Kyle McClellan was nails yesterday preserving a tie game after Franklin, Flores and the Cardinal defense did their best to hand the Brewers the lead.  He came in with 2 men on and struck out Joe Dillon with three straight breaking balls.  McClellan doesn't throw terribly hard for a reliever (his fastball rests in the low 90s and will touch 94) but he features an impressive array of breaking pitches AND has excellent command of them.  He can come in and throw any of his 4 pitches for a strike at virtually any time.

After following him last season in the minors, I didn't really get they enthusiasm for him despite the impressive stats at AA.  After having watched him for a few weeks now, I'm beginning to understand.  What's kind of amazing is that McClellan hasn't even thrown a changeup yet this season despite the fact that it's probably an average pitch at worst.  It's certainly his 4th best offering after the fastball, curveball and slider but it's by no means a complete dud.  Part of me wonders if the Cardinals will be tempted to stretch him out as a starter next spring but I'm getting ahead of myself. 

The first step if for the Cardinals to not burn him out this season.  He's made an appearance every other day for 11 days now (6 appearances) pitching more than an inning 3 of those appearances.  The pen is a little weak at the moment with Springer out and Franklin showing his true colors but I hope TLR can find a little more rest for his newest reliever.  McClellan has been in only 1 low leverage situation so it's not like Tony is calling him in for fun but Kyle has already hadTommy John surgery in 2005 and I'd question the efficacy of a usage patter that has him on pace for 90 innings over the course of the season.

But yesterday, for those three breaking pitches to Joe Dillon, it was all the Kyle McClellan show.

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When the Cardinals faced the Giants earlier this season they hit .275/.353/.470 during those 4 games.  They had 16 walks and 30 strikeouts.  That's an excellent line for a team to post.  (For reference, last year the Cardinals hit .274/.337/.405 during the season.)  They split the series as you'll recall scoring 21 runs over 4 games.  The Giants as a team hit .304/.347/.478 against the Cardinals during that series so it's easy to see why they split the series.

How they managed to hit that well when their number 4 hitter is a Molina and their best hitter is Aaron Rowand . . . even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then.

The one thing that the Giants do have is a couple of top notch pitchers and some young hurlers who have a great deal of potential still.  We won't have the good fortune of seeing the $126M punching bag this series but we also won't be facing Correia again who baffled us in the first game of that series.  I'm doing my best to sound optimistic here but the downside is if you aren't facing Zito and Correia then you are facing Cain, Lincecum and Jonathan Sanchez (a youngster with impressive stuff and poor command).

Tonight the Cardinals will be taking on Cain who had a no-no through 6 last time against them but was denied a win.  He's simply a damn good pitcher who doesn't even have much of a platoon split.  He's held righties to a .633 OPS over the last 3 years (2005-2007) and lefties have only faired a marginal 46 points better.  Cain features three pitches (fastball, slider, changeup) which gives you a good idea of what each batter will see.  Righties get fastballs and sliders.  Lefties get fastballs and changeups.

In a redux of 6 days ago, Todd Wellemeyer will once again be opposing Cain on the mound.  That's a tall order but Wellemeyer has been up to the call thus far this season.  Here's a crazy number for you; thus far this season, Wellemeyer has held righties to a .598 OPS but lefties have crushed him to the tune of 1.049.  The reason could be that he's seemingly ditched his changeup.  He's throwing it about half as often as he did in previous seasons when he was mostly a reliever.  Please Todd, if you've still got that changeup handy, try it out.  What you've been doing thus far has not worked against lefties.

That's your match-up for the night.  Enjoy your Friday and GO CARDINALS!

(Pitch type data via Fangraphs)