I have been somewhat frustrated with the Cardinal offense so far this season as it seems the only guys hitting and producing are Albert Pujols, Scott Rolen and our SP's Jason Marquis and Mark Mulder. However, after taking a quick glance at Junior Spivey's minor league numbers through the first week of the season, and realizing that Larry Bigbie is working his way back from injury, I began to get excited about what could be a very fun lineup in a few more weeks.

I really like what a Spivey and Bigbie combo can bring to the lineup and think they would really fill it out from 1-8 and also take the pressure off Pujols/Rolen.

I'd love to see this lineup,
R - Eckstein
L - Bigbie
R - Pujols
R - Rolen
L - Edmonds
R - Encarnacion
R - Spivey
R - Molina

Bigbie is a much better on base guy than Encarnacion and I think has more SB potential as well at this stage of his career. This also gives us the L/R/R/L look that we had with Walker in the 2 hole.

Finally, it allows Aaron Miles to play the John Mabry role (all hit, some glove) utility and keeps J-Rod and Taguchi out of a starting role, in which they would be badly exploited by MLB pitching over 162 games.

So there it is Cardinal Nation, a lineup that can get our beloved Redbirds back to the Series and hopefully end the title drought.