Kyle Lohse ran the Joel Pineiro game plan perfectly, and while that's ultimately not amenable to no-hitters—it helps to not let everybody hit the ball—it works pretty well from a fourth starter. Between that Dave Duncanism and David Freese's three hits, the Marlins' stadium-opener offered a lot of continuity for Cardinals fans watching without the benefit of Tony La Russa and Albert Pujols for the first time in 11 years.

The only problem: The Marlins scored a run and we didn't see the Home Run Feature in action, perhaps the worst of all possible worlds.

Everything else worked appropriately tonight; the Cardinals' smoothed-out offense got hits from everybody except Matt Holliday, Jason Motte threw a bunch of high-90s fastballs, ESPN ran an uncomfortable, poorly edited telecast designed to appeal to nobody except Bud Selig's ego, and Angel Hernandez made a brutal missed call that cost a team a run.

Spring Training is over, and it looks like everybody used the time wisely.