St. Louis Cardinals beat Chicago Cubs, remember Ryan Jackson's on the roster

It's maybe a little distorting to watch the St. Louis Cardinals dominate a 66-win Cubs team with its eye on 2014 so close to the postseason, when things will be significantly different, but I certainly don't mind watching it.

It's telling, in these games--inasmuch as anything can be telling--to watch who gets pulled and who doesn't, who appears and who doesn't. Matt Carpenter and Matt Holliday and Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright and, even more than that, Carlos Beltran? Nothing to prove, everything looks good, get out of there after the fans get a chance to see you. A Spring Training appearance.

Ryan Jackson, Brock Peterson, Kolten Wong? Enjoy these free at-bats, because you won't be getting many more this year. The other Spring Training appearance.

Pete Kozma and Daniel Descalso, and Edward Mujica and Sam Freeman and Jon Axford? Auditioning, I think. I don't expect the Cardinals to leave Mujica off the postseason roster unless they've got a specific theory about his ineffectiveness that they don't think is solvable, but Sam Freeman has put together a pretty good season for someone who was basically reduced to an afterthought at midseason. There's a scenario, however unlikely, in which leaving Freeman on the roster is what it takes for Mike Matheny to feel comfortable deploying Kevin Siegrist as a lineup-agnostic fireman.

Mostly this is exactly what it looks like--a fun low-consequences game to watch, a chance to warily protect your veterans' health, an opportunity to round off the stats baseball people care about. But if the postseason roster isn't firmed up yet, this is the Cardinals watching it settle.