St. Louis Cardinals Clinch Playoff Spot With 17th Consecutive Win (original) (raw)

Baseball|With 17th Straight Win, the Cardinals Are in Elite Company

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/29/sports/baseball/cardinals-win-streak.html

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Keeping Score

With 17th Straight Win, the Cardinals Are in Elite Company

An outrageous stretch of success allowed St. Louis to snatch the National League’s second wild-card spot. Can it keep going?

On Tuesday, the St. Louis Cardinals became just the 14th team in baseball’s modern era to win 17 games in a row. They also clinched a playoff spot.Credit...Jeff Curry/USA Today Sports, via Reuters

Published Sept. 29, 2021Updated Oct. 7, 2021

It turns out that if a team is on the fringe of the playoff race, a good way to get back in is winning a whole bunch of games in a row. The St. Louis Cardinals confirmed that by clinching a playoff spot on Tuesday night with their 17th consecutive victory.

After the games of Sept. 10, the Cardinals found themselves with a record of 71-69, 15 games behind the Brewers in the National League Central and in fourth place among wild-card candidates, three and a half games out of the second spot. Through Tuesday, they were 88-69, still six games behind the high-flying Milwaukee Brewers but safely qualified for the playoffs.

At the start of the streak, the Cards were one game ahead of a certain New York team in the standings. Now they are 13 games up on them. Sorry, Mets fans.

With an offensive attack that includes three 30-homer players (Nolan Arenado, Tyler O’Neill and Paul Goldschmidt) and with a pitching staff that includes a 40-year-old starter, Adam Wainwright, who has 17 wins and a 3.05 E.R.A., the Cardinals will be a stern challenge in the wild-card game, even though they will be underdogs to either the Los Angeles Dodgers or the San Francisco Giants (depending on which team wins the N.L. West).

Image

Nolan Arenado hit his 34th home run of the season in Tuesday’s win over Milwaukee. Credit...Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images

Significant winning streaks are not uncommon in baseball: Since 1900, almost 400 teams have won at least 10 in a row, for example. (No slight to the St Louis Maroons or Providence Grays, but we’re sticking with the modern era.)

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