Q: what’s the downside of the 5-1 start? A: last night’s game thread.

the cards’ unexpectedly good start has raised everybody’s expectations, which in turn raises the piss-n-moan factor when the team turns out to be (gasp) fallible. one loss, and here come 800 comments’ worth of knee-jerk carping about how la russa and duncan are complete idiots --- as if they had nothing at all to do with the 5-1 start. or nothing to do with putting todd wellemeyer out there. he shouldn’t even be in the rotation according to a majority of this community (myself included), but i didn’t read a single comment on last night’s thread which said "maybe tony n dave made the right call on wellemeyer." i only read how those two morons were costing the team games.

but that’s the beauty of knee-jerk carping --- you’re not obliged to use fairness or logic. or maybe i should say you get to use some bizarro alternative form of fairness / logic --- the same kind my 4- and 6-year-olds invoke when they don’t get their way. here’s a textbook example of "alternative logic": for 2 solid years, whenever la russa benched duncan against a left-handed pitcher the VEB community bellowed "la russa’s an idiot! duncan’s our second-best hitter!!" last night tony had duncan in the lineup vs a left-hander . . . . . and the community bellowed "la russa’s an idiot! duncan can’t hit lefties!!"

here’s another example: tony always gets ragged on for his blind loyalty to veteran pitchers and his distrust of youngsters; i rag on him for that all the time. well, last night tony passed over his veteran setup man (franklin) and entrusted a 9th-inning tie to a rookie; when the kid lost the game, the board started piling on la russa again. one person even wrote "f**k larussa and duncan," for which he earned some polite encouragement to familiarize himself w/ the Community Guidelines.

one passage in the Community Guidelines goes like this: "there’s a difference between making a critical point and pounding your fists on the floor. if all you have to offer is the latter, do not post." there was some worthwhile, intelligent criticism on the thread last night --- the kind of discussion that makes the community strong. it’s fair to argue that brian barton had earned a 4th consecutive start, and that his absence exacerbated the cards’ vulnerability vs left-handed pitching. i agree with that argument --- last night’s lineup did not give the cards their best chance to win. but if the argument is that the lineup caused the loss, i disagree strongly; brian barton, who has 11 big-league at-bats, ain’t the sole difference between losses and wins. not yet; not singlehandedly. if you repeat that argument a couple hundred times with ever-mounting frustration and snark, it’s not an argument at all; that’s just infantile pounding of fists on the floor. the floor sustained an awful beating last night --- on april 7th. in the cards’ second loss of the season. there are probably 75 to 85 more losses left on the schedule. if last night’s thread is the standard, there’s no way the floor can survive all year. it’s gonna cave.

i’m rarely on the game threads as they unfold; i’m usually playing with my kids, brushing their teeth, and tucking ’em in bed. i come along later and read the commentary, and i am often entertained by the sharp wit and the keen observations, but some passages make me cringe. when things don't go well for the team, the herd starts looking for a scapegoat and then mercilessly pounds away. a large chunk of the community, including many of VEB's most knowledgeable and long-standing members, avoids the game threads like the plague, and i can understand why. but i think it’s a shame.

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a few notes about the ballgame itself:

• wellemeyer’s start was easily the best of his big-league career. he completed 7 innings for the first time ever, and he induced 16 swing / misses last night while walking just one man --- dominance. i haven’t looked carefully at the pitch FX data yet, but at a glance it looks like he was getting everything over --- fastball, slider, change. both the homers came on off-speed pitches --- a changeup to berkman, a hanging slider to lee.
• troy glaus made his bones last night, eh? i wouldn’t exactly say he plowed over towles on the play at the plate, but he didn’t shy away from contact either. just as impressive, imho, was his disciplined at-bat moments earlier --- he laid off a verrrry tempting 2-strike splitter, waited out valverde for a fastball and put a decent swing on it.
• one possible reason ryan franklin didn’t pitch the bottom of the 9th: the two hitters due up, lee and tejada, both have good career numbers against him --- .280 / .333 / .520 for lee (2 hr in 25 ab), and .321 / .406 / .429 for tejada.
• and a minor-league note: mitchell boggs made an impressive debut at triple A --- 6 innings, 3 hits, 1 run (unearned). jason motte pitched 1.1 innings of relief and struck out 3 guys; so far he’s struck out half the men he has faced at the triple A level, while allowing just 2 baserunners. might not be too long before we see him in st louis . . . . .

