What a great game to work out a lot of the bad feeling that had been building up in the last week. Still really early to say anything like this, but it seems like we have the Cardinals number a little bit. Gant was really cruising and in total control, and then Musgrove snuck a single in, and we quickly snuck 3 runs in through the open window.
I think Hurdle was a little aggressive in pulling Musgrove, and it didn't work perfectly in terms of the big strike, but at the same time, I see the rationale behind just calling it a day with 7 pretty much perfect innings. He did get hit around a bit in one or two rehab starts, and anyways, both Feliz and Vazquez are money. It's a topic for another day, but there's part of me that's a little skeptical that some of this stuff around Musgrove was a bit of a ploy to keep his innings a little more restricted and give him ample time to recover from the World Series.
Most important part in this game was seeing Cervelli continue to hit the ball for power. Any time he seems to have a hand injury it's a huge cause for concern. I don't even think it's a little bit debatable that he's the MVP on this team right now.
I'm curious what will happen with Marte. If he's healthy, obviously you want him available, but Meadows is on such a tear that there's no point in rushing him even a little bit. Maybe Polanco will come down with a phantom injury, but I'd just as soon give Marte some more days and keep riding this out.
Tomorrow should be another solid pitching matchup. We got to Flaherty in his game against us last month, but he's been very good since then, and in terms of stuff, may even be the best guy on the Cards in my opinion. I hope we saved some offense for tomorrow. Honestly, two series wins at home here aren't going to dramatically move the needle, but if we can do that and then split on the road with the Cards, that would be a huge boost in terms of making a statement that we'll really hang around. It may just be the case that none of the Central teams are significantly better than the others, which means at a certain point, if one of them is winning enough divisional series, they'll have a solid lead. Obviously, that's where losing series' to the Reds is a disaster, and it might actually be the case that Milwaukee will stay a few games in front of the pack, but they have some games in hand, and I'm a little skeptical of their staying power unless they make a play for Archer or Fulmer.