The adage, oft-repeated as it is true, goes that “To be the best, you have to beat the best”, something that rings true in any sport, with baseball being no exception.

Heading into their series with the St. Louis Cardinals last Friday, the Cincinnati Reds were coming in riding high on a five-game win streak, making them one of the hottest teams in baseball. However, two of these wins came against the reeling Chicago Cubs, with the other three victories came at the expense of the Pittsburgh Pirates, a team, who despite a relatively surprising start to the season, remain one of the principal laughingstocks in professional baseball.

This isn’t to say that these wins meant nothing; a good team can not only square off against other elite teams, but they also take care of business against the Pirates and Royals of the world. But it would take more than wins over much better competition for the Reds to live up to their status as a “sleeper team” for the 2010 campaign. It would take a series win, or a solid showing at the very least, against the Cardinals, the overwhelming  preseason favorite in the NL Central, to wholly justify the strong start to the season.

In the Cardinals, the Reds were to face not only the division favorite, but also a team with legitimate World Series aspirations; a team that features perhaps the best one-two pitching punch in Major League Baseball with Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright, as well as what could very well be the best middle of the lineup in the game with Matt Holliday and Albert Pujols, the man almost universally recognized as the best player on the planet.

Perhaps most the most daunting prospect was that St. Louis had already taken four of six games from Cincinnati earlier in the season.

The three game series in Cincinnati over the weekend was truly a critical juncture in 2010 for the Reds, even this early in the season. It was a chance to prove something — were they simply a team that could beat up on cellar dwellers and nothing more, or were they a team that can contend for a divisional crown?

While that question may seem a little all-encompassing for just being forty games into the season, but if there was one thing proven over the weekend, it was this — the Reds are no fluke and they can truly match-up against an elite team like the Cardinals.

Taking two of three games from St. Louis proved resiliency, an ability by this team to put up a fight in the ninth inning of the first game (albeit in a losing effort) and then come back from a loss by winning the next two games of the series.  The pitching was sharp, the bats strong, and there was really no way to come to no other conclusion than to put a positive spin on what transpired at Great American Ballpark over the weekend.

If anything, this third series of the season with St. Louis proved that the Reds have promise, yes, but also an ability to contend. This is a team that has had promise for the last few years, thanks largely to some good drafts and a deep, talent-laden farm system, but now that promise is at last coming to fruition and translating to wins.

To think about it one way, the series against St. Louis was something like how the season has played out at this point in time — early struggles that still exhibited some points of optimism, a strong comeback in the face of adversity, and a moment of strong legitimization when it was needed most.

Joey Votto has continued to demonstrate why many consider him to be the future of this franchise (offensively, at least), leading team in virtually every major offensive statistical category. Jay Bruce has raised his batting average and shown that he is more than likely closer to his form of two years ago than he is to his disappointing 2009 season. Orlando Cabrera has continued to do what he has done throughout his career, being a solid presence at the leadoff spot and providing great defense at shortstop. Catchers Ryan Hanigan and Ramon Hernandez have both been nothing short of  fantastic at the plate (even in limited appearances).

Mike Leake has been an absolute revelation thus far on the mound, showing not only his immense potential but also an ability to be a winning pitcher in the here and now. Johnny Cueto and Bronson Arroyo have both been solid thus far. Arthur Rhodes continues to be the lynchpin of a solid Cincinnati bullpen that also features players like Danny Herrera and Mike Lincoln who have had very good seasons so far.

Yet despite all of these good performances, it’s not crazy to imagine how much better this Reds team could be. Coming out of the Cardinals series, the Reds sit alone in first place in the NL Central, but they’ve gotten to this point despite not having a single player batting over .289 (among those with at least 3.1 plate appearances per game) and with two starting pitchers with ERAs over 5.50 (Homer Bailey and Aaron Harang). It’s not improbable to think that once the lineup heats up, which it looks to be, and the back end of the rotation stabilizes itself, the Reds may very well be in this same position months from now.

With the triumphant series against St. Louis now firmly in the books and first place in the division in possession (at least for today), it is now time for the Reds to be able to move on from these accomplishments and continue what they’ve been doing for the past two weeks — namely, winning ball games. People like myself can laud these wins as something remarkable, but the fact is that a series win against an elite team at this point in the season means nothing more than a good start. Come September, these wins will be nothing more than a distant memory and will have no real importance unless the Reds can continue to stay in contention.

These questions and concerns will be continually answered as the summer rolls along, but for now we can all deduce that this is not only a promising team in the mold of years’ past, but also one that has potential, as evidenced over the weekend, to do something special this season and maybe, just maybe deliver a long-awaited playoff appearance to a hungry city on the banks of the mighty Ohio River.