With the regular season starting to wind down and the playoff race starting to heat up, the St. Louis Cardinals are in right in the thick of things; currently a game behind first place in the NL Central and also owning the 2nd spot in the NL Wild Card race.
Even though the Cardinals are still in the race, they have been bailed out by the underperformance of teams in the NL Central as well as in the National League, besides the Dodgers and Braves of course.
It seems like most NL contenders have some type of weakness that masks their record, such as the Cubs bullpen and the Brewers rotation.