Hunt and Peck

The Cardinals get a much-needed win over Giants - A Hunt and Peck

That game was fun.

By lil_scooter93 Jul 6, 2018, 1:00pm EDT

MLB: St. Louis Cardinals at San Francisco Giants

The Cardinals beat the Giants on Thursday night. They did this through a combination of extra-base hits, timely hits, solid defense, and strong starting pitching. As they say, if your starter can give you eight innings and your offense can give you eleven runs, you are gonna win most games. Thursday night it all clicked for the Birdos.

While the victory was sweet, it does add to the frustration of watching this Cardinals team. It gives fans hope, a glimpse into what could be when things break the right way. Of course, a team will not consistently score eleven runs a game, but the Cardinals offense has good hitters up and down it. When some players are not hitting well, there should surely be others to pick up the slack. Oftentimes this year, it seems like six of the eight non pitchers are in a slump at once. Starters will not always go eight strong innings, especially when the corps is so depleted by injury, but the starting pitching is still a definite strength of the Cardinals. The defense has holes, but it should be able to make the routine plays and occasionally flash the leather on more difficult ones. No, games like Thursday night’s will not happen all the time, but there has to be somewhere between Thursday night and Yakety Sax playing on a loop for three hours.

Games like this give fans expectations again. It is a good thing, to have optimism, but optimism can be dangerous in the hands of natural pessimists. The fall from cheer to doom is a long one and ledge is precarious. Maybe it is best not to question or analyze it and just enjoy it for what it is:

Baseball.