i had a perfect view of the play ----- 15th row in section 142, about 20 feet behind 3d base. albert got a tremendous jump, had the base stolen easily; he was 25 feet past the bag and under a full head of steam by the time the 2bman decided to throw it to first. reminded me vaguely of lawrence taylor on a blitz as he charged around the corner. i didn’t think they’d even have a play on him, but helton got rid of the ball incredibly fast (watch it on the replay; it’s like the ball bounces off him) and made a perfect throw, almost got him . . . . . maybe did get him. but the tie goes to the runner, right? what a thrill; i’m a pretty undemonstrative fan, but this brought me out of my seat hollering (only half-voluntarily) "come on albert!" i don’t think i’ve seen a prettier dash since that time back in 1975 when one of the casten boys (can’t exactly recall which of the brothers it was) bolted out of the shadows at half an hour past midnight to win an epic game of capture-the-flag. . . . . and i had just been thinking how the cards’ failure to get a couple runners home from third with less than two out was probably gonna cost them the game. so they go and get a runner home from second on a groundball.

vince coleman couldn’t have done it better himself.

albert’s run took our attention off another feeble late-inning at-bat from rick ankiel; from the 7th inning on this year he’s hitting .105 / .171 / .184 in 41 trips to the plate. it’s a tiny sample size and surely not predictive, but it’s definitely descriptive --- ankiel looks anxious up there in big situations. easy to say about rick given his history, but am i just imagining it?

ron villone puts on a nice show. he’s got a niche only a left-handed pitcher can have; you’ll never see a grizzled right-handed reliever brought into the game to fearlessly chuck his 87-mph fastball (or so it read on the stadium gun) over the plate. his cadence could only be a left-hander’s, too. he gets a whole lot accomplished between pitches: stalk around grass on 3d-base side of mound, glance at fielders, climb hill, tug at belt, glance at hitter, flick pitching arm, draw limbs into position, read sign, set, kick, throw. bet you didn’t know (i didn’t) that villone was a very high draft pick --- 14th overall in the 1992 draft. bet you also didn’t know that his career k/9 of 7.11 is among the top 100 in the history of baseball (minimum 1000 innings pitched); he ranks 74th. i didn’t know either, until just this very second. his confrontation with hawpe (2 on, 2 out in the 5th) was a triumph of stubbornness; away, away, away on every pitch. hawpe figured it out after the first couple of pitches (by which time he was down 0-2 in the count) and stopped swinging, worked the count to 3-2 and forced villone to come in with one of those crappy fastballs; villone put it on his hands and hawpe fouled it off. and then he went back to the outside corner with a slider, and hawpe couldn’t resist the bait and waved at it, struck out.

i was happy for mike parisi, to whom i’ve paid way too much attention as he has climbed the rungs of the system. he was fired up for that first inning, came right after the hitters and made it look easy; after he struck out matt herges to end the inning (his first big-league K) yadi handed him the ball on the way back to the dugout. in his second inning of work (the 7th) parisi just couldn’t get the fastball over; he was overthrowing it, leaving it up. the long flyout off the bat of the tiny shortstop, quintanilla, seemed to shake him (horrible route to that ball by ankiel, by the way; i think the altitude fooled him); after holliday and helton reached base the kid was looking over his shoulder, out to the bullpen, where (oh shit) nobody was warming up . . . . . the first pitch to atkins passed about a foot over his helmet, and it looked like the rookie was gonna buckle, but he steadied himself and got out of the jam. for some reason parisi completely abandoned his curveball that inning; he did throw one on the first pitch to atkins (the one that went over his head); given how sharp the hook looked in the 6th (he got all three outs on it), i don’t know why he would turn away from it vs the top of the order.

the cards made more than enough mistakes to lose the game, probably should have lost it. the sight of pujols barreling home will stay with me for a long time.

items:

• what a dreadful game for chris duncan; they can't hide him in coors field's gi-normous outfield. with left-handers going the next 3 days, he needs to take a seat.
• dreadful game for mark mulder too, rehabbing at memphis. the p-d's correspondent says mulder threw consistently between 85 and 87 mph; sounds like he is toasted.
• the cards are 9 games over for the first time since september 21 2006 . . . .
• BP's christina kahrl, in a cameo at the new york sun, says all those walks to pujols are helping the cardinal offense.

