a 12th World Series title

During the staff’s second-half surge to earn a birthday celebration as National League Central champion, the field rankings overflowed with signature numbers, the video games soaked in milestones. Albert Pujols hit his 699th and 700th profession domestic runs in back-to-back at-bats, and that got here no longer too lengthy after Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina set an all-time file with their 325th get started in combination as a battery. Paul Goldschmidt led the NL with a .981 OPS. He and Nolan Arenado had matching 100-RBI seasons and robust statistical bids for what can be both infielder’s first MVP award. Marmol, the youngest supervisor at 36 to win a department title, had notable numbers of his personal, in particular Year One within the function.

Before letting free the bubbles and suds to commemorate a playoff berth, Marmol famous that no longer as soon as did the swirl of person feats cloud the staff purpose. Now that the postseason has arrived, the entire historical past made is historical past, the ones numbers, regardless of how giant and gaudy, are changed via the one who issues maximum.

A 12th World Series title.

“That’s a championship,” Marmol mentioned, “and here we are.”

The Cardinals resume pursuit in their 12th World Series pennant Friday afternoon at Busch Stadium within the wild-card around of Major League Baseball’s new, expanded playoffs. The spoils of a department title with out a top-two file is home-field benefit for all video games within the best-of-three opening sequence.

What awaits the Cardinals is without doubt one of the maximum tough playoff fields in NL historical past — with 3 groups that received no less than 101 video games — and a first-round opponent that boasts two of the highest right-handed starters within the league. The Cardinals have long gone 11 years since their closing World Series win, their fourth-longest span with out a title since their first crown in 1926. To open this postseason they draw the staff they upended on find out how to the 2011 championship: The Philadelphia Phillies. Three individuals of that Cardinals’ staff are lively and in combination once more for the closing time — Pujols, Molina and Wainwright — and whilst they’ve spent the summer season clearing non-public milestones, they given motivation to a complete staff.

“With Albert and Yadi saying it’s going to be their last year, we’d love to send them out the right way,” Goldschmidt mentioned Thursday after the staff’s exercise at Busch. “So that’s definitely been some motivation. It’s been on our mind since spring training. It’s carried us this far. There’s a long way to go. It’s been on my mind. These guys are here. It’s their last year. We’re trying not to disappoint.”

The closing time the Phillies have been within the playoffs was once the closing out of a decisive Game 5 within the 2011 NL Division Series. Close pals and peerless competition Chris Carpenter and Roy Halladay exhausted their very best — and perpetually modified their careers — in a sport the Cardinals and Carpenter received, 1-0. The sport ended with Pujols’ foot on first base for a groundout and Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard tumbling in ache alongside the first-base line. His try to outrun the grounder had ruptured his Achilles’ tendon.

The Cardinals complicated to grasp the pennant in opposition to Milwaukee and the championship from Texas because the early top for 15 consecutive profitable seasons, whilst that Phillies’ technology ended they usually receded from rivalry.

No participant at the present roster was once a part of the 2011 membership.

“It literally became like a fork in the road — one went right and one went left,” mentioned John Mozeliak, the Cardinals’ president of baseball operations. “It was such an epic game. Two incredible pitchers going head to head, our first two hitters scored the one run, and then it was shutdown city. For us, it became almost more of a springboard. In Philly’s case, it became a turning point for their franchise. I’m hopefully if we had been on the other side of that, it would not have been the same. But you never know.”

The Cardinals returned to the World Series in 2013, however since have had a gradual go with the flow into the October shadows. They have no longer received an NLCS sport since 2014, no longer complicated out of the 1st around of the playoffs since 2019. It wasn’t simply the Phillies that got here to a fork within the highway in 2011. Pujols and the Cardinals did, too. He signed with the Angels after that championship. Apart the Cardinals and Pujols by no means had the similar celebrations, by no means shared the parade routes that they did in combination. A reunion has reinvigorated Pujols and reminded the Cardinals about what striving for excellence calls for.

“Anybody who really has a legacy like Albert just naturally raises the bar for others,” Mozeliak mentioned. “As much as these individual things we were chasing, it was still about the team winning. I think, in the end, these guys helped put that together.”

Mozeliak known as the season “magical.”

And two issues the Cardinals conjured were given them to the playoffs. There was once the sleight of hand on the business time limit when, for the 1st time in a decade — again to 2011 — the Cardinals aggressively added and reshaped their pitching body of workers. Jose Quintana, received on the time limit, will likely be their Game 1 starter after a excellent September. There was once the revival of Pujols after a torpid first half of. The three-time MVP got here out of the All-Star damage on a tear, pulling off previous methods and hitting 18 domestic runs, handing over 48 RBIs, and slugging .715 for one of the most very best moment halves of his profession, all at age 42.

“Albert was chasing (700), he had that on his mind for a fact, and he got it, and he put our whole team on his back in August to get there,” Wainwright mentioned. “I think the good thing about anyone who was chasing anything on this team this year is the team has been the main focus. That has always been the main goal and the end goal for everybody. I think Albert would trade 700 and end on 699 to win another World Series.”

Would he business get started No. 325 with Molina for a similar end result?

“Absolutely,” he mentioned. “I’d rather have both though.”

The Cardinals went 3-4 in opposition to the Phillies all the way through the common season, splitting a four-game sequence in opposition to them at Busch. In Philly, Arenado hit for the cycle in a single sport and was once a part of 4 consecutive domestic runs within the subsequent. Zack Wheeler, the Phillies’ Game 1 starter, received two of the Phillies’ 4 video games in opposition to the Cardinals, and he didn’t permit a run in 14 innings. The Cardinals didn’t get an extra-base hit in opposition to the right-hander. But Pujols, the Cardinals’ designated hitter this weekend, didn’t get an at-bat vs. Wheeler.

The Cardinals have formed their pitching body of workers for the best-of-three sequence round containing the Phillies’ left-handed sluggers, the NL’s domestic run chief Kyle Schwarber and reigning NL MVP Bryce Harper. There is one state of affairs the Cardinals are bearing in mind the place the ones batters see a other pitcher each at-bat, and an method the Cardinals would possibly use plucked immediately out of the 2011 postseason. The bullpen would possibly take care of extra innings than the starters.

There is one different acquainted method that Marmol referenced in his place of work this previous week in Pittsburgh. He famous that during a quick sequence a win in Game 1 is necessary, however that begins via “setting the tone immediately, first inning, let alone first game.” Like, say, the closing time the Cardinals confronted the Phillies within the playoffs. In the 1st inning of that Game 5, Skip Schumaker, now the staff’s bench trainer and a part of the 2022 reunion excursion, delivered an RBI double to attain Rafael Furcal for the sport’s lone run. It wasn’t a quantity that glistened with historical past. It wasn’t a person’s fulfillment. It took that complete staff to show it into one of the most largest numbers of all.

The milestones are over. The chase is on.

The staff purpose is singular — or put a fork within the season.

“To win,” Marmol mentioned. “There is only one thing that matters starting (Friday), and that’s winning. That’s it.”