The Cardinals have their season back by the unlikeliest of means

Because on the next pitch from Royals reliever Peter Moylan, who had issued just one pitch prior to the debut of #RallyCat (yes, he became a hashtag superstar instantly as well), Yadier Molina would send flying into the left field seats in the form of a grand slam, which pulled the Cardinals ahead and towards their fifth win in as many days and firmly back into the National League Central race as well.

It was the first of two grand slams on consecutive days (Dexter Fowler would follow suit with one of his own the next day to clinch the season series sweep over their in-state rivals) for the Cardinals that would serve as rallying moment in a four-game, four-day sweep of the Royals. It was a victory spree that pulled the preposterously inconsistent Cardinal season into a first-place lock with the Chicago Cubs in a melee of a second half within the NL Central standings.

The current run has given new life to a Cardinals team that had seemed resigned to float along to the finish of a second consecutive disappointing season. For the entirety of the 2017 season, the Cardinals had become hardly recognizable to more than their most studious of followers. Entering the season, the likes of Fowler, Johnny Peralta, Stephen Piscotty, Randal Grichuk and Aledmys Diaz were tasked with carrying vital roles within the Cardinal everyday lineup. Fast-forward past a brutal summer, littered with injuries, minor league demotions and outright releases, only Fowler remains as an everyday part of the Cardinal lineup.

Instead, a who’s who of “where did that guy come from” have taken responsibility for driving the Cardinal offense alongside Molina and Matt Carpenter. The likes of former utility infielder Jedd Gyorko, 10-year minor leaguer Tommy Pham and rookies Jose Martinez and Paul DeJong are currently the core of the Cardinal lineup, one that has had to regularly rally on the run of a constant, necessary rebuild on a day-to-day basis.

Before last week’s winning streak, mediocrity had been the dominant element of the St. Louis season. Their longest winning streak was six games, while their longest losing skid besting that by a game at seven. It is a symptomatic stat of a season that has seen a franchise that has been spent the better part of the last decade being the most consistent in all of baseball sliding backwards. Plagued by a roster built around a mismatched collection of promising youngsters failing to live to up to both the investment and potential the team saw in them, as well as a bullpen that wasted many a promising effort from a solid starting staff, the Cardinals were not simply underwhelming, they had become rudderless and discouraging as well.

Yet in the landscape of middling parity that is the NL Central, they still found themselves within arm’s reach of the hunt. It was the type of deficit that seemed as if the team had given up on itself. The trade deadline came and went, and despite still being within shouting range top of the division, club president John Mozeliak and general manager Michael Girsch stood pat, opting to neither trade away nor add to the club’s current build.

It was a decision that infuriated both ends of the Cardinal fan spectrum. One side looked to see a sale of players such as free agent-to-be Lance Lynn to hungry competitors, as another more optimistic side yearned to see the front office trade from its healthy stockpile of prospects to bring aboard the much-needed middle of the order bat or relief presence. Despite their status as sitting firmly on a fault line in the standings, the Cardinals stood firm.

The lack of movement was likely propelled by two separate elements colliding. On one hand, they had just completed an encouraging 5-2 homestand against the NL’s top two wild card contenders, the Diamondbacks and Rockies. Likewise, it was difficult to trade many of the parts that could have been the most enticing options for other clubs. Outfielders Randal Grichuk and Stephen Piscotty are deeply mired in career-worst seasons and likely wouldn't have not garnered anything of substantial return. At the same time, the belief of a possible run ahead would have been lost by dealing the likes of Lynn or reliever Trevor Rosenthal, both of whom were becoming essential parts of the Cardinal turnaround at the time. So like or not, the Cardinal brass was not ready to give up on the year, a decision that turned out to be the right one.

While the merits of the decision could still be second guessed down the stretch and a sweeping offseason rebuild of their roster has been strongly hinted towards by Girsch, for the time being the Cardinal self-investment looks to be the right one. Fowler, offseason’s biggest acquisition, looks to be over the string of dings and dents that have kept him from performing at full-speed through much of the year.

Originally tabbed as the club’s leadoff hitter, Fowler has reinvented himself as a cleanup hitter, hitting .417 with a 1.465 OPS from the fourth spot. Aided by a breakout season from Kolten Wong, a Matt Carpenter second-half rejuvenation and dependable presence of Molina, the Cardinals' offense has rallied to become the most productive offense in the National League in the month of August, and became the first team in over a decade to win six straight games while scoring eight or more runs along the way. That is more than enough production needed to stand up for a pitching staff that owns the NL’s third lowest ERA to work with.

It has been an in-season rally that few saw coming, but has opened up an August run of new possibilities. And while the newest entrant into the previously mundane NL postseason picture is still on thin ice, it is a return to a familiar position for the Cardinals at the perfect time, as their remaining schedule features only two teams that would be in the postseason picture if it began today; this week’s two-game stint with the Red Sox and two potentially decisive pairings with the Cubs to come in late-September.

With a lost season regained by unlikely means, things are lined up nicely for the Cardinals’ late-season rally to carry on – whether there is further feline intervention or not.