To this day, it baffles me that a team that won 83 regular season games could win the World Series.
And that's not because I think that regular season wins are all that relevant in the postseason, because they're not. You have to wonder how a team with a record that suggests it should be in third place wins the Fall Classic, though.
For the St. Louis Cardinals, the honest answer is that the rest of the National League Central was putrid. Four of the six clubs finished with records below .500, and the second-place Houston Astros were 82-80.
So now, let the debate begin. Did the Cardinals even deserve to be in the postseason? The answer is probably "yes" considering that the only team while a real gripe would be the Philadelphia Phillies, who won 85 games that year and finished with a better overall record.
OK. So now the question is this: How in the world did they win?
The obvious answer is that they upset the San Diego Padres, New York Mets and Detroit Tigers, but you have to tip your cap to manager Tony La Russa too.
He made himself look brilliant by adding a young Adam Wainwright to the bullpen for the postseason, and it gave the Cardinals a deep staff that also included guys like Chris Carpenter and Jeff Suppan in the rotation and Jason Isringhausen in the bullpen.
But he was going to have to work his magic to coax some run support out of his lineup, and he did. The only players to have above-average seasons were Albert Pujols and Scott Rolen.
