Chicago Cubs take another one from Cardinals
ST. LOUIS - Sometimes the worst time to judge events is when they're happening.
In the case of the rivalry between the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals, it certainly looks and feels like the balance may be swinging the Cubs' way. After the Cubs beat the Cardinals on Monday night at Busch Stadium they added a 2-1 victory Tuesday night.
But there's a long way to go this year and an even longer way to go before we'll know if that's true.
This new feeling began to take hold late last season, when the Cubs came into Busch Stadium and won two of three in September before vanquishing their Gateway Arch rivals in the National League division series.
"I think it's the best thing for a rivalry when it's a real rivalry with two really good teams going at it," Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer said Tuesday. "This has been a rivalry sort of in name only for most years. Hopefully we can get it to a place where it's very consistent every single year where there's to very good teams."
Last season started out much the same way as it had in recent years, when the Cubs lost three of four at Busch Stadium in May and were swept in three games at the end of June.
"Last year in the beginning of the year, they out-experienced us," said Cubs manager Joe Maddon. "I said from the beginning I felt we were as good as them, but they had a greater amount of experience that we didn't, and that really showed."
The Cardinals did win 100 games last season and finished first in the NL Central ahead of the Pirates and Cubs before the Cubs took care of business in October.
The Cubs have the experience from last year, and they added veteran players such as John Lackey and Jason Heyward from the Cardinals as well as Ben Zobrist from the world-champion Royals.
As far as any change in who has the edge now, Hoyer wasn't going there yet.
"I don't know about that, but I feel like we come in here now and just expect really good baseball games," he said. "I don't think there's any sense that this is a team that we can't compete with. Now we know we can compete with these guys We played well against them the last half of last season. Hopefully we'll keep that going into this year.
"We're still aspiring to get to their level, as far as consistency. That's what the challenge is. They do it every single year."
Even though the Cubs have a big edge in market size, Hoyer said that hasn't mattered.
"They've done a pretty good job so far with making the market-size thing irrelevant," he said. "I think when you pack this place with 45,000 people every night, the size of the city doesn't matter that much. They bring a lot of revenue because they have great fans and they have great teams."