(Damn, should have saved that one for May the 4th...)
The St. Louis Cardinals, what a shocker, are really good this year. Hell, you can make the case that they've been good every year since 2009. Even their dry spells, like their 2017 season, was still over .500 and with a moment of 'they might make the playoffs'. No other team (citation needed) has been this competitive over the last ten seasons.
So, here they are again, second in the NL Central, and part of a four-team blockade of people with similar winning records. The Brewers are in first right now, the Pirates are in fourth, and the Cubs and Cardinals are battling right there with them to try and get through. Meanwhile, the Reds are just having a soda down in fifth.
The Cardinals, though, have some tools that could definitely get them into first for a while, thanks to some really spiffy pitching from Carlos Martinez, Luke Weaver and Miles Mikolas (!), as well as Tommy Pham and Paul DeJong holding up the lineup, and Yadier Molina hitting a surprising amount of home runs. There are definitely problems here, including veterans not hitting and lack of extreme roster depth, but with some more rookies beginning to come into the fold, and with Jordan Hicks throwing some of the fastest pitches we've seen since Aroldis' rookie year, there is still promise.
Unfortunately, there's promise in any of those four teams. Any one of them could be heading up this division by October. So this might be a bloodthirsty race for the next few months, which is perfectly fine by me.
Coming Tonight- Speed, power, hits, and a smile...which can only do so much in Seattle.
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