by far my favorite part of the weekend was watching brian barton leg out that triple on saturday. a veritable whiteyballer --- dude’s feet don’t even touch the ground when he runs. barton looks relaxed at the plate, seems to recognize pitches and make adjustments. he doubled on a 1-2 slider friday night, singled off a changeup later in that game, then took another 1-2 slider the opposite way for the triple on saturday. i like the skill set, the attitude, and the look; hope the kid sticks.

re rick ankiel --- it’s good to see him knocking the cover off the ball again (by golly, maybe he ain’t a fluke after all), but to me the real revelation so far has been his defense. am i the only one surprised to see him making highlight-reel plays? i don’t recall him making a single one of those last year. nor do i remember him getting such a consistently good jump on the ball --- check out his reaction on milledge’s line drive in the 9th yesterday. if he’s a quarter-beat slower (as a certain 37-year-old cf was last year), that ball’s over his head. my memory’s not so good anymore; maybe he played this kind of D last year and i simply don’t remember anymore. whatever the case, after only 6 games the outfield D already looks palpably better than last year’s. but --- oops --- chris duncan is just about set to return to the lineup . . . . .

kyle lohse curveball update: he threw it 12 times yesterday in 102 pitches, about twice as often as he threw it on opening day. 10 of the 12 came against left-handed hitters; for one game, anyway, the curve replaced the changeup as lohse’s off-speed pitch of choice against lefties. 9 of the 12 curves crossed the plate for strikes; the nats only swung at 3 of them and only put 2 into play (both by the only right-handed hitter to see a lohse curve, lastings milledge --- he popped up and flew out). of particular note, lohse threw the curve 5 times on the first pitch and 4 times with men in scoring position --- he wasn’t just throwing it in safe counts / safe situations.

another mildly interesting thing about lohse’s pitch selection: when the score differential was 1 run or less, lohse threw 26 fastballs in 44 pitches (59 percent). but after the cards went ahead 2-0 in the bottom of the 3d, lohse stripped down the repertoire and starting pumping more fastballs in there, 38 out of 55 pitches (69 percent). just what you’d expect a pitcher to do; boring and common-sensical. i bet dave duncan deserves a little credit for that; can’t prove it, just guessing.

i read somewhere that the cards’ last 5-1 start came in 2000. that got me curious about fast starts more broadly --- how often do the cards start out 5-1? and if we look forward, how often do they start 6-1, 7-1, and so forth? i only looked back at the last 40 years, ie to 1969 --- the beginning of divisional play, and more pertinent the year i began to pay attention to baseball. within that span, the 2008 cards are the 6th st louis team to start the season 5-1. no team has gone 6-0; last team to do that was El Birdos in 1967. here’s the complete list of 5-1 starters --- the "w-l" columns refer to final regular-season record; the "rs" and "ra" columns refer to runs scored and allowed during the 6 opening games:

four of the teams on this list extended the hot start to 6-1, and two (the 2000 and 1986 teams) opened 7-1; no cardinal team has opened the season 8-1 since i don’t know when. you’ll note that the 2008 cards rank last in runs scored on this list and second-to-last in run differential --- i draw no conclusions at all from those facts, just i thought i would call your attn to ‘m.

which cardinal teams of recent vintage have had the best record after 10 games? surprisingly enough, only one team of the last 4 decades has won more than 7 games in the first 10 --- the 1981 cards, who started 8-2. a dozen teams have opened with 7-3 marks, including forgettable outfits such as 1993, 1998, and 1999. i didn’t count all the 6-4 teams; there were quite a many.

it’s too early to draw any conclusions, but like all of you i couldn’t be more pleasantly surprised by this start. one of the beauties of low expectations is how easily they are surpassed. keep surprising us, fellahs.

final item --- here's a question and a poll re the not-quite-finished, not-quite-forgotten simulation tournament. i’ve gotten extremely backed up in my work and don’t have team to write even the most cursory game summaries for the tournament. nearly all of our summary-writing crew is in the same boat ---- overcommitted at work, traveling, what have you. for those of you who are still interested in the outcome, i offer two options. i can return to posting the results, one game per series per day --- but i’ll just post links to the box scores, unaccompanied by any summary. that’s the shortest path to the conclusion of the tournament. however, if you feel the summaries are essential to the experience, then the second option is ---- the results will be posted on a halting, as-time-permits timetable.

i’ll abide by the majority. i’d hoped to get this all wrapped up before opening day, but it just didn’t happen. best-laid plans, &c. sorry.