The Cardinals beat the Washington Nationals last night 6-3 to bring their National League-best record to 18-10. I was there. It was cold. I don't know how Harrison Bader's catch in the 7th inning graded out on replay and Statcast but it certainly looked good in person.
Of much less importance, similar to this time yesterday when the Cardinals were 17-10, there exists a game out there in the ether in which the Cardinals won by the score of 18-10. It happened on July 16, 1937, at the Baker Bowl in Philadelphia. Read about it here. The game took over three hours, not very common back then, and this was the second game of a double-header so we're talking about a long day at the ballpark in the presumably hot Eastern Pennsylvania summer sun.
What else do we know about this game? Well, it was over 80 years ago so not much. But team logos were on point back then, we do know that.
And of course it was against the Phillies. Upon waking up on this nice Tuesday morning, the last day of April in the year 2019, the Phillies have a -6,494 (that's a negative) run differential dating back to 1901 - that's easily the worst! - so the Cardinals are not the only team over the years to have clubbed them into oblivion.
Some names you might recognize from this game are Ducky, Mize, Durocher, and Terry Moore. Mize went 4-for-5. The Phillies had a young hurler by the name of Wayne LaMaster, who entered the game in the 6th, recorded the last out of the inning but also gave up a few hits and a walk and allowed two more runs to score. LaMaster was soon out of baseball after only two seasons in MLB, but of note he is the only person from that era who is smiling in his Baseball Reference photo (by my research, anyway).
That's about it, everyone. According to Baseball Reference's Play Index, there exists only two other victories in Cardinals history (both against the Phillies, of course) which could match their potential win-loss record going forward in 2019, but they would require more losses than wins to achieve so let's hope we don't have to see another post like this until, at least, next season.
Lastly, if you read this and upon turning in for the night you realize your entire day was nothing more than a waste of time and energy, let the record show that I'm only on the hook for about two minutes.
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