Today is Memorial Day, and the conventional wisdom in baseball suggests that means the current standings now have more signal than noise moving forward. Perhaps that means its time to take the Cardinals, who have been white-hot in recent weeks, more seriously despite the narratives surrounding their quiet offseason and slow start to the year last month. A nine-game win streak earlier this month has helped propel them to a 16-4 record over their past 20 games and a 30-23 record overall. Thats put them in a statistical tie with the Padres for the final NL Wild Card spot as things stand and just two games back of the Cubs in the NL Central. When looking at the eight teams that have won 30+ games entering Memorial Day, its hard to deny that the Cardinals are the most surprising. As previously mentioned, they made virtually no additions this winter as they signed late in the offseason but otherwise stood pat Luis Urias Jersey while players like and departed the organization. Perhaps even more surprising is the fact that players who appeared likely to be a big part of any succe s the Cardinals may have had this year, like youngsters and , are struggling badly. was a standout at the plate last year but has been merely league average this season and is currently day-to-day with a back injury, while is hitting at a below-average clip after the Cards failed to trade him this winter. Even on-paper ace has a middling 4.06 ERA through 11 starts, and closer s 3.50 ERA is his weakest since 2021. Instead of the usual suspects, the Cardinals succe ses have come from unlikely places. The best hitter on the team is , who has long been a steady piece for St. Louis but now appears to be in the midst of a breakout season in his age-28 campaign with a 140 wRC+ and 2.0 fWAR acro s 51 games. The ace of the rotation is , who has a 2.73 ERA in ten starts so far despite having never posted an ERA below 4.40 in the big leagues before and not even being a sured of a rotation role entering camp this year. Behind Liberatore, has turned back the clock in his age-36 season to post a solid 3.51 ERA in his first ten starts and fellow veteran has been brilliant in a swing role with a 1.99 ERA in 31 2/3 innings of work. All of this surprising performances beg the question: how sustainable can this be? Mikolas, , and are all pitching well above their peripherals so far this year. Impre sive as hes been, wont finish the year with a wRC+ above 200. Even Donovans .360 BABIP must be looked at with at least some skepticism, as should the league average performance the Cards have gotten out of and his .368 BABIP. On the other hand, many of the clubs more established players should be expected to improve. Gray and Contreras have both performed to their usual All-Star caliber levels when looking at the underlying metrics, Arenados .245 BABIP would be the lowest of his career in a full season, and s solid 112 wRC+ may be just the tip of the iceberg with his discipline and power potential. Theres also some players, such as Liberatore and Donovan, whose breakouts are fairly convincing even if they arent locks to stay quite as good as they have been so far. Where does that leave the Cardinals? If you look at the , the answer is likely outside of the final playoff picture. The club is projected by the site for an 84-win season with a 39.1% chance of making the playoffs. If you gave fans in St. Louis those odds at the start of the 2025 season, the vast majority wouldve surely taken that happily. As it stands, however, winning a touch under half their games for the rest of the season would surely be a disappointing outcome after this exciting start to the season. At the same time, its not hard to see why projection systems might doubt the Cardinals. The NL Wild Card race has been extremely competitive so far, even with strong teams like the Diamondbacks and Braves struggling to find their footing so far. That could make St. Louiss best path to the postseason through the NL Central, where the Cubs are projected to win 90 games and have the NLs easiest schedule the rest of the way. Where do MLBTR readers believe the Cardinals will end up? Is postseason baseball returning to St. Louis this October, or will this team wind up at home like they did the past two seasons? Have your say in the poll below: What's In Store For The Cardinals? The Cardinals will fail to make the postseason in 2025. 62.82% (2,930votes) The Cardinals will succe sfully make the postseason in 2025. 37.18% (1,734votes) Total Votes: 4,664 Jim Presley Jersey