quoting derrick goold’s article in this morning’s post-dispatch:

note the information that’s missing. the article doesn’t say definitively, "the mri revealed no ligament or tendon tears" --- and goold can’t find out whether or not that’s true, because club officials aren’t talking and the medical team (per club policy) is unavailable to talk to the press. makes you wonder. wainwright did tell the post, "surgery is not looking like something that is going to be needed" --- but it’s hard to place full stock in that statement, because it’s exactly what we heard initially when mulder hit the dl in 2006 and carpenter hit it last year. in both of those cases, the club knew from the outset that surgery might be needed, but the possibility was soft-pedaled while other, less intrusive treatments were attempted. when the injuries persisted, surgery was performed as a last resort.

you don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to suspect that the same pattern might be unfolding here. from a medical perspective, there’s nothing at all sinister about it --- every person i’ve talked to who has any degree of medical experience (and i know a bunch of those people) tells me, "you don’t cut on a guy until you’ve exhausted the other options." pretty straightforward --- but the club has a secretive streak about injuries (you don’t suppose the sunglasses-wearing manager has anything to do with that, do you?) and, consequently, a credibility gap. attempting to fill that gap, i have consulted per MDAdvice.com about finger sprains:

wainwright’s injury would seem to fall into the "moderate" category, at a minimum; he clearly has some loss of function. and we can’t rule out "severe," ie total loss of function. back to MD Advice:

wainwright spoke of a popping sensation, but has reported no severe pain or tenderness; he specifically says there is no swelling. prognosis:

those are average healing times; the cardinals no doubt are hoping wainwright (a professional athlete under close medical scrutiny) will heal much faster. but even if he were to heal in half the time, we’d be looking at a month-long disablement --- plus a couple of rehab starts after that to get his arm back into shape. and there’s always the chance that, like the carpenter and mulder injuries, wainwright’s finger won’t respond favorably to rest/rehab, necessitating a trip to the operating room.

from everything we can piece together, i’m gonna guess that if wainwright pitches again for the cardinals before late july, we probably should consider ourselves very fortunate. medical experts, speak up --- agree? disagree?

let’s just go with that for a moment; say he’s out for 6 weeks. it'll probably be longer, but just go w/ it. heading into the year, it was generally assumed that for the cardinals to make the playoffs, they’d have to keep themselves within striking distance until carpenter returned on or about august 1, and then try to make a late-season run once he rejoined the rotation. as of this morning, they lead the wild-card race by 2.5 games over florida and 4 over milwaukee, with houston and atlanta 5.5 back and the mets 6.5 games out. thanks to that cushion, they can afford to lose some ground in the standings to most of those teams over the next 50 games --- and let’s just prepare ourselves for that, because it very well might happen --- yet still be competitive when (we hope) one or both of carp / wainwright returns. ie, they can give back 10 games to the mets without getting hopelessly buried; they can give back 8 or 9 to the braves and still have a chance to catch up. if they lose big chunks of ground to all those teams and find themselves 5th or 6th in the wild-card race by the time carp / wainwright return, then forget it; they’re probably toast. but even if wainwright’s absent for the next 50 games, they have a reasonable chance to stay within 4 or 5 games of the wild-card lead until the rotation gets healthy. given their current bulge in the standings, that doesn’t seem to be asking the impossible.

and if wainwright needs surgery? definitely a possibility; i’ll worry about that if / when it happens. for the time being, i’m neither optimistic nor pessimistic about the cards’ playoff hopes. adjusting expectations? you betcha. but my expectations have been pretty modest all along. i’m looking forward to seeing boggs tonight; the rest will come in due time.

* * * * * * *

mgl published some UZR data, and it’s pretty consistent with john dewan’s plus/minus figures. both systems have adam kennedy as one of the top 2b glovemen in the league; both place troy glaus among the league leaders at 3b, though well behind scott rolen (who, by the way, hasn’t homered in over a month; he’s stuck on 2 for the year). and both defy the perception that chris duncan is a terrible defender in left field. bernie addressed this in a blog post not long ago, sifting through the fielding metrics to argue that duncan’s glovework is at least adequate. UZR reinforces that argument, ranking duncan as the second-best left fielder in the national league, trailing only paul mcanulty of the padres. i think it’s gotta be a sample-size blip, but it’d be difficult to argue that duncan has cost the cardinals a large number of runs w/ the glove this year --- at least so far. too much evidence to the contrary.

the other interesting note in the UZR data: edmonds rates as the worst centerfielder in baseball, and eckstein is the 2nd-worst shortstop. plus/minus doesn’t rate them quite that poorly, but they’re both about 6 plays worse than the guys who replaced them (ankiel and izturis). if you want two reasons for the improved performance of the st louis pitching staff, start with the defensive upgrades at cf and ss.

