by St. Louis or win by New York officially eliminates the Cardinals. The Redbirds can top out with an 82-80 record if they win out, while the Mets' next win will be their 82nd—and New York carries the tiebreaker by virtue of beating the Cardinals in 4 out of 6 games during the regular season.
Thinking back to little moments like the recent Saturday night loss in Milwaukee and the team's insistence to run Erick Fedde out there as many times as it did in July makes you realize just how close the Cardinals actually were to sneaking into the postseason this year.
Obviously, fans are tired of that mentality and largely seem to be embracing the idea that the Cardinals will go into a more full-scale rebuild this off-season. But in Wednesday's episode of Cards Central 365, I pushed back on the idea that the Cardinals truly need to tear it down to the studs in order to accomplish their rebuilding goals—which is probably an unpopular opinion among Cardinals Nation until you actually sit back and listen to what I'm proposing.
Most fans have likely long since moved on from spending any emotional energy on the Fedde debacle and from caring to revisit those late blown leads over the past few weeks and months—what's done is done and there's no sense in toiling over it when many fans didn't expect the team to be especially relevant in the standings in the first place, right?
Still, for those not ready to let go, the Cardinals ultimately finishing so close to contention has to feel at least a little bittersweet.