As baseball fans, it can sometimes be all too easy to treat the first month or two of the regular season as mere prelude, as though nothing that happens before June really counts. Playing 162 games is a marathon after all, not a sprint; if you overreacted to every early blip on the radar, you’d wind up wrong more often than right.

But when does a hot start cease being a fluke and start being real? I’m asking for the St. Louis Cardinals, who put it on the Los Angeles Dodgers in a 7-2, series-opening win on Friday night — their fifth victory in a row, and one that moves them to 19-13 on the year and just one game back of first place in the surprisingly rugged NL Central.

Granted, I’m as guilty of underestimating this team as anyone. In my defense, even the Cardinals themselves didn’t seem to think they’d be competitive in 2026; with new president Chaim Bloom in charge, St. Louis spent the offseason offloading its expensive veterans rather than adding talent. But a funny thing has happened since: All the young guys the Cardinals cleared a path for have hit the ground running, and it now feels like time to ask whether this team is … actually good?

The Cardinals sure looked like a postseason contender in win over Dodgers

In their first matchup against a Dodgers rotation that’s been one of the best in the sport so far this year, it was instead the Cardinals’ lineup that made a statement. St. Louis put up three runs in the bottom of the first inning and wound up chasing Los Angeles starter Emmet Sheehan after giving up eight hits and four runs in just 4.2 innings of work. They tacked on three more against the Dodger bullpen, banging out 12 hits in all — including a whopping four from outfielder Jordan Walker, who simply refuses to cool off in what increasingly looks like a breakout year.

But the really exciting thing about the St. Louis lineup is that it’s far from just a one-man show. Top prospect JJ Wetherholt has taken the leadoff job and run with it, launching five homers in his last seven games to raise his OPS to .824 on the year. Catcher/DH Ivan Herrera has proven that the promise he showed across small sample sizes in 2024 and 2025 was no fluke, and that he’s just one of the best all-around hitters at his position. Alec Burleson, no longer splitting time at first base, is one of the most underrated bats in baseball.

The top half of this order is genuinely fearsome, and that’s not even allowing for the possibility that there’s more to be unlocked in former top prospects like shortstop Masyn Winn and third baseman Nolan Gorman (who homered on Friday night). St. Louis currently ranks sixth in MLB in team wRC+, which honestly doesn’t feel like a fluke — and with top outfield prospect Joshua Baez showing serious pop at Triple-A, there’s even more help on the way soon.

This offense is well ahead of schedule, especially if Walker is a legitimate All-Star now, and if the Cardinals are going to make a serious push toward a Wild Card spot — or even a division title — Friday night is going to be what it looks like. And yet, the calendar is still the calendar. It’s only been 32 games. Has this team shown us enough to fully buy in, or will a lack of depth — and a lack of pitching — wilt over the long summer?

Is St. Louis for real, or just a feel-good story?

While Matthew Liberatore delivered 5.2 solid innings against a very good lineup on Friday night, the Cardinals’ pitching situation has not inspired a ton of confidence so far this season. St. Louis is 20th in rotation ERA, and an ugly 26th in team ERA overall; closer Riley O’Brien has been a revelation, but there just aren’t enough arms whether starting or relief that you can truly trust on a daily basis.

And it’s hard to call that a fluke, either. Liberatore deserves credit for fighting his way back after his initial MLB experience went off the rails, but he’s a back-end type without bat-missing stuff. In fact, that could describe pretty much this entire rotation; no St. Louis starter has a K/9 above 7.5, a truly shocking statistic in this day and age. Granted, pitching to contact isn’t the worst strategy when you have a great infield defense behind you, but still: It’s hard to succeed in 2026 without a certain level of impact stuff.

That probably won’t change any time soon. Liam Doyle, the team’s first-round pick in last summer’s draft, has gotten lit up so far at Double-A. So too has Jurrangelo Cijntje, whom St. Louis acquired from Seattle in the Brendan Donovan trade. Quinn Mathews looked like the future of this rotation not long ago, but his career has since gone off the rails, and he’s currently sporting a 4.58 ERA at Triple-A. This Cardinals staff just is what it is at this point, and what it is isn’t very good.

Of course, with the way the National League is going right now, it might not matter much. The Braves and Dodgers figure to be the class of their respective divisions, but after that, is there anyone you really trust to hold down a playoff spot? The Cubs appear to finally be surging after a slow start, sure. The Reds and Padres have gaudy records, but those aren’t backed up by the underlying numbers — and between Cincy’s offense and San Diego’s rotation, there are plenty of question marks there. Milwaukee has been dogged by injury, and St. Louis just wiped the floor with Pittsburgh. After that, there are precisely no NL teams left with a winning record.

It’s going to be a pretty wide-open Wild Card race, is the point here, and it would hardly be a surprise if a deeply flawed team managed to snag the second or third spot just by clawing its way to 85 wins. The Cardinals still aren’t ready to make serious noise, but then again, they weren’t supposed to be. They are far better than advertised, though, and this year, that might be enough to bring playoff baseball back to Busch Stadium.

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