I enjoy scanning team forums throughout the post season and have read quite a bit here. I totally understand the frustration of a division winning season ending so abruptly. however, two ideas flowing through this forum are simply false. 1.) the cardinals were lucky to beat the nats...an elementary understanding of sabermetrics, which seems to exist on this forum, states the importance of run differential. I believe the cardinals outscored the nats 35-16 in 5 games. This is total domination. Say the game ends 7-5 nats, that would have been 31-16 in cards favor. Quite simply, that would have been very unlucky for the cards. To be +15 in 5 games and lose would have been 1960 nyy world series unlucky. Certainly they have had tremendous luck over the past 2 seasons( freese heroics and braves collapse in 2011, etc.)Heck, even though history will say otherwise, a strong case could be made that halliday outpitched carpenter in game 5 of 2011 nlds. They were lucky to have that miracle comeback vs. the nats, but they were unlucky to need a miracle. 2.) the reds were far superior to cards this year...this is patently false. Once again we need to look to sabermetrics. A quick google search of 2012 3rd order win percentage helps here. Is it perfect, no. However, it is good enough to know that the reds were not far superior. In fact, probably not superior at all. Thanks for reading, and good luck next year.