I Don't Want to Hate Dexter Fowler...

...but damn, he's not making it easy.

Dexter Fowler's been a favorite of mine since he came up. I cheered when he had a comeback season with the Cubs in 2015, and I cheered louder when he helped them win a World Series last year. Of course...he had to get greedy, and he had to piss me off by signing with the enemy, the St. Louis Cardinals.

Now...he's not having the greatest season so far, and he's been piling up a ton of strikeouts, but he's still definitely a presence in St. Louis. Also, the Cardinals aren't in first anymore, thanks the the absolutely inexplicable rise of the Milwaukee Brewers, and the Cards seem to be coming back down to earth. So Fowler's place in the team might become a bit more needed, and hopefully he'll step up.

To be honest, what may have been helping the Cards get to where they ended up was the rotation- four out of five of those guys had insanely good ERAs and were striking people out right and left- Adam Wainwright was a bit depleted, but Leake, Wacha, Lynn and Martinez have all been great. It's just the lineup that can't seem to get out of the hole they're in. Stats are trying to convince me that Matt Carpenter and Yadier Molina are having good seasons, but they're not giving much. Jedd Gyorko's been playing well, but he's not really enough.

It's tricky- I want Dexter Fowler to do well, but I don't really want the Cardinals to do well.

Coming Tonight: The quintessential Rangers fireballer.