Cardinals Have Clear Reason For Playoff Hopes In 2025

We're just 17 games into the Major League Baseball season for the St. Louis Cardinals -- not including Wednesday's tilt against the Houston Astros.

As of writing, the Cardinals and Astros are in action so all statistics are reflective of action through Tuesday's loss against Houston.

It's a small sample size, but there's reason to be excited about this Cardinals team despite an 8-9 record so far this year. Last year the Cardinals won 83 games and was in the mix for a playoff berth until late in the summer. St Louis added ahead of the trade deadline and just missed out. But, the Cardinals took a big step forward from the 2023 season to 2024.

There's an argument that this team as currently constructed will be better by the time the season comes to an end. The offense has actually been one of the best in the league so far, the bullpen has solid pieces, and the starting rotation has a chance to be really good.

St. Louis entered the day with a 4.03 ERA in 17 starts. That was good for 14th in the league. That isn't too far from last year when they finished the season with a 4.04 staff ERA and were 16th in the league.

The number is slightly misleading for this season, though. Miles Mikolas has a 9.00 ERA that is significantly raising the overall staff ERA. Outside of him, Sonny Gray has a 3.13 ERA, Erick Fedde has a 3.43 ERA, Matthew Liberatore has a 3.93 ERA, and Andre Pallante has a 2.20 ERA. The Cardinals also just added Steven Matz back to the rotation who threw five innings of one-run ball on Wednesday to lower his ERA to 2.16.

The Cardinals' staff number will go down once the game ends and overall this team is trending in the right direction. Fans should have hope right now.