Cardinals news and notes: Wacha, Pham, and infinite sadness

sometimes it's important to remember that all sports are bad

— FairWeather BluesFan (@FWBluesFan) May 31, 2015

Have truer words ever been spoken? Well, a lot of completely true things have been said. And this tweet is tied with all of those for the most true words ever spoken. This is the second News and Notes in a row which I have written to feature a tweet from the same Twitter user, but sometimes, a simple message perfectly captures a situation.

All sports are bad. How could this be denied? Let's say you started paying attention to sports twenty years ago today, and you were fortuitous to pick the following as your favorite teams: New York Yankees, New England Patriots, Los Angeles Lakers, Detroit Red Wings, Alabama Crimson Tide football, Connecticut Huskies basketball (men's and women's), Manchester United. Even if you rooted for all of the super-teams, you would only be left feeling truly happy about sports at the end of only 28.1% of seasons.

The whole experience is misery. Cardinals championships are met with a sense of relief more than a sense of joy. Even if the Chicago Cubs win the 2016 World Series (or, if this is too unpleasant of a possibility to consider, the St. Louis Blues win the 2016 Stanley Cup), the immediate joy will abruptly end within a month, when the business of sports takes charge and when the inevitable personnel departures go into motion.

According to the Cardinals, Carlos Martinez was removed from Friday night's game due to fatigue. The reaction from Cardinals fans was swift, fatalistic, and arguably irrational. But irrational reactions are what build sports. They are what convince us to invest emotionally in strangers playing a game for children and derive significant amounts of our self-esteem in the results.

And it's weird that we will care so much as we track in the coming hours, days, and possibly weeks and months depending on severity, to know what the deal is with Martinez. Mike Matheny has insisted Martinez was simply feeling the lingering effects of illness, and there is no actual reason to not believe him, but believing that everything is fine and then having things not be fine would simply hurt too much.

Most of us will approach this selfishly, caring more about how potential injury will affect Martinez's ability to help the baseball team we like win baseball games rather than how it will affect his personal happiness. But even knowing this, even after contemplating it, I will still find myself nervously checking Twitter for certain answers.

All sports are bad.

And while this is 100% the case, this does not mean I won't pay attention. And if we are going to pay attention, we might as well have some idea of what we are talking about. And that is what Viva El Birdos is here for.

Michael Wacha

I wrote about Michael Wacha, and how the first six starts of his 2016 season reflect on what he is and what he will be. Opinion on Wacha has varied greatly throughout the years, ranging from future ace to unmitigated disappointment, but early in 2016, he has largely been what he has largely been throughout his career: a solid, if not spectacular, MLB starting pitcher.

Tommy Pham

Craig Edwards wrote about the Tommy Pham situation. Pham, who suffered an injury on Opening Day, When Pham returns to the MLB club, somebody will have to be sent to the minors or designated for assignment, barring somebody else going to the Disabled List (DON'T YOU DARE SAY ANYTHING), and Craig discusses several of the plausible scenarios.

Chess (?)

So apparently, the Cardinals are into chess. Lil scooter has this beat covered and correctly suggests that the Cardinals should play St. Louis in a Box next. For if you have not staked your entire financial dominance of St. Louis on ownership of Uncle Bill's Pancake House, you have not truly lived.

Prospects

Ebo handled the prospects. As noted in the post, for Cinco de Mayo, Memphis Redbirds fans consumed over 3,600 tacos and 65 gallons of margaritas. And judging by the team's performance, the fans may have needed every ounce of both.

The actual game

Craig once again previewed why the Cardinals should destroy the Pirates, a recurring joke on VEB that I perhaps would have grown tired of seeing if not for the tremendous joy I derive from seeing fans of other teams get extremely Mad Online about it. This may eventually stop, but until it does, it will be my single favorite thing about this website.

Jon Snowzeliak wrote the recap. Click at your own peril.

Hopefully things will be better today. Adam Wainwright pitches, and he is good sometimes.