With the month of September fast approaching, the St. Louis Cardinals find themselves in the thick of things in the NL Wild card.  They trail the Milwaukee Brewers by 3.5 games and start a crucial road trip against the Houston Astros and the Arizona Diamondbacks.  The Cardinals are the best road team in the National League and seem to play with more of an edge away from Busch Stadium.  They no longer play the Brewers head to head and will have to keep winning and get some help from the rest of the league if they want a crack at postseason play.  As it stands right now, the Brewers and the Cardinals are mirroring each other in the results column by winning and losing on the same days.  Dont get me wrong, the Cardinals have had there chances to pull even with the Brewers but havent been able to get over the hump.  You see, the Brewers had won the past 5 games at Busch and in the process had gotten a little confident swagger, including walking halfway up the first baseline staring at homeruns, pointing towards the Cardinals dugout and shouting and in Ryan Braun's case, spitting towards the Cardinals after a late inning game winning homerun.  It's those Bush league tactics that really brought some life to this rivalry and last night, Carlos Villaneuva's antics finally brought out some emotion and reaction from the Cardinals.

The Brewers dismantled the Cardinals the night before 12-0 and jumped out early in the 2nd game.  The crowd was no factor at all and the Cardinals seem to have little or no emotion.  Frustrations were setting in as Brewers starter Manny Parra worked himself in and out of jams throughout the first 5 innings.  The Cardinals did score a run, there first in 15 innings, but still trailed 3-1 as the game went into the bottom of the 7th.  With the Cardinals on the ropes and prone for a knockout, they got an unexpected jolt when Carlos Villanueva celebrated a little too much after getting out of a bases loaded jam in the 7th inning.  He danced around the mound, pointed towards the Cardinal dugout and started shouting at his opponents.  Albert Pujols was on deck and didnt take to kindly to the gestures and started screaming towards Villaneuva.  The Brewers pitcher replied by cursing in Spanish towards El Hombre and both players were restrained by umps as the inning ended.  From that point, you could sense a different atmosphere in Busch Stadium.  The crowd was back into the game as the Cardinals came to bat in the bottom of the 8th and the Birds responded by scoring 4 times en route to a 5-3 win. 

The Brewers had something similar to this happen earlier this summer when Manny Parra and Prince Fielder got into it during a game.  The Brewers responded by going on a run that has led them to the top spot in the Wild Card.  It's not too much of a stretch to think that the Cardinals could use this to propel themselves to a run.  I remember in 2006 when the Cardinals were down and out in a game against the Houston Astros.  They proceeded to score 5 runs off Brad Lidge to steal a Saturday afternoon game and used that momentum to ride themselves to the playoffs, where we all know what happened.  It's those defining moments that separate the contenders from the pretenders and at this point in the season, the Cardinals are very much alive and kicking as contenders.  You can better believe that the Cardinals wont go down without a fight and with the way this team has overachieved, I wouldnt be surprised one bit if the Cardinals were to make the playoffs.