You can say alot about the 2004 and 2005 St. Louis Cardinals... but the first thing that comes to my mind is the word consistent. They were consistently good. Over the span of two years, I think their biggest losing streak was four games... and that only happened twice: The World Series and late in 2005 after they had clinched their division. It was truly extraordinary.
This year has been different. They are consistent... that is, they are consistently inconsistent. They are either really, really, really good... or they are really, really, really bad. Check out these numbers: Here are all the steaks they have been on this year. (This includes every game they have played till now)
3-0 (Sweep in Philly to start the year)
0-3 (Swept in Chicago)
14-5 (Long run of excellence where they won six straight series)
0-4 (Swept in Cincinnati and Houston)
15-5 (Another great run of winning six straight series)
3-7 (Bad stretch at home against Chicago and swept by the Reds)
7-2 (A mini-run against inferior teams)
3-13 (Eight game losing streak included: Swept by the White Sox and Tigers... lost series to Cleveland and KANSAS CITY.)
13-3 (Seven game winning streak that including four extra inning wins... showed great resilence and dominance over the Dodgers)
0-5 (Laid down in Chicago against arch-rivals... forgot how to play defense... looked like a bunch of bush leaguers all weekend and last night)
How does a team that can look so good for weeks at a time turn around and look so pathetic for a week or so? It is hard to figure and it has been hard for me to stay interested and get excited about our chances in the post-season this year. Here's hoping that we even MAKE the playoffs this year... and if we do, that it will be during one of our good stretches of baseball and not one of our bad stretches.
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