Braves Fans Should Be Furious Watching Cardinals Utterly Fail Against Washington

In a vacuum, the best team tends to prevail in sports in a multi-game playoff series. Fortunately, however, games don't get played out on paper, and we instead get treated to a nice sampling of upsets every now and then. Right on cue, the Nationals and the Cardinals upended their higher-seeded opponents in the divisional round of the National League playoffs and are now squaring off in the NLCS.

However, the Championship Series has been anything but competitive so far. The Nats have dominated the Cardinals, holding them to just one run and four hits through the first two games of the series-- and that should be enough to drive Atlanta Braves fans absolutely crazy given how they fought and lost against the Redbirds in their five-game set.

Get this: The Nats have held the Cardinals to four hits over these two games. That ties the fewest in a two-game span by any team in MLB postseason history.

The 1956 Brooklyn Dodgers had four hits in a two-game span, too. That’s the list.
— Dan Kolko (@masnKolko) October 12, 2019

The Cardinals looked like a never-say-die team of destiny coming out of the NLDS. They trounced the Braves in winner-take-all Game 5 after squeezing out multiple comebacks, and a World Series berth suddenly looked possible. After all, the Braves were a significantly better team than the Nationals during the regular season.

In fact, Atlanta went 11-8 against Washington in 2019. Picturing themselves in place of the struggling Cardinals right about now must be infuriating.

Let’s not let the Nationals amazing win distract us from remembering that the Nats have advanced two more playoff rounds than the Atlanta Braves since the team moved to DC.
— Internet Contrarian! (@bogcommenter) October 10, 2019

St. Louis looks utterly lost with seemingly no hope in sight. Save for an eighth-inning rally in Game 2 on Saturday that was assisted by a poor defensive play from Washington center fielder Michael A. Taylor, their last run scored would have been in the third inning of Game 5 against the Braves. They literally went 23 innings without scoring a run.

It's as if the wrong team made it through. The Braves surely would have put up a better fight than the Cardinals have.

Cardinals offense through the first 2 games of this series:

.070 AVG (4-for-57)
.083 OBP
.088 SLG
1 R
1 XBH

Second team in NLCS history to be held to 3 hits or fewer in consecutive games.

The other one being the 1999 Atlanta Braves, who actually ended up winning the series.
— Max’s Sporting Studio (@MaxSportsStudio) October 13, 2019

It should be infuriating for the Atlanta faithful to have to watch the team that bounced them in embarrassing fashion fail so catastrophically against one of their most hated division rivals. It's a slap in the face.

For the sake of Braves fans' sanity, the Cardinals better at least put up a fight. Otherwise, the city of Atlanta might collectively lose its mind.