Redbirds look for motivated August
It’s August, the final month of the season, and for those Redbirds who have won championships at other levels of the St. Louis Cardinals’ farm system, that means it’s time to make that push to the playoffs.
After beating Las Vegas, 5-3, Tuesday night to closeout their home stand with a split against the 51s, and an overall mark of 5-3, the Redbirds find themselves trailing first-place Omaha by just two games in the Pacific Coast League’s American Northern Division.
That’s why after Wednesday’s final off-day of the season, the Redbirds must fare well during an eight-game road trip that includes stops in Reno and Colorado Springs. Afterward, they return to AutoZone Park for their final home series of the season, a five-game showdown against Omaha.
“It’s good momentum for us going forward, on our way to the West Coast,” second baseman Kolten Wong said. “We’re going to try to keep this going and play good baseball for the rest of the season.
“That’s going to be huge for us coming into that (Omaha) series. They’re a good team and we’re a good team. That series could be the deciding factor as to who’s going to win this thing.”
Wong is one of those players with playoff success on his resume. Last
year, he helped lead Double A Springfield to its first Texas League title. Now he hopes to help the Redbirds return to the PCL postseason for the first time since 2010.
But for now, manager Pop Warner doesn’t want his team looking too far ahead. First, they must take care of things against a Reno team that has the worst record in the league at 46-72.
“We’ll just play each series one series at a time, but obviously, the rest of the series are real important from here on out,” Warner said. “If we go on the road and lay an egg, we’ll probably be more (games) back. This group has got a lot of character to them and we’re going to battle to the end. Hopefully, we’ll catch some breaks, get some timely hits and pitch well and win some ball games.”
On Tuesday, the Redbirds got some timely hitting in the sixth inning that led to a four-run rally to give them a 5-0 lead. Af- ter drawing three walks, the Redbirds got RBI singles from Mike O’Neill and Wong, sandwiched around a bases-loaded walk from Ryan Jackson.
That was enough to improve starter Nick Additon’s record to 8-6. Wong had three hits and two RBI.
“Right now is where the grind starts,” Wong said. “You hope you can play good enough to get into a championship series. Hopefully, we’re catching our second wind and getting ready to take on the rest of this month and get into the playoffs.”