With 23 games to go in the regular season, the Reds are 3.5 games back on the NLC and lead the second wildcard spot by 7.5 over the Nationals. It’s not exactly sewn up yet, but it’s felt pretty likely that our boys will be in the post-season for a while now. The real question has been: then what?

The first wildcard spot has belonged to the Cardinals for as long as the Reds have had the second one. The two wildcards have to play each other for the right to proceed, and for a while there it was seeming like the Cardinals were just unbeatable.

Which is just annoying. The Cardinals shouldn’t be that hard to beat. When the hell is Molina going to retire??

Lo and behold, the Reds have won their last three games against the Cardinals and have properly smacked around their ace twice. Pop quiz: if you’re managing the Cards in that one-game series against the Reds, do you start Adam Wainwright? The dude is 15-9 with a 3.14 ERA, but he’s given up 15 earned runs in his last two starts, both against Cincinnati. That stuff can get into a guy’s head.

The baseball season is too long to throw in the towel too early, even if it does look like it will be an early post-season exit, so I’m choosing to hope that this modest 2-game winning streak could be the start of something big.

I’ll close today with the latest offering from the Cincinnati Reds Wooo Guy, who hasn’t even given up on Pete Rose yet, he sure as heck won’t have lost hope for this team.