The numbers show that we might be seeing improvement in a few areas.

What makes baseball fans the most passionate in all of sports is partly because most played as kids. It started as just kids in the neighborhood getting together, then Little League. Some made the high school team, and some even played college ball. Almost everyone, at one time, went to a game with our dads or moms and cheered for the players we wanted to be.

Today you can turn on the TV and see every game. Satellite radio features several games being played by teams not named Cardinals. If you want to know what the infield fly rule is, Google it and you will find over 100,000 results. We have all become experts in all things related to baseball.

It’s easy to see that the St. Louis Cardinals were bad last year. This year is just as frustrating for the fans. Some think the manager should be fired after every loss because everyone is an expert now. We know when pitchers should face the next batter or be removed from the game. We have our ideas on how the lineup should be or when players should be pinch-hit for and other strategies the manager comes up with.

Fans’ passion can sometimes cloud their judgment with emotions, causing them to overlook facts. I can be guilty of that too, so I spend a lot of time looking for trends and doing deeper dives into the data.

After last season, there were many articles written about the performance of the team and even more about the manager Oliver Marmol. With this season more than one-third complete, have we seen any improvement?