On The Horizon: Cubs vs. Cardinals series preview

The Cubs won’t see old friend Willson Contreras in this series, as he’s out for several weeks after having suffered a fractured arm on a swing by J.D. Martinez of the Mets.

This is the first Cubs/Cardinals game this year in the season’s 52nd game. Nevertheless, it’s not the latest in the year for the first Cubs/Cardinals game. That happened June 14, 1985, in the Cubs’ 57th game of that year. (Thanks to BCB’s JohnW53 for the info.)

The balanced schedule still sucks.

For more on the Cardinals, here’s Heather Simon, manager of our SB Nation Cardinals site Viva el Birdos.

Upon the eighth day of May in the year of our Lord two-thousand and twenty-four a great tragedy befell the city of St. Louis.

As the golden sun descended in the West, thunder rumbled out in the distance, heralding the arrival of impending doom.

T’was upon this evening in contest fierce where bat and ball clash upon the verdant field that fair Willson Contreras, the esteemed catcher of the St. Louis Cardinals didst meet his fate.

He reached, and attempted to pluck a strike from the clutches of J.D. Martínez, but fate be a cruel mistress in the cursed eve.

He reached prematurely, ball finding mark not upon the welcoming leather of Contreras’s glove, but instead bat met bone in a clash of titanic force.

As cries of anguish rent the air and trainers rushed to his aid, Contreras fell to the ground, his visage contorted in agony.

Busch Stadium, once a stage for heroes grand, became a theatre of sorrow and lamentation.