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Cubs vs Cardinals Rivalry
The Cubs-Cardinals Rivalry in Perspective
After this weekend's Cardinals sweep of the Cubs, many fans have been wondering if this really is as much of a rivalry as the media makes it out to be. The perception seems to be that the fans are not as into it as they are other rivalries (perhaps White Sox, Royals), and that it has been a mostly one-sided match-up in recent years. While it is difficult to measure the first claim, we can examine the second. The table below shows the last 20 years of Cubs-Cardinals match-ups, including the head-to-head record for that year and each team’s overall winning percentage at the end of the season. Overall, the Cubs’ record vs. the Cardinals for the past 20 years has been 147-165, or a .471 winning percentage, which suggest the teams have played each other at much closer to parity than perceptions suggest. The Cubs have mostly held their own. This is even more impressive when looking at the season winning percentages. The Cardinals have had the better season record in 15 of the last 20 seasons, yet the Cubs have taken 9 of the head-to-head matchups. In several seasons (2005, 2006, and 2010) the Cubs far exceeded expectations: below-.500 Cubs teams dominated much better Cardinals teams on the season. These are small sample sizes and anything can happen in a short series, so we can’t take much away from this. But it should at least be clear that the Cardinals have had an advantage in the rivalry in recent decades but that is largely due to them fielding far superior teams, and that advantage hasn’t been as big as we might think.
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Top 5 Favorite Cubs vs. Cardinals Moments
When you start writing a sports blog, there's a little handbook handed out to everyone that tells you how to drive up your traffic. The list includes posting drunken photos of players, hot women (they don't even have to be sports-related), making up trade rumors and top ten lists. The criteria for this post was the top ten moments I could remember off the top of my head...I only came up with five.
#5 - Michael Barrett grand slam home run at Wrigley
There wasn't a whole lot of hope entering the 2006 season, but there still was some if EVERYTHING broke the right way. And if Mark Prior and Kerry Wood were healthy ($5 to the TCR tip jar for uttering that phrase). The Cubs started off splitting two against the Reds on the road and then came home for three against the Cardinals. By the time Sunday rolled around, they had won the first two and were looking for blood - Cardinal blood!!
Sean Marshall got the first start of his career and put the Cubs in a quick two-run hole after giving up a first-inning blast to Scott Rolen. The Cubs battled back and by the eighth it was 4-3 Cardinals. After Ricardo Rincon walked Todd Walker to leadoff the inning, God's-gift-to-managing Tony LaRussa went to his closer Jason Isringhausen for the two-inning save. He promptly walked Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez to load them up for Michael Barrett. Barrett then nailed a 2-2 pitch deep into the Sunday night air, way out in left field to give the Cubs a 7-4 lead. They added an insurance run and won 8-4.
The Cubs made it through April with a 13-10 record and then lost about 25 straight to start May and maybe another 15 or so to end May and I think there were a few 10 and 8 game losing streaks as well in June and July. But for one magnificent evening, Michael Barrett made us feel like champions (cue theme song from "Rudy").
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Recent comments
Arizona Phil (view)
Childersb3: Miguel Cruz walked six in 1.2 IP in his last start, so I guess he is improving. Wilme Mora also walked six in one of his appearances a week or two ago, and one or two others have walked five. I don't know what would be the most I have ever seen a pitcher throw in a game out here, because the manager / pitching coach usually gets the pitcher out of the game if it gets too ridiculous.
As for the attendance, probably about 20 of the 25 were early arrivals for the Savannah Bananas game who came over to Field # 1 to see what was going on, and once they saw all the bases on balls (12 walks by Cubs pitchers and four by Angels pitchers) they ran away screaming. I'm used to it so it didn't bother me that much.
Childersb3 (view)
Jed has added Teheran, Tyranski, Kissaki, and now Straily and Nico Zeglin today.
Zeglin is 24 yrs old. Pitched well at Long Beach St in '23 and well in some Indy Ball.
They also added Reilly and Viets in late ST.
Have to search for MiLB arm depth anywhere you can and at all times!!!
Childersb3 (view)
25 in Attendance!!!
Phil, is that a backfield record?
Also, 6 BBs for Cruz in 2 IP. What's the most walks you've seen in one EXT ST outing that you can recall?
TarzanJoeWallis (view)
He has a pulse. Apparently that’s the only requirement at this point.
crunch (view)
cubs sign dan straily...for some reason. minor league deal.
welcome back.
zac rosscup is down in mexico trying to make it happen...maybe they could throw him a contract, too. junior lake is his teammate. shore up a bunch of holes with some washups.
fullykräusened (view)
The great thing about going to live sports events is you don't know if you're going to see something historic. Today I went to the Cub game, after putting the liner back in my coat and fishing my Cubs knit hat out of the closet. I needed all that- my seats are in the upper deck, left, so the east wind was in my face. Both teams failed to capitalize on good situations, but both starters did a good job to accomplish this. So, we go to the bottom of the sixth inning. The Cubs tie it up, and then Pete Crow-Armstrong comes up. We all know he would still be in AAA if not for injuries, and future Hall-of-Famer Justin Verlander absolutely carved up the young fellow up in his first two plate appearances. So this time he hits a fly ball. The wind was blowing in and had suppressed several strong fly balls- including a rocket off Altuve's bat that Canario hauled in (does anybody else remind me of Jorge Soler?) , but the ball kept carrying and carrying. 107mph, legit angle and carry. The crowd went nuts, the dugout went nuts. Maybe, just maybe, I saw the first homer from a long-term Cub.
TarzanJoeWallis (view)
Which was my original premise. They won the trades but lost their souls. They no longer employ the Cardinal way which had been so successful for so long.
crunch (view)
STL traded away a lot of minor league talent that went on to do nothing in the arenado + goldschmidt trades. neither guy blocked any of their minor league talent in the pipeline, too. that's ideal places to add talent.
TarzanJoeWallis (view)
Natural cycle of baseball. Pitching makes adjustments in approach to counter a hot young rookie. Now it’s time for Busch and his coaches to counter those adjustments. Busch is very good and will figure it out, I think sooner than later.
TarzanJoeWallis (view)
In 2020, the pandemic year and the year before they acquired Arenado, the Cardinals finished second and were a playoff team. Of the 12 batters with 100 plate appearances, 8 of them were home grown. Every member of the starting rotation (if you include Wainwright) and all but one of the significant relievers were home grown. While there have been a relative handful of very good trades interspersed which have been mentioned, player development had been their predominant pattern for decades - ever since I became an aware fan in the ‘70’s
The Arenado deal was not a deal made out of dire need or desperation. It was a splashy, headline making deal for a perennial playoff team intended to be the one piece that brought the Cardinals from a very good team to a World Series contender. They have continued to wheel and deal and have been in a slide ever since. I stand by my supposition that that deal marked a notable turning point within the organization. They broke what had been a very successful formula for a very long time.