There is no more passionate fan base on the planet than the one belonging to the Cardinals. Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Mo., remains one of the enduring and essential capitals of the sport.

The Cardinals matter mightily, and they always have -- and not just because they have won more World Series (11) than any National League team in history. The Yankees have won a lot more; over the past two decades, the Yanks have made the playoffs more than the Cards. But starting in 2000, St. Louis is 2-2 in the World Series -- same as New York. The only teams to be in the Fall Classic as often in that span are the Red Sox, who have won all four they’ve played and beat St. Louis twice (in ’04 and ’13), and the Giants, who are 3-1.

If the Cardinals make it back to October for the first time since 2015, it will be the 13th time they’ve been in the postseason in the past 20 seasons. They have been consistently good, classy and smart, while not spending nearly as much money on players as the Yankees and Red Sox.

But the problem for their fans is that their team, back in first place in the NL Central and three ahead of the Cubs, hasn’t been to the postseason since 2015. So for the Cardinals, who matter, the rest of this season really matters.

In St. Louis years, four years out of the postseason feels like forty.

“They can smell October,” John Mozeliak, Cardinals president of baseball operations, said on Tuesday.

Since mid-July, when the Cardinals were 44-45, they have been as good as the best teams in the sport. Since the Cardinals lost to Arizona on July 12 and fell a game under .500 after their 89th game, their record was 34-15 through Tuesday.

Here is what the Yankees, Dodgers and Astros -- who have the best records in MLB -- have done over the same time frame:

Astros: 32-15

Yankees: 33-17

Dodgers: 30-17

“Good teams persevere when they’re not playing their best,” Mozeliak said. “And that’s what our guys did when we stumbled in May and June after a pretty good April. They managed to hang around. Now it’s September. It’s going to be a fun month for us, starting with the fact that we’ve got seven games left with the Cubs.”

It’s not as if the Cardinals have fallen apart the past three seasons. They made a big run at October last year after Mozeliak fired Mike Matheny as manager and replaced him with a lifer named Mike Shildt. Mozeliak points out that from 2015-18, his team played one game when it was mathematically eliminated from the playoffs.

“We’ve been close,” Mozeliak said. “But close doesn’t matter in this business.”

Mozeliak then spoke about how Matt Carpenter carried the team last season when they made their late move, but how it isn’t just one guy for the Cardinals this time. It’s lot of different guys. Paul Goldschmidt hasn’t come close to putting up Arizona numbers -- 29 homers, 74 RBIs and a .255 average -- but the Cards' batting order still organizes around him.

“And there are simply things with [Goldschmidt] that aren’t measured that have made us a better team,” Mozeliak said. “He’s a defensive linchpin that ties everything together for us before you get around to talking about his leadership and work ethic.”

Mozeliak said that the other day somebody asked him who the MVP was for the 2019 Cardinals, and he said there wasn’t just one. Dexter Fowler has made a comeback at the plate. Kolten Wong is having a terrific year. Everyone expects Marcell Ozuna, who was Mozeliak’s big move last season the way Goldschmidt was this season, to have a big September.

And then Mozeliak was talking, happily, about Jack Flaherty, who has quietly become one of the true aces in the sport this season, especially during the rising from the Cardinals we’ve witnessed since July. On Tuesday night, he one-hit the Giants through eight innings.

Afterward, Cardinals beat writer Anne Rogers pointed out on MLB.com that Flaherty “has now made 15 starts this season pitching six innings or more while holding his opposition to four hits or fewer -- the most in the National League and third in the Majors behind Cy Young candidates Justin Verlander (18) and Gerrit Cole (16).” Fast company indeed. Nothing that has happened with the Cards since July happens without Flaherty pitching this way. Ask the Astros how an ace -- or two -- can change everything.

“Over the time period we’re talking about (since 44-45),” Mozeliak said, “Jack Flaherty has been one of the best players in baseball.”

You can tell: The boss man of the Cardinals likes his team. Cardinals fans like this team. They like the way it has fought its way, for now, back to the top of what is always a challenging division. Mozeliak says he hears a lot from Cards fans about how in a home run time in baseball, they aren’t beholden to the big fly. They hit and run. They speed around the bases.

“We like to believe around here that if you do the little things right,” Mozeliak said, “big things will happen.”

Mozeliak says the players can smell October. Everybody can in St. Louis. It’s only three years and counting out of the postseason, but it feels like a lifetime for fans of the Cardinals. Their team is in play again in September. It’s not just a good baseball thing -- it’s a great baseball thing.