Before the beginning of this Cardinals' season, a lot of fans were in a bit of a panic mode. Adam Wainwright went down for the season, we signed an aging veteran to a one year deal to attempt to shore up our outfield, and the Reds just seemed like some sort of Red Machine Redux in the eyes of the media and the citizens of Cincinnati. Honestly, I can say I wasn't overly worried about them competing. The baseball season is 162 games long. Anything can, and will, happen in that time span. I can't say I picked the Cardinals to win the Central but I thought they would be competitive as ever. My initial prediction was a close three-team race between the Brewers, Cardinals, and Reds, with the Brewers winning at the end of the season. The main point is, sometime between when I knew enough about sports to make semi-educated predictions and becoming an "adult" (graduating college) I stopped guzzling my teams' Kool-Aid with reckless abandon.
