2014
Despite the success of the 2013 team, there were still holes on the roster that needed to be filled heading into the 2014 season. Shortly into the offseason, postseason legend David Freese was traded to the Angels with relief pitcher Fernando Salas in exchange for outfielders Peter Bourjos and Randal Grichuk. This was a move done to tightened up the outfield defense and leave room for top prospect Kolten Wong to take over for second base while Matt Carpenter would move back to his more comfortable position at third base. A few days later, they signed Jhonny Peralta to a four-year, 53 million dollar deal to take over for shortstop as Pete Kozma was no longer the answer. Although losing Carlos Beltran in free agency was a shame, they still had Allen Craig to take over for right field while Matt Adams would become the everyday first baseman. They also had top prospect Oscar Taveras in the system who management believed would be ready for the big leagues sometime in 2014. Throw in some short term contacts with Mark Ellis to help platoon with the rookie Wong along with Pat Neshek to add depth to the bullpen and the Cards had a complete team ready to go for 2014.
While the 2014 campaign was once again a success with St. Louis winning 90 games and the Central Division for the second straight year, they definitely had more setbacks from the prior year. The offense regressed quite a bit from 2013 with a rough first month from Jhonny Peralta, Allen Craig being a shell of his former clutch self, and rookies Kolten Wong and Oscar Taveras failing to impress with their bats, resulting with frequent benching along with demotions to the minors. However, a July trade was made that sent Allen Craig and Joe Kelly to the Red Sox for veteran pitcher John Lackey, which helped add more stability to the rotation and clear a path for rookie outfielders Taveras and Grichuk to get more consistent playing time. Despite being forced to play catch up all year, the Cards secured the division after a very strong September and set themselves up to face the Dodgers in the playoffs for the second straight season.
In Game 1 of the NLDS, the Cardinals once again had to face off against Clayton Kershaw, who was not only the Cy Young Award winner of that year but also the MVP as well. Things didn’t go so well to start as the Dodgers would tack on six runs off of an unusually shaky Adam Wainwright and led 6-2 late. Kershaw was dominated for the first six innings with his only blemish being two solo home runs prior. However, by the top of the seventh, the Cards were able to figure out Kershaw and rallied to score eight runs that inning, which would eventually lead to a 10-9 victory for game one. While the Dodgers took game two, the Cardinals would take game three at home thanks to a strong start from John Lackey and a late clutch home run from rookie Kolten Wong to give them a 2-1 series advantage. With their season on the line, the Dodgers sent Kershaw for Game 4 on short rest. Once again, he was great for six innings and once again, the Cardinals would get to him in the seventh inning, where they rallied to score three runs, off of a three-run bomb from Matt Adams. The Cardinals were able to secure a 3-2 victory, ending the Dodgers’ season for a second straight year and would head off to the NLCS for the 4th straight year.
Once again, they would face-off against the Giants. The series started off with a split in St. Louis, with Madison Bumgarner’s dominating performance leading the Giants to win Game 1 and a back-and-forth contest concluding with a walk-off homer from Kolten Wong that lead the Cardinals to win Game 2. For the next three games, while every one of those games were as tight as it could’ve been and left plenty room for both sides to achieving victory, it was the Giants that ultimately ended up with the larger benefits. San Francisco took Game 3 on a walk-off wild throw, took Game 4 after trailing earlier in the game, and then concluded the series in Game 5 with a walk-off homer from unlikely hero Travis Ishikawa to send the Giants to the World Series. It’s also worth nothing that the bottom of that 9th inning was when manager Mike Matheny made the bizarre decision to bring in previous NLCS MVP Michael Wacha, who had been dealing with injuries all year and hadn’t pitched in a game for three weeks, to keep the Cardinals season alive when just one mistake would end their season. Once again, the Giants would eliminate the Cardinals in the playoffs and once again went on to win the World Series in a seven-game thriller against the Kansas City Royals, their third title won in five years. While that lost certainly stung for St. Louis, that would unfortunately not be their biggest loss that October.
About one week after the Cardinals were knocked out of the playoffs, top prospect Oscar Taveras, who was also a hero in Game Two with his pinch hit home run to tie that ballgame, died in a car accident along with his girlfriend in his home country. A top prospect that was the highest rated in the Cardinal system since Albert Pujols and was thought to be the next great superstar in the making had unexpectedly passed away at just 22 years of age. A heartbreaking end for what was seeming like a promising uplifting future for the young man. As we are approaching the ten-year anniversary of that horrible passing, I sure hope Oscar is resting well up in heaven as we all speak.
