Rozner: Cubs know Cards won't go quietly

It is always easy to write off the St. Louis Cardinals.

And almost always a mistake.

Come season's end, there they are again in the postseason, chuckling at the media and opposition fans who have declared them finished.

The Cards are baseball's version of the Patriots, seemingly in constant trouble due to injury, and yet always able to replace, repair and resuscitate, mostly because of a farm system that consistently produces players ready to contribute at the major-league level.

St. Louis is up against it again, having lost Jason Heyward and John Lackey to the Cubs and missed out on David Price. Starter Lance Lynn is gone for the year with Tommy John surgery, and now the Cards are staring at a shortstop hole for two or three months with Jhonny Peralta out with a torn thumb ligament.

Last season, they had ace Adam Wainwright for only 4 starts and missed first baseman Matt Adams for 102 games. Outfielder Randall Grichuk had a pair of DL trips and was out for 45 games, and left fielder Matt Holliday missed 89 games.

Catcher Yadier Molina, perhaps the most important Cardinal, had not one but two off-season thumb surgeries, the result of a play at the plate when he tagged Anthony Rizzo in September, and was largely ineffective in the NLDS against the Cubs.

St. Louis won 100 games, but the Cards were only 15-15 when Molina didn't start a game last year.

Since 2005, when Molina became the starter, the Cardinals play at a .572 clip with him catching, and just .486 without him. Molina is questionable for Opening Day, and it's difficult to overstate the importance of a healthy Molina handling a pitching staff.

Even without Wainwright in 2015, St. Louis starters had the best rotation ERA (2.99) in the big leagues, and their bullpen is as good as any in the National League.

So the Cardinals remain the standard and the Cubs are trying to chase them down. It's not a rivalry when one of the teams is awful, but the Cubs put the Cardinals on notice last season that they are a team to be concerned about for the next decade.

The Cardinals appear old and falling apart, the Cubs are young and on the rise, and St. Louis sounded almost jealous of all the attention the Cubs have received the last five months when a few of the Cardinals made mention of the Cubs' loud off-season back in January.

It's cute, but it's irrelevant.

It's baseball, not hockey, and bulletin-board material doesn't help you throw strikes or drive in runs.

So what has been the older brother smacking around the youngster for years is now a legitimate battle, but it's the Cardinals who have been in the postseason the last five years and six of the past seven.

St. Louis is accustomed to being in the middle of the fray, while the pressure is now entirely on the Cubs to live up to a 97-win season and a spectacular off-season, adding to a developing roster that was already the envy of MLB.

But the Cubs don't bring in players who are affected by the stress of a division battle. They specifically scout, draft and sign the kind of guy who isn't afraid of the moment, and they have a manager who specializes in making sure the game remains fun even when the entire world is watching.

What's certain is that the Cardinals will not go quietly into the night. They still see themselves as the favorites until deposed.

And with the Cardinals ailing yet again, the Cubs have every intention of doing that in 2016.

brozner@dailyherald.com

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