Bryan Burwell

ST. LOUIS - In the broad daylight, it still feels like the summer around here. The calendar flipped over to September several days ago, but the 100-degree heat and the oppressive wet-horse-blanket humidity can make even the simple pleasure of basking in the warm afternoon sun feel like a sweltering clam bake. Only this time it’s you, not your favorite crustacean, who is the one steaming in a murky broth.

But in the cool evening shade, when the sun is silhouetted behind the dark iron girders in Busch Stadium’s upper deck — even though there are still two weeks left in the summer — it’s starting to feel very much like another usual autumn in baseball heaven. The blue-haired little old ladies from Bathala in their red Cardinal T-shirts and the South County hard hat with his menthols rolled up in the sleeve of his ice-blue Willie McGee jersey mingle easily in the ballpark’s wild concourses with the affluent Ladue prince and princesses.

After a summer full of despair, the eclectic Redbird loyalists are crowding into every corner of the 1-year-old ballpark and picking up the fresh scent of an improbable autumn playoff chase.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, the Cardinals — left for dead just a few weeks ago when they tumbled 10 games under .500 — are a few games out of first place in the National League Central with less than a month left in the regular season. And for the life of me, I’m not really sure how it happened. Summer in baseball heaven (aka Cardinal Nation) was not so divine, as the Cardinals seemed to be falling apart at the seams and the city endured another agonizing, seemingly endless heat spell.

The defending World Series champions of 2006 were a mess. Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa was arrested for DWI in spring training. Rowdy relief pitcher Josh Hancock was a drunken-driving fatality in early summer. Popular utility man Scott Spiezio, who became a World Series icon, was quietly whisked away to rehab for substance abuse. Outfielder Juan Encarnacion's season and career are probably finished after he took a screaming foul ball in the eye while standing in the on-deck circle.

And every day and every night one more key component on the defending World Series championship roster ended up on the disabled list and the team kept falling back further in the National League Central standings.

And yet the Cardinals are within striking distance of the Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers, deadlocked at 73-70 heading into Tuesday night's action.

Baseball is supposed to be the ultimate numbers game. Batting averages, ERAs, OPS and slugging percentages are supposed to be the cold hard facts and exotic figures that have always provided the game with certain rock-solid, numerological certainties. If you soar toward a winning percentage of more than .600, you’re on your way to the playoffs. If you slog around the .500 mark, it should mean wait until next year.

Yet here we are in the first weeks of September, and all the numbers are telling lies.

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One of baseball’s long-standing truths used to be that you are what your record says you are, but the schizophrenic Cardinals are mocking that maxim. Their mediocre 69-72 record says they ought to be a dead team walking, yet for some inexplicable reason, the Cards are — gasp and swoon — one win streak out of first place in the National League Central.

This makes no sense, and that’s probably just fine with most clear thinking Redbird loyalists. The Cardinals have more blemishes than a pimply-faced teenager, but that doesn’t seem to matter much right now as the Redbirds alternate nightly between giving Cardinal Nation heartburn and hope. One day, it’s the woeful Kip Wells sinking the Nation’s hopes with another feckless pitching effort. The next night, it’s newcomer Russell Branyon busting a towering home run in his first Cardinal start, Joel Pineiro proving that some pitching reclamation projects can work and the Cardinals taking a 6-2 victory to surge (can a .500 ballclub actually surge?) ever so close to the division lead.

A year ago, Branyan came to San Diego down the stretch and swung a big bat to lead the Padres into the postseason (.292 batting average, six home runs over the final month). Now he’s back on another contending team looking to make some autumn magic. “Last year in San Diego, we caught fire,” Branyan said. “Now I have another chance to play on a team trying to get in the playoffs and it is a great environment because all you have to do is win.”