ST. LOUIS -- The Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals entered their September showdown as two of the more enigmatic teams in baseball this season. Now that they've completed their four-game set on the banks of the Mississippi, I'm not sure either team has completely shaken that designation.
That's probably more true of the Dodgers than the Cardinals. St. Louis isn't so much enigmatic as they were enigmatic. That changed about the time that the Redbirds changed managers, from the gruff Mike Matheny to the mild-mannered Mike Shildt. Just as you couldn't lay all the blame for St. Louis' slow start on Matheny, you can't give all the credit for the Cardinals' resurgence to Shildt. That's not how baseball works. But you can't argue this: That's when things changed for the 2018 Cards.
As for the Dodgers, for most of the series, they looked fantastic. I've covered 14 L.A. games this season and for the most part, I'd say that's how they've looked -- like a team that would easily be leading the National League in run differential. Yet, as we depart St. Louis, we're kind of leaving off where we started. The Dodgers are still fighting for a playoff berth and are one more slump away from one of the most shocking postseason misses in recent years.
Look, the Dodgers are probably fine. They've gone 15-7 since Aug. 24 and finished with a winning record on a road trip that began with two head-scratching losses in Cincinnati. They are healthy, swinging the bats well when Adam Wainwright isn't on the mound, and everyone seems comfortable in roles smaller than they might be on other teams. Yet this is the team that started the season 16-26, was just 67-61 three weeks ago and is caught in a tooth-and-nail scrap just to earn the right to play on in October for a sixth straight season.
Both the Dodgers and Cardinals move directly from one big showdown to another. L.A. begins a battle for first place in the National League West at Dodger Stadium on Monday against the Colorado Rockies. Meanwhile, St. Louis heads east to take on an Atlanta Braves squad trying to put the finishing touches on an NL East title. As Los Angeles and St. Louis move on to other battles, let's review some lessons from the past four days of sweltering baseball in the shadows of the Gateway Arch.