First Place

It's obviously still very early in the season, but the Reds victory over the Cardinals today pushes them into first place.  From all the accounts I read, it sounded like everyone (on both teams) was saying all the right things about it being early in the season and the Reds needing the victory more than the Cardinals.  It's just one game, but psychologically it was a big one for the Reds.  Winning not only pushed them into first place, but it also meant that the Reds won a series against St. Louis for the first time this year.  St. Louis is widely regarded as the NL Central favorites, so the Reds needed to see that they could hang with the Cardinals to confirm that they can, in fact, be contenders this year.  I doubt the Cardinals are going to worry too much about falling back to second, but it will be good to see if the Reds can keep this lead for the next two weeks until the teams meet again on the Cards home turf.