Fret not, St. Louis Cardinals’ fans. This is the best time of year to enjoy baseball

It’s fantastic, after a frustrating winter for St. Louis Cardinals fans, to be able to once again focus on what’s going on between the foul lines than what’s not going on in the front office.

My favorite thing about spring training baseball is that it means nothing. The score, the stat sheet, earned run and batting averages, none of it means a darn thing. All that matters is that baseball is being played. It doesn’t even really matter who is playing it, be it Yadier Molina or some kid from Class A ball who we’ve never seen before — and who we very well might never see again. The first half of spring training is just baseball, pure and simple. It’s so refreshing when the big league brand of baseball has become more about advanced metrics and the competitive balance rules than it is about the beauty of the game.

While plans for Opening Day are far from being written in ink, it’s great to see outfielders Tyler O’Neill and Harrison Bader get off to a good start with the bat in the first couple of Grapefruit League games. O’Neill blasted a home run in the opener and Bader had two hits that included a long ball in the second contest. While a hot start isn’t going to guarantee a job when the games start to count, it’s a good message for those players to send that they don’t plan to roll over and let highly-touted prospect Dylan Carlson and Lane Thomas take their jobs away from them. Besides, I am a firm believer in momentum and confidence when it comes to baseball. Last year Bader could never break out of his funk. But the season before, he went through a period where he seemed to be unstoppable for stretches. In 2019, O’Neill never had a chance to become consistent. He needs to establish a groove as soon as possible.

Sometimes it seems like the numbers and the off-the-field stuff just gets in the way of baseball. So take the chance to enjoy the crack of the bat, the ambient noise of the game from the murmur of the crowd to the call of the hot dog vendor and the calls of the umpire. Enjoy watching anonymous players try to make you remember their name and seeing familiar players wearing unfamiliar uniforms.

Soon enough it will be time to fret about the standings, why the manager is playing this guy and not playing that guy and who the Chicago Cubs are trying to trade for. But, for right now, I’m happy just to know that there is baseball going on somewhere in the world — and soon I will be sitting in the stands watching it.

Too early to be concerned about pitching

I heard a lot of concern Sunday about Cardinals’ starting pitching candidates Adam Wainwright, who gave up a pair of hits including a homer and a pair of walks in his first outing, and Carlos Martinez, who allowed four hits and two walks. Would it be better to see them face six hitters and strike them all out? Sure. But let’s not throw dirt on them just yet. At this time of the year, not only are they still trying to find their mechanics and scrape off the rust, but let’s remember that pitchers this early in the spring are likely not even using their entire repertoire. It’s one thing at a time, so they’re going to throw their fast ball over and over again until they’re happy with it before they start worrying about sliders, curve balls and change-ups.

Let’s wait until the third or fourth time pitchers appear on the mound to start to judge what they have to offer. We’ll have to wait until the last two weeks of the spring when the lower minors pitchers have returned to their side of the training complex to see what hitters have to offer against the sort of competition they’ll see in April and May.

Scott Wuerz

Belleville News-Democrat

Scott Wuerz has written “Cheap Seats,” a St. Louis Cardinals fan blog for the Belleville News-Democrat, since 2007. He is a former BND reporter who covered breaking news and education.