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ST. LOUIS – As the calendar flips to September, the St. Louis Cardinals find themselves in familiar territory once again… In the hunt for a Red October.

The St. Louis Cardinals enter the new month with a 76-55 record, leading the Milwaukee Brewers by six games for the NL Central lead.

A division title would give the Cardinals their first division crown since 2019. It would also mark four straight postseason berths and seven trips to the postseason over the past decade.

Coming into the new month, the magic number to clinch the NL Central Division is 24. Any combination of Cardinals wins and Brewers losses will drop that magic number.

St. Louis could also return to the postseason via a Wild Card spot after Major League Baseball expanded the postseason pool to include three non-division winners in the National and American Leagues. That path might look slightly tougher at the moment with the Brewers just outside the last of the last spot.

Several oddsmakers tab the Cardinals as the favorites to win the NL Central by the end of the season, inclduing…

Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs, two prominent baseball research websites, both give the Cardinals at least a 97% chance to make postseason and at least 91% chance to make it as the NL Central leader.

Looking bigger picture, oddsmakers say it might be a little tougher for the Cardinals to win their 12th World Series this season.

Baseball-Reference currently gives the Cardinals a 4.2% chance of winning the World Series, while FanGraphs gives St. Louis a 3.4% chance at a 12th championship.