[jg2977]

St. Louis Cardinals: 8th NLCS berth
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Here’s the truth, and it’s not complicated:
The St. Louis Cardinals are inevitable.
They’re going to the NLCS for the eighth time, second time in the last three seasons, and if you’re surprised by this, that’s on you, not them.
People will look at the score — 24–13 — and say, “Wow, what a crazy game.”
No.
That wasn’t chaos. That was exposure.
This series was the difference between a grown-up franchise and a fun story that didn’t know when to stop believing in itself.
Cincinnati had juice.
They had power.
They had moments.
But the Cardinals?
They had answers.
This is what St. Louis does. They don’t panic, they don’t flinch, and they don’t let teams “hang around.” Ricky Martinez literally said it out loud: you bury teams when you get the chance. That’s not trash talk — that’s institutional memory.
And let’s talk about Martinez for a second, because this is where Cowherd gets annoyed with the conversation.
People love stars.
St. Louis loves systems.
Martinez wins Series MVP hitting .526, four homers, twelve RBIs — fantastic. But look up and down that lineup. Everyone contributes. Everyone hurts you. There’s no “pitch around this guy and we’re safe.” That’s why Cincinnati’s pitching staff looked like it was stuck in rush-hour traffic — nowhere to go, horns blaring, engines overheating.
You score 24 runs in a playoff elimination game because you understand leverage, pressure, and timing. The Cardinals scored early, scored late, scored again just to make sure nobody had any funny ideas.
And yes — Cincinnati made it interesting in the eighth. Cute rally. Crowd gets loud. But here’s the Cowherd rule:
If your rally starts when you’re already down double digits, it’s not momentum — it’s math.
St. Louis never lost control of this game. Not emotionally. Not structurally. Not organizationally.
Now zoom out.
Eighth NLCS appearance.
Second in three years.
And they don’t even know who they’re playing yet — Nationals or Giants — and it doesn’t matter, because this version of the Cardinals doesn’t adjust to opponents.
Opponents adjust to them.
That’s the difference between teams that “have a window” and teams that own a decade.
St. Louis isn’t flashy.
They’re not loud.
They don’t sell hope.
They sell results.
And once again, they’re exactly where they always seem to end up —
one step from the World Series, while everyone else is explaining what went wrong.