Wanting to Hope

I can almost smell the freshcut grass, spilled beer, and steaming hotdogs....it's here! Baseball is back! The first day of Spring may have been a week ago (weather not withstanding) but for me the first real day of Spring is Opening Day. Not this Opening Day in Japan stuff, but real Opening Day. That is when we get games every day. And as Thomas Boswell says in Ken Burns' Baseball, "You may not watch it every day, but it is there when you need it." or something like that. What a beautiful thing.

What may not be beautiful is the Cardinals' season. I feel weird about the season. It has been a long time since I came into the season not really feeling that we have a good shot at winning the division, let alone contend. But I am struggling with that this year. Joe may be saying, "Welcome to my world." True enough. But I am also still wanting to hold out hope for the season because as they say, you never know.

IF the starting pitching can hold together--and that is a HUGE IF--we will have a shot to contend. The bullpen is pretty good and the lineup should be better with Glaus instead of Rolen and more experience for Duncan and Ankiel, but I don't know...the more I look at the team..a LOT has to go better than expected. The defense is not great...I know Edmonds wasn't the same guy, but still far better than most. And Rolen was always phenomenal. Offensively, outside of Albert there is still no reliable bat in the lineup. They should be decent, but not that good.

This is likely our lineup:

RF Skip Schumaker
2B Adam Kennedy
1B Albert Pujols
3B Troy Glaus
LF Chris Duncan
CF Rick Ankiel
C Yadier Molina
SS Cesar Izturis

That's a guess at the order, but whatever the case I'm guessing no one is intimidated, despite good spring training for some of these guys.

The rotation is the real question mark, though. Just as scary as last year:

Adam Wainwright--excellent first year as a starter, probably the only dependable one
Braden Looper--adequate as a first year starter last year himself, but not exciting
Todd Wellemeyer--also first starts last year (noticing a pattern)
Brad Thompson--after 3 seasons he still looks 15...not that's bad =)
Kyle Lohse--I like this pickup a lot, but he's still not the answer

Again, IF the pitching holds up ok, AND Mulder and Clement come back soon pitching well, there is a shot at contending. But I hate to say it...it would almost take a miracle for the Cubs NOT to win the division. Ugh.

Guys, I will try to hold out hope. Show me you can do it.