Cardinals news: Oli Marmol's luck, likely free-agent ace, Mike Shildt returns

Are the St. Louis Cardinals making one last push? The team just took two of three this past weekend against the Minnesota Twins to get back to the .500 mark. At 65-65, their postseason chances are slim, but not zero.

Their chances in the NL Central are just about gone with the Cardinals trailing the first-place Milwaukee Brewers by 10.0 games, but their 5.0-game deficit in the NL Wild Card race is somewhat manageable. They need to play near-flawless baseball down the stretch to have a chance, as evidenced by their 3.6 percent chance to make the postseason per FanGraphs, but hey, anything is possible.

Whether the Cardinals have a run in them or not, there's a lot to pay attention to news-wise with the regular season slowly coming to an end and the offseason not too far behind. Here's the latest Cardinals news for your enjoyment.

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Cardinals news: Mike Schildt returns to St. Louis for crucial series

The Cardinals have played three straight series against teams currently in postseason position, and things will only get tougher with the red-hot San Diego Padres coming to town. The Padres hold the second Wild Card spot in the NL and have gone 24-9 since the All-Star break even with all of the injuries that they've had to deal with.

Not only do the Cardinals have to deal with a loaded Padres team this week, but they have to deal with their former manager, Mike Schildt, returning to St. Louis for the first time since the team let him go.

Schildt managed the Cardinals for parts of four seasons and had a ton of success, amassing a record of 252-199. He was fired after a 90-72 season in which the Cardinals made the postseason and used a red-hot September to get there. It came as a huge shock, and after seeing what Schildt has done in San Diego and what Oli Marmol has done in St. Louis, Cardinals fans have reason to be upset.

For the Cardinals to make an unlikely run to October this season, they'll need to put together a good performance against Schildt's Padres to add to their recent momentum.

Cardinals news: Cardinals should strongly consider Blake Snell pursuit

Last offseason, the primary objective for the Cardinals was to add starting pitching. They did that, in the form of Sonny Gray, Lance Lynn, and Kyle Gibson. Their rotation has done fairly well at times this season, but they rank 23rd in the majors with a 4.46 ERA. That's going to have to improve next season.

There's a very good chance that a player who should've been on the Cardinals' radar last offseason, Blake Snell, will be available this offseason assuming he opts out of his contract. If indeed that is the case, the Cardinals need to be all over it.

Snell got off to a slow start after signing late and did miss some time this season due to injury, but has a 3.76 ERA in 15 starts this season, and an eye-popping 1.30 ERA in his last nine starts. He's looked like the pitcher who won the NL Cy Young award last season ever since he returned from the IL in early July, and there's every reason to believe that with a normal offseason, Snell will be great in 2025 as well.

He'll be expensive, but the Cardinals will be shedding substantial amounts of payroll this offseason with guys like Lynn, Gibson, and Paul Goldschmidt all set to hit free agency at the end of the year. For a team in dire need of starting pitching like St. Louis, there really is no need to pass on Snell.

Cardinals news: Oli Marmol might finally be seeing the luck turn in his favor

Several things that the Cardinals could not have predicted would go wrong, have this season. Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado, two perennial MVP candidates, have seen their numbers plummet. Tommy Edman didn't play in a single game due to injury before he got traded to the Dodgers. Willson Contreras has been on the IL twice with major injuries. Nolan Gorman and Jordan Walker struggled so mightily to the point where they were sent down to the minors. Even Miles Mikolas has been mostly awful.

The tip of that iceberg came from their hotel incident, forcing several players to wake up extremely early and move out of their rooms before Sunday's game.

Finally, the Cardinals started to see the luck go in their favor in their win on Sunday in Minnesota. A key error from Twins second baseman Edouard Julien helped set the table for Lars Nootbaar to come up with one of the biggest hits of the Cardinals' season thus far.

“I love this one. We snatched it from them, to be quite honest,” Cards manager Oliver Marmol said. “They were doing a really nice job. They’ve got some tough arms. And you’re just grinding that whole game."

The Cardinals flat-out stole this game. Marmol even admitted that. Sometimes, you have to get lucky to win in MLB, and the Cardinals were sure to take advantage of a rare Twins mistake. Cardinals fans can only hope that this dramatic win can help spearhead them to an unlikely run to the postseason.