Can you believe it? Cardinals kick a NEW season off tonight in Miami! I feel I have waited forever for today to get here and finally at 6 P.M I will be sitting and watching my birds play. The season is not the only thing that is new. The Cardinals have a new manager, new first basemen, new right fielder, new pitching coach, and a new second basemen. They really have a new team. Some might ask, how can they win without all of that? I will tell you a successful season all starts with health. Lets face it, Tony and Albert CANNOT be replaced and wont be replaced.
The key is in my opinion is to do better in areas last year and the following years we haven't done as well. For example, steals and being more aggressive on the base paths. Do you realize the leader in steals last year was Tyler Greene? He played a third of a season. Relief pitching, last year Cardinal relievers gave up a bunch of leads. See, I am just a fan, not a english major- as you can tell and not a statistic guru. I don't have "real" numbers, but what I can tell you I watched every Cardinal game last year and I know we lost a lot of games early in the season because of our middle inning relief. Health, Health, Health. We have a nice mixture of veterans and new talent. What these two groups have in common is staying healthy. I counted ten players who are hurt now or were injured and missed significant time last year. Beltran, Holliday, Wainwright and Furcal have to stay healthy this year. If we want to be a contender in September, these players must stay healthy. Carpenter is already out and we do not know for how long. Craig and Schumaker are healing. There probably is more factors that can result in more wins, but these three areas could help us add 10-15 more games in the win column.
I am ready for a new season. I am ready for Mike Matheny as our manager. I am ready for baseball. Are you?
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