Cardinals-Cubs: Errors Ruin Cards' Chance to Win Series

The St. Louis Cardinals have displayed some of the National League's best defense all year long. Tonight, however, they left it all at the hotel in downtown Chicago.

The Redbirds committed two costly errors and lost the game 6-2. The first error was a missed catch by outfielder Ryan Ludwick. The second, though, may have been the most important, as second baseman Adam Kennedy booted what would have been an inning-ending double play.

Instead of getting out of the inning down 2-0, the Cardinals found themselves on life support down 6-0 heading into the seventh inning.

Starting pitcher Chris Carpenter looked Cy Young-esque early, but faltered late in his 5.1 IP to surrender four runs, two of them earned.

The significance of any game these days is apparent, but now the Cards find themselves seven games back of the Cubbies for the NL Central lead and 3.5 back of the red-hot Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Wild Card race.

What can be done, you ask?

Well, Adam Wainwright should be coming back pretty soon to bolster either the starting rotation or fill in as the closer, and with Chris Perez coming around, the bullpen actually might be stable for once.

The problem lies within, though. The Birds are seven games out with just over 50 games remaining, but the future looks bright for at least a Wild Card chase.

Many Cardinals fans have been tempted to look forward to the prospects of the 2009 season, but I am not giving up on the team just yet.

We may suck at times, but when we are on, we are awfully good.

Still though, we couldn't crack the ML's best home team, and we are falling so fast, we might even beat the Road Runner down the cliff.

Sitting 10 games above .500 isn't going to cut it in the extraordinarily tough NL Central this year.

That said, if the Cards can pummel the Florida Marlins in their four-game set, who knows what will happen with the other two NL Central powers.