It’s the only question that matters in St. Louis these days.

With their season on the brink of collapse and a chance to tie the Cubs in the National League Central standings, the Cardinals went to Chicago and laid a big, ugly egg over the weekend and fell behind six games.

The Cards were still six games back in the division with 12 games to play heading into Wednesday, and their playoff hopes are currently somewhere between “implausible” and “not a chance.”

The Cubs could lock up the division title by Tuesday, and the second wild card will likely be dead by the middle of the week.

Barring a miracle, the Cardinals will miss the playoffs for the second straight season after making the postseason the first four years of Manager Mike Matheny’s tenure.

So how did we get here?

Matheny certainly hasn’t helped.

Joe Sheehan, a respected baseball writer who has written for Sports Illustrated and Baseball Prospectus, called Matheny the worst Major League manager when he put out his ranking in June.

Early in Matheny’s tenure, when the Cardinals advanced to the National League Championship Series and World Series in 2012 and 2013, these types of criticisms fell on deaf ears because of the on-field success.

But make no mistake about it, Matheny was making the same mistakes then as he is now.

Down three games to two in the 2013 World Series, the Cardinals were facing elimination in front of a rowdy Boston Red Sox crowd.

Rookie Michael Wacha, 22, got the start, but got shelled for six runs in less than four innings and was removed at least one inning too late.

With no room for error, Matheny showed the managerial precision of a sledge hammer when he needed a scalpel.

One year later, Matheny misused Wacha again.

In game 7 of the 2014 National League Championship Series in San Francisco, he brought Wacha into a tie game in the bottom of the ninth, despite shutdown closer Trevor Rosenthal being available to pitch.

Wacha put two runners on base, gave up a home run, and the season was over in 15 minutes.

“We can’t bring him (Rosenthal) in, in a tie-game situation. We’re on the road,” Matheny said after the game.

Actually, managers can bring in anybody they’d like. But I can understand why thinking outside the box scares people in Matheny’s role.

The Cardinals have always won in spite of Matheny, not because of him, and the above examples are just two of the most glaring mistakes. But they certainly aren’t outliers.

In Matheny’s defense, the Cardinals’ front office didn’t make his job any easier this season.

They continued to rely on the development of young, cheap players, and it didn’t pay off.

Shortstop Aledmys Diaz took a big step back after making the all-star game last season as a rookie, and spent most of this season at AAA-Memphis.

Outfielders Stephen Piscotty and Randal Grichuk looked more like solid bench players than everyday outfielders on a playoff team.

Outfielder Tommy Pham, 29, who has 21 home runs, 21 stolen bases and a team-best .408 on-base percentage, has been one of the few bright spots offensively this season. And even he was a bit of a fluke, spending the first month of the season in Memphis.

The Cardinals have one of the best farm systems in the Major Leagues, and their young core of position players that features guys like Harrison Bader, Jose Martinez, Paul DeJong, Grichuk and Piscotty gives them flexibility this offseason.

But we learned the last two years the difference between complementary players and star players.

A roster with good players surrounded by a few stars is a recipe for postseason success.

Look at the Dodgers, Astros, Cubs and Indians, for example.

A roster with good players surrounded by more good players leaves you no room for error.

And as long as Matheny is in the dugout, the Cardinals need as much room as they can afford.

On the bright side for hockey fans, the Blues are getting used to owning the city by October.