A look out the window shows white stuff falling again as the never-ending winter continues. Thankfully, today’s St. Louis Cardinals game is on Fox Sports Midwest starting at 12:05 p.m. Central Time — that will help. It’s also on KMOX Radio. Either seeing sunshine (hopefully) in Jupiter or hearing Mike Shannon’s voice should help improve your snowy Sunday as the Cards take on the Mets.

And minus Shane Robinson playing right field instead of Carlos Beltran and Jake Westbrook as the starting pitcher, the lineup looks to be what we can expect on Opening Day — Jenifer Langosch has it here, but you can probably name who’s in it and where.

Although he’s in all likelihood not going to be in St. Louis to start the season, Oscar Taveras will probably be with the big league club before the end of the season. He’s preparing for that, and the Cardinals are helping him prepare for it as well — as this piece by Jerry Cransick at ESPN details.

Taveras has received much attention this spring, from the media but also within Cards camp, and the latter is most important:

“He’s been over-mentored this spring, if there is such a thing,” Matheny says. “He’s had so much information to absorb, but that’s perfect. That’s what we hoped for — that we would have a willing learner on the back end. He’s done that.”

Good to see that there are so many of his teammates willing to help him learn and grow.

Want to know more about pitching coach Derek Lilliquist? Check out this question/answer from TC Palm. And I was not aware of the “did you know?” tidbit at the very end: Lilliquist led Georgia to the College World Series in 1987 and was named College Pitcher of the Year by Baseball America.

Trip Advisor named the Top 10 major league ballparks this week — and Busch Stadium was No. 5. PNC Park in Pittsburgh is rated as the best, followed by AT&T Park in San Francisco, Camden Yards in Baltimore and Fenway Park in Boston.

I would agree that PNC Park is wonderful, and — even though I wanted to hate it because I hate the Red Sox — Fenway really is terrific. I’ve not been to AT&T Park, but I’ve been to Camden Yards twice. And while it’s certainly scenic with the warehouse in right field and it’s in a great area by the Inner Harbor, I wasn’t impressed with our left field seats when we were there at all. They faced left field, so we had to turn to see home plate. And don’t you mostly want to see the action at home plate when you’re at a game?

Your thoughts?

Speaking of AT&T Park, the San Francisco Chronicle had a piece on Two-Time World Series Champion Ryan Theriot the other day — just in case you maybe were wondering what he was up to. (Obviously, I know you weren’t and I really wasn’t either. But I was curious when I saw a link to this on Twitter.) He’s fishing in Louisiana, will play baseball if the right deal for him comes along, is fine if it doesn’t and might become a player agent.

OK, then. Um, good luck with whatever you decide, Ryan?



Christine Coleman is the lead St. Louis Cardinals reporter for Aaron Miles’ Fastball. Follow her on Twitter, @CColeman802, or email aaronmilesfastball@gmail.com. Also follow @AMilesFastball for the latest updates.