Cardinals from the Backstop

Stacks of cards have been flying in and out of Cards on Cards Central in recent days. This latest incoming bunch was sent my way by Backstop Cards. If you've got Padres cards to rid yourself of, consider heading down "all the way to the backstop..." as the name suggests!

Fun bonus game: see if you can spot Ryan Theriot in the card above! It's easy.

Will Chris Carpenter be able to contribute anything in the second half of the season? I would love to see it. He pretty much gets a pass for the year just for all that he did to keep the Cardinals train on the tracks last year. You could make a pretty convincing argument that Carp was the most valuable player on the team overall when you consider how many innings he racked up and that amazing Divisional Series clincher over the Phillies.

Carlos Martinez is one of the team's top prospects, and it was nice to see his Chrome Bowman "rookie" card in this package. Martinez is only 20, but he's already been promoted to AA and has been doing well so far after a stint on the DL.

Here's a 2012 Adam Wainwright card from a 2010 (I assume) holiday game. Wainwright had a rough outing his last time on the mound, but I'm hoping it was just an aberration and not a sign of a return to his rough early season start.

Four Cardinals were announced as All-Stars this year, and Yadier Molina was one of them. With all due respect to Buster Posey's return to health, Yadi has been the best catcher in both halves of the innings this year. As a side note, it did seem strange to me that they announced the starters and bench/pitchers so close together this year. I thought we usually had to wait a week or more after the starters were announced before hearing who else made the team.