Here Come The Cardinals

The Cubs arch-rival limped into the all-star break a game over .500 and fired their manager as a result. They were an imploding mess that was beautiful to watch. The firing of Mike Matheny has seemed to light a fire under the third-place Cardinals, though.

That 16-9 record under Shildt is now 18-9. They've won 7 in a row, including a comeback walk-off victory Monday night. They've cut their 8 game division deficit in half. All of this while the Cubs offense can't buy a run, while holding a -28 second half run differential. They can never, ever just go away. Even in years like 2017, when the Cubs finished 9 games ahead of them in the standings, the Cardinals were within 2 games with less than 20 games left to go in the season, despite having a much less talented roster. With the Brewers in town with a chance to cut the Cubs division lead to 1 game this afternoon, it could be easy to forget the Cardinals. Unfortunately, they're doing their best to make sure that we don't.