for cardinals fans like gordon wittenmeyer who keep throwing out this limp clayton kershaw storyline as to why we shouldn't be incredibly confident going into this game, how's this for a counterpoint: last wednesday, jake arietta threw 9 shutout innings against a better offense in an elimination game on the road whereas tonight's game is against an offense near the bottom quartile of the league, at home, in a non-elimination game. i have literally no reason other than "[expletive] happens" to think anything other than aggressively confident thoughts about jake's upcoming pitching performance and the team's chances in to win