JUPITER, Fla. -- The Cardinals will break camp with no concrete answer to their ninth-inning question.
That's not necessarily a surprise: manager Mike Matheny all but predicted the possibility in the second week of February. And while he couldn't foresee Luke Gregerson's strained oblique, Jordan Hicks' early exit or Mike Mayers' race up the hypothetical depth chart, Matheny never truly expected any spring circumstances would force his hand.
Matheny's forecast called for his club's cloudy late-inning picture to clear itself up in time. The Cardinals just still need more of it, not only to decide who gets the ball in the ninth, but how they'll bridge to it.