2015
The offseason had a big stormy rain cloud above the team in the wake of Taveras’s passing. To fill that hole in the right field for the time being, the Cardinals made a stunning trade with the Braves where they acquired Jason Heyward and relief pitcher Jordan Walden in exchange for Shelby Miller and Tyrell Jenkins. They would also sign first baseman Mark Reynolds to platoon with Matt Adams, who struggled big time against left-handed pitching. While the Cardinals still had that solid core that helped them reached the playoffs the past four years, they were getting older and would end up showing their age sooner or later.
Surprisingly enough, the Cardinals had their most successful season of the past five years with 100 wins in the regular season, the most in baseball that year and the first 100-win team since the 2011 Philadelphia Phillies. They won their division for a third straight year, beating out the equally fighting Chicago Cubs and Pittsburgh Pirates. Despite dealing with injuries all year with big players such as Adam Wainwright, Matt Holliday, and Matt Adams, the depth in the farm system was still strong enough to overcome this kind of adversity, with the likes of Randal Grichuk and Stephen Piscotty stepping up for the later two mentioned.
The offense as a whole was nothing to write home about and having little to no pop with the exception of the now power hitting Matt Carpenter but it got the job done enough. However, the main reason for the success of the 2015 team was in large part due to the pitching. It finished the season with a stunning 2.94 ERA with a dominant rotation and bullpen from top to bottom. Even with the absence of Wainwright, John Lackey was able to slight into the role easily as that year’s ace with the likes of Lance Lynn, Michael Wacha, and Carlos Martinez assisting him nicely. The bullpen also was aided greatly by the ridiculous one-two punch that was Kevin Siegrist and Trevor Rosenthal. While the overall regular season record might’ve been a tad misleading and there were plenty of injuries with past players, there was still enough guys here that could make for at least one last deep postseason run with this core.
They have to go up against their longtime rival, the Chicago Cubs, in the division series, the first ever time these two teams would ever face off in the playoffs. The Cubs were coming into the series red hot, winning their last seven games of the regular season and the wild card game against the Pirates. The Cardinals were able to take game one thanks to a stellar performance from John Lackey and homers from key rookies Tommy Pham and Stephen Piscotty. Despite the Cards taking an early lead in game two, the Cubs took control of that game and eventually the whole series in the top of the second inning following a parade of blunders from the Cardinals defense which opened the door for five unanswered runs. Once the series went to Chicago, the electric Cards pitching staff that had carried the team all season long got absolutely OBLITERATED, giving up nine home runs and 14 runs total. Despite the best efforts from Stephen Piscotty and Jason Heyward, the Cardinals surrendered the NLDS to their divisional rivals, basically putting an end to this core of players and the impressive playoff runs they pulled off.
Aftermath
Despite the winning seasons and multiple playoff appearances since this five-year window, the Cardinals really haven’t come close to another World Series title since then. It’s constantly been resulted in either missing the wild card spot in the last week or just making the playoffs on the skin of their teeth only to get knocked out in the first round. The one exception to this was in 2019 where the bested the Braves in the NLDS, including the historic 10-run first inning in Game 5, only to roll over and die to the Nationals in the NLCS in a four-game sweep. Since getting eliminated by the Cubs in 2015, the Cardinals have played in 15 playoff games and lost 11 of them, including losing nine of their last ten. And with how bad 2023 has been, who knows if they will get another shot at the playoffs anytime soon?
As we get further and further away from that era of Cardinals baseball, I can’t help but look back and just constantly thinking of what if? What if they didn’t blow that 3-1 series lead to the Giants in 2012? What if they didn’t pitch to Big Papi at all in the 2013 World Series? What if Matheny didn’t got to Wacha in 2014? What if the key players managed to stay healthy in 2015 and the pitching didn’t regressed hard? As fun as that era was, I can’t help but think of how much more fondly we would be looking at that group and even this dour season if the Cardinals had just one or two more rings during that window they had? If only the could be the ones to win multiple championships instead of the Giants. It’s then they could have been seen as the best dynasty in baseball since the 90s Yankees and even more so than the Astros right now.
Regardless, I will always have fond memories of those early 2010s Cardinal teams. It was during my time in high school and always gave me something to look forward to, even during the troubled times in those four years. I just can’t help but think of how more remembered that group would have been by fans and especially the rest of the baseball world had they just got the job done one or two more times. Maybe then this awful 2023 campaign and the disappointing early playoff exits of prior years would at least be a bit more bearable. If anything, Cardinals fans would then have at least three or four World Series titles won in this century to reminiscence upon instead of two satisfying but fluky ones. As I’ve been saying throughout this entire piece, if only.
Adam's Blog 