Can you believe that in a little more than a month we’ll be at the halfway point of the Major League Baseball season? The All-Star break comes in the middle of July, and every team in the league will get a well-deserved rest—except, of course, for those players who have distinguished themselves enough to earn a spot in the All-Star game. And if stats are any indication of aptitude, the St. Louis Cardinals have enough talent to take on the best of the American League all on their own.
Catcher Yadier Molina is the star batter in the Cardinals lineup right now, and it’s not difficult to see why. Molina is hitting .350 this season and, unlike many of the top hitters in the majors, he rarely strikes out. If Molina continues his hot streak—and Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer doesn’t catch up to him—he’s a shoo-in as a starter in Queens next month.
Although the National League is chock-full of incredible first basemen (e.g. Adrian Gonzalez of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Joey Votto of the Cincinnati Reds), the Cardinals’ Allen Craig is making a name for himself. Boasting a batting average over .300, Craig has become a clutch member of the Cardinals lineup. Craig has come to the plate more than 60 times with runners in scoring position this year and knocked in an RBI more than half of those times. The man standing next to him on the diamond is second baseman Matt Carpenter, who is also hitting above .300. And left fielder Carlos Beltran recently reached the .300 mark. Incredible.
Let’s not forget about the pitching staff in St. Louis, recently featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Since players, coaches and managers decide who will pitch in the All-Star game (team affiliation isn’t much of a factor), there could be more than one Cardinal ace throwing pitches during All-Star weekend. As of now, there is no better one-two starting pitcher lineup than Shelby Miller and Adam Wainwright. Both are sporting ERAs among the 10 lowest in the majors. In 11 starts, Miller has pitched three shutouts, two of which were one-hit ballgames, while Wainwright has only allowed two home runs in 12 starts (that’s 89 innings) and has three complete games already this year.
As astonishing as the Cardinals have been in 2013, they occupy the American League Central with two other fantastic teams—the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Cincinnati Reds—and are only a few games ahead of their divisional rivals. The team’s tremendous start has kept them in the lead for now, but they’ll need to figure out how to sustain that level of success over the second half of a long season if they hope to still be playing in October. They seem to be on the right track.