i usually don’t write on wednesdays, but the red baron is traveling to a funeral today so i’m covering. he lost someone very close; my thoughts are with you, dude.

star of last night’s game goes to kyle mcclellan. he gets out of the 6th-inning jam throwing mostly breaking stuff ---- 8 sliders / curves in 12 pitches. then in the 7th, pitching with the bases empty against the rump of the order, he blows them away with 12 fastballs in 14 pitches. guy’s got some weapons. the cardinal bullpen now sports a league-leading 2.74 era and has allowed just 3 of 18 inherited runners to score. skip schumaker also merits a little mention --- couple of 2-out rbi hits plus a walk. cardinal leadoff men have a .403 on-base percentage so far, mainly thanks to schu (he’s led off 10 of the 14 games); his BB last night was his 7th in 50 plate appearances, or 1 walk fewer than he drew in 188 plate appearances last year. that’s a significant change in his game. his high obp last year was entirely a product of his high batting average, which in turn was mostly a product of (coughluckcough) random chance; small sample size plus high BABIP = fluke. he won’t hit .333 again this year, but if he can walk once every 10 plate appearances he won’t have to; a .275 average will do just fine. insert obligatory caveat here ---- it’s very early, we’re just sizing things up, blah blah blah. based on available evidence, the cardinal leadoff spot --- subject of much discussion and concern all spring --- has been one of the lineup’s strengths.

i can't get excited about kennedy. he's got 0 extra-base hits so far, and no signs of producing one any time soon; he had just 3 (all doubles) in 40 S.T. at-bats. miles doesn't have any XBH either, and izturis only has 2 (both doubles); it's worse than people feared. the middle-infield corps is hitting an aggregate .255 / .342 / .276. well, like we keep saying, it's early . . . . . .

last night’s game may be the answer to a trivia question: when’s the first time in big-league history that neither team batted the pitcher 9th? i asked sean forman of Baseball-Reference.com to do a quick run on his data; he writes back that it hasn’t happened since 1956, the limit of his archive of boxscores (compiled by the invaluable Retrosheet). there are still 50+ years unaccounted for, so it’s possible --- even likely --- that last night’s lineup oddity happened at least once before. here’s a list (sorted by team-season) of every game in which one team didn’t hit the pitcher 9th, going back to 1956. for some reason, there was a spate of pitcher-hitting-other-than-9th lineups in 1957; four different teams (1/4 of the big-league clubs at that time) used one at least once that year, and the kansas city athletics did it on a regular basis (56 games). it won’t surprise you to know that the la russa-led cardinals have batted the pitcher outside the 9 slot more times (146 games) than all other teams since 1956 combined (89 times).

here’s a little more trivia related to the manager: only once in his career has he opened the season with more than 10 wins in his first 14 games. that happened in 1990 in oakland, coming off his first world championship; he led the athletics to an 11-3 start and cruised to his 3d straight pennant. he’s started out 10-4 on three other occasions, including his first two seasons as a manager --- 1980-81 in chicago. the other 10-4 start came in 1992 in oakland. before this year, tony’s best starts in st louis were 9-5 marks in 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2005.

and in the non-la-russa trivia category, i bet you didn’t know this: chris carpenter follows the cards via mlb gameday:

elsewhere on the injured-pitcher beat, mulder threw 5 innings last night for palm beach; according to chuck king (who does a bang-up job covering the FSL), he was topping out at 88 mph. am i the only one who’s dreading this guy’s return to action? he last pitched well in may 2006; i’m sure there are a few examples of guys who regained effectiveness after two full years of alternately getting knifed by surgeons and clubbed by hitters, but i can’t think of one at the moment. he seems so much a part of the team’s past --- and not the glorious part. he’s like one of those old kinda-sorta friends who calls you from time to time; he’s the last person you want to waste your time on, and you cringe every time you hear from him, but at some point you have to go out and have a beer with the guy because it’s too awkward to keep making excuses. that’s mark mulder to me --- don’t wanna hang w/ you anymore, but i know i’m gonna be stuck doing it.

maybe we can sign einar diaz to catch him, just for old time’s sake.

that’s all i got for now. game thread this p.m.

if you haven’t read Matt Lemmon’s Letter From Springfield, it’s directly below this post and getting a tremendous reception; recommended reading. here’s my contribution to VEB's opening-day coverage.

first of all: if you have any desire to enter the cards’ find-a-prospect scouting contest (aka "One for the Birds"), you have two more days to file your entries; the contest ends at midnight Tuesday night.

more after the jump:

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