The power of the baby blues

The Cardinals pound the Brewers and the Cubs lose again. St. Louis is still four games under .500 but only three back (on the loss side) in the standings.

Welcome to pennant race baseball, National League Central style.

On a night when the Brewers honored their 1982 American League champion team, the Milwaukee writer says last night's performance by the Cardinals (19 hits), may have reminded the former players of Game 6 of the World Series that year -- a 13-1 spanking at the hands of the Redbirds.

Behold the power of those baby blue uniforms.

Of course, we also know what happened the following night back in October of '82. I like the foreshadowing.

With Kip Wells' performance on Tuesday night, that's now a string of nine consecutive games where the Cardinals starter has gone at least six innings and St. Louis has now won six of its last eight. The only two losses during that time: Jake Peavy's shutout against Anthony Reyes and Adam Wainwright's tough-luck loss on Friday night.

If there's one comparison you can draw between last year's team and the current edition -- it's this. Injuries to veterans have opened spots for younger guys and they've responded. Last year, it was Jason Isringhausen's bad hip that opened the door for Wainwright, Josh Kinney and Tyler Johnson to shine out of the bullpen in the postseason.

This year, in the span of a week, the Cardinals have lost a player to the restricted list (Scott Spiezio), the surgeon's knife (Adam Kennedy) and La Russa's doghouse (Juan Encarnacion). In the lineup last night, we saw Rick Ankiel, Brendan Ryan and Ryan Ludwick. That's three guys who started the year in Memphis.

The spark of energy provided from that trio combined with a resurgent pitching staff and a revived Jim Edmonds -- a batting average of .410 and an OPS of 1.041 in the month of August -- and it's no wonder this looks like a different club.

Checking in with the playoff odds report, it's now climbed to over a 6% chance for the Cardinals. That doesn't sound like much, but it's almost tripled in less than a week.

Win again tonight with the short turnaround for the Thursday afternoon game, and the Brewers may start to feel the walls closing in. With Alfonso Soriano injured and out of the Cubs lineup, they're already starting to panic in Chicago.

If St. Louis can win four or five of its next six games, watch the panic begin in earnest.

In the middle of August, in a mediocre NL Central, third place is not such a bad place to be.