The St. Louis Cardinals weren’t supposed to be here. Not this year anyway. After a quiet offseason that felt more like a reset than a reload, the team has rattled off 40 wins before July and landed right in the thick of the NL Wild Card race.
Bench coach Daniel Descalso has a theory about why this version of the Cardinals keeps winning games they probably shouldn’t. It’s not about analytics or a fancy new approach. It’s about guys who got told no.
“I just think there’s a lot of guys that have things to prove,” Descalso said on Foul Territory. “You had some guys that had some opportunities, maybe didn’t perform the best with those opportunities. Going into this year, I think you had some guys with a chip on their shoulder, they were going to get an opportunity to play everyday and show what they can do. There was not a lot of expectations from the outside, outside of this clubhouse.”
He’s not wrong. Jordan Walker has been the headline act with a breakout season that makes you wonder why anyone doubted him. But it’s not just Walker. St. Louis is getting contributions from names that weren’t on anyone’s preseason radar. Guys who got passed over or written off are suddenly delivering in big spots.
“And you’ve seen some of the early success and guys, when you’re trying to establish yourself as a big leaguer as a young player and you have some of that early success in the season, you start to believe,” Descalso added.
Belief Without the Hype
The Cardinals walked into 2026 with most analysts penciling them in for something around 75 wins. A rebuild with training wheels. Instead they’re 40-32 and sitting 5.5 games back of the Brewers in the NL Central. They don’t have the star power of the Dodgers or the lineup depth of the Braves. But they keep finding ways.
Thursday night they face the Kansas City Royals, and nobody in that clubhouse is treating it like a trap game. Because they know what they’ve got. A group that got tired of hearing what they couldn’t do.
St. Louis has a real shot at the Wild Card right now. Whether they can hold on through the summer heat is another story. But for a team that wasn’t supposed to matter, they’re making a lot of noise.
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