St. Louis Cardinals: Rest of 2022 schedule is gift that keeps on giving

MLB’s schedule-makers may have given the St. Louis Cardinals the ultimate gift after the All-Star break, with a slate of games that could allow the Cardinals to make a strong run at the lead for the National League Central and much more.

When the St. Louis Cardinals look at the rest of the 2022 schedule, the team has to love what it sees

Entering the unofficial second half of the season with a 50-44 mark and just a half-game behind the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Central, the St. Louis Cardinals have 68 games left in the regular season. The combined winning percentage for their opponents in those remaining 68 games is the lowest of any MLB team, coming in at .453. The Chicago White Sox are the next-lowest at .467 while the Colorado Rockies (.532) and Boston Red Sox (.529) have the toughest remaining schedules.

Milwaukee, by the way, has the ninth-easiest schedule left, with their opponents in their final 69 games holding a combined .490 winning percentage.

Helping out the Cardinals with that low winning percentage for the rest of the season are 11 games against the Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds (including a three-game series that opens on Friday night in Cincinnati), as well as nine games against the Pittsburgh Pirates and seven games against the Washington Nationals. All of those teams are expected to be sellers at the trade deadline, meaning they could match up against the Cardinals with an even weaker lineup than they had heading into the All-Star Game.

Washington is in last place in the NL East while the Cubs, Pirates, and Reds hold the bottom three spots in the NL Central.

Additionally, St. Louis still has six games against the Rockies and three against the Arizona Diamondbacks, the two bottom teams in the NL West.

Seven games left with the Brewers are among the hardest games left on the St. Louis schedule, as well as three with the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers, the two teams with the highest winning percentage in both the American and National Leagues, respectively.

Will the St. Louis Cardinals be able to take advantage of this opportunity with the schedule, especially with a team that could be stronger after acquisitions made at the trade deadline? That’s one of the biggest questions Cardinals fans will be anxiously awaiting the answer to when post-All-Star Game play resumes in Cincinnati on Friday.