St. Louis Cardinals Gain a Half-Game Without Playing

While the St. Louis Cardinals sat idle after a night of heavy rain, they still gained a half-game on the Chicago Cubs, as the Cubbies lost 2-1 to San Diego.

This is pretty much the dream situation in baseball: sit around and watch your opponents lose. You can't ask for much more than that.

The Cardinals are now just three games out of the divisional lead, and two up in the wild card race. More importantly than those numbers, however, is the fact that it allows injured star Albert Pujols, as well as slugger Rick Ankiel, a chance to heal.

It has been determined that the teams will play a doubleheader tomorrow, the first game at 12:10 PM CST, followed by a 6:10 PM CST nightcap. While it is unlikely that Pujols would play in both those games, he may be feeling well enough to pinch-hit in at least the latter of the two contests.

If the Cardinals can sweep the doubleheader tomorrow, things are on the up heading down to Houston for a tough three-game weekend set.

Given how effective Todd Wellemeyer has been over his last five starts, it should be interesting to see how he pitches given an extra day of rest.

The organization expects Wellemeyer to be first-rate tomorrow on six days rest, and now that he has received some accolades, it is time to deliver even with the high expectations.

We will see how rookie starter Mike Parisi does in the second game of the doubleheader. Hopefully, he can improve on his last outing, in which he gave up eight ER. To be brutally honest, the expectations aren't quite there yet for Parisi, so if he throws an admirable 6.1 IP/3-4 ER, I would be pleased with the effort.

My predictions for tomorrow are as follows:

Wellemeyer vs. Lannan—Cardinals 6, Nationals 3

Parisi vs. Redding—Cardinals 7, Nationals 5

Getting games back on the Cubbies would be clutch early on in June, so we'll see how it pans out!