The St. Louis Cardinals have been preparing Lance Lynn for the sixth starter job ever since Chris Carpenter came down with a weirdly persistent case of neck stiffness that turned into a slipped disc, but if his Friday bullpen session is any indication the team’s contingency plans could prove unnecessary—after a week of worrying whether he’d be ready for Opening Day it looks like Carp could yet make an appearance in the Grapefruit League.

So let Lance Lynn down gently; break the news to Roy Oswalt’s agent; and put your article about the Cardinals’ cursed aces, doomed never to pitch in the same rotation again, on the back burner: it looks like Chris Carpenter might start the season healthy (for the third year in a row!) after all.

Here’s more about the Cardinals’ rotation and the questions surrounding it from SB Nation St. Louis:

• For the Cardinals, cheap-and-pretty-effective might be better than effective—Lance Lynn, I’m talking to you.


• As a result, the Cardinals have talked for a while about staying in-house, which would preclude a Roy Oswalt turnaround.