The Quick Word: Complaining about 162 lineups sounds tiring

You have no control, so save the oxygen in your brain for the grocery list.

“If it were me” can be one of the most thought-provoking and annoying sounds on this planet, right next to “preciate you” and “no offense, but” in the word-groupings that call momentary homicidal thoughts.

Baseball fans say “if it were me” more than most Earth folk. This daily season ritual of lineup-complaining is time-tested and infuriating part of the time. The head-skipper-manager-coach, who is paid to write a lineup card for every game played, looks at the roster and tries to understand what’s working and not working.

Who needs a bump?

Who needs a rest?

Who needs nothing at all, except for the satisfaction of seeing their name-though written by someone else-on the final card?

The HSMC then picks the finest nine names in his head from that active roster, and then calls his General Manager to double check if that’s okay to print. Following six changes, he prints it out, posts it, and the media is alerted. A lovely sports journalist like the wonderful Katie Woo of The Athletic will tweet it out, and even add a funny warning like reminding readers she didn’t actually create the list.

The list is then torn apart by fans everywhere, from here to Beirut. Screams and shouts are heard from rooftops, rooftop bars, and various workplaces-remote or otherwise. People can’t stand that young Nolan Gorman gets a rest on a day against a lefty starter. Can he hit lefties? Too soon to tell but judging from the first batch of baseballs who were assaulted by his bat, I think the answer is more like, “soon.”

Instead, the light-hitting shortstop and newly irritating to Cards fans, Edmundo Sosa, gets the start at short and Albert Pujols steps into the DH box. OH NO! A Cardinal legend, one who currently destroys lefties, is taking a few reps. Fans at home will whine; fans down at Busch, sometimes the same people, will go absolutely bonkers when he hits one towards Ballpark Village tonight.

The truth is I can see both sides of the coin. Sosa doesn’t have to start with a red hot Gorman already making a dent. Leave it be. But that’s not how the micro-managing Cardinals do things. They hold back in awkward times, probably have this shit all planned and written out before NG’s arrival, and generally push on the nerve endings of their fans--the same ones packing the house at the moment.

My advice, which you don’t want but I still will write out, is to let the lineups be. Gorman isn’t going to play every game like Juan Yepez did when he arrived. Gorman is a higher-ranked prospect and one that will be treated with kid gloves. He is also needing as many innings at ONE position, other than the 3-5 Yepez and Donovan can handle.

Gorman will be there more nights than not. Trust that, because he wouldn’t be up with the team on a part-time playing basis. But a day off, following ten games of action, isn’t a terrible thing.

It’ll be okay. A great lineup never guarantees a win, just like a great-hitting prospect never guarantees an everyday job. Gorman will hit a walkoff home run, and the world’s axis will right itself again.