Lohse	Parra
2-0, 1.48	1-1, 5.40

stat of the day: albert pujols has seen more balls this year --- 166, or 54 percent --- than strikes (143, or 46 percent). from 2001-07 he saw strikes about 58 percent of the time, and never less than 56 percent strikes in any given year. for the sake of comparison, from 2001-03 barry bonds only saw strikes 46 of the time and averaged 175 walks a year (albert’s on pace for ~140 walks). in 2004, when bonds drew 232 walks, only 40 percent of the pitches thrown to him were strikes. . . . last night was albert’s second 3-walk game of the season, and we’re just 20 games in. he’s never had more than three 3-walk games in a single year. . . . .

ryan ludwick’s misadventure in the 8th inning last night got me curious about the overall play of the cards’ outfield defense. you may recall that i wrote a post last month about the sharp sag in the cardinals’ fly-catching ability in 2007. how are they faring so far in 2008? by the numbers, much better. the outfielders have chased 166 catchable flyballs so far (ie, flyballs minus home runs) and put 119 of them away, a 72 percent rate --- that’s about average. but they were well below average last year (only caught 67 percent of the catchable flyballs), so mere competency from the outfielders is a big improvement.

the infield defense, on the other hand, remains outstanding: through 20 games the cardinals are the best in the league at turning groundballs into outs. opponents are batting .177 on groundballs, vs a leaguewide average of .222. that means the cardinal infield has saved 12 base hits over an average team, or about 9 runs ---- nearly half a run a game. the cardinals are a full run a game better than average at run prevention so far (3.55 runs allowed / game, vs a league average of 4.53); if the defense accounts for about half of that savings, then the pitchers get the rest of the credit. they have walked the fewest men in the league (56) and allowed the second-fewest homers (14). avoid free passes, keep it in the park, keep it on the ground . . . . . perfectly executed pitch-to-contactism. but those of us who like strikeouts also have reason to cheer --- the cards’ strikeout total is nearly average this year. they rank 10th in the league in that category, with 6.4 k/9 --- haven’t ranked that high since 2004.

the pitchers’ strong start is probably the main reason the cards are talking such sense about mulder’s return. in 2006 and 07 they were panicky with him, rushing him back (with disastrous results) because they hated the available options (i.e. reyes). but the rhetoric from tony in today’s paper about mulder is refreshingly sensible: "He needs to come up not in a process of rehabbing" (emphasis added). amen. mulder’s rehab assignment began april 15 and can run 30 days, so the team doesn’t have to make any change at all until may 15 --- three more weeks. we’ll know a lot more about mulder by then, but more important we’ll know more about todd wellemeyer, braden looper, and joel pineiro --- as well as (vain hope) anthony reyes. . . . . .

impressions at random:

• i was extremely impressed by glaus’s at-bat in the 8th inning against guillermo mota. a quick re-set: the score was tied 2-2; ludwick was on 3d after hart’s 3-base error; pujols was on 1st (after an ibb), and there was one out (ankiel had popped out just ahead of glaus). troy looked terrible on the first pitch, swung at a changeup way out of the zone; he fell behind 0-2 and you and i and all of us were thinking he was gonna strike out and the cards were gonna fail to get that damn runner home from 3d. glaus barely stayed alive by fouling off on an 0-2 change (the 3d one he’d seen in that at-bat); mota wasted a couple of fastballs to set him up, then came back with a changeup at the knees on 2-2, hoping to get a groundball (and an inning-ending DP), but glaus recognized the pitch and laid off. mota came back with another on 3-2; glaus recognized it again and didn’t bite. it was glaus’s first at-bat against mota since 2005 --- he hasn’t seen the guy’s pitches in quite some time. so he made a hell of a quick adjustment to avoid a costly out. kennedy’s sac fly ensued, but glaus’s walk was easily the best at-bat in that inning --- the only truly good one in a "rally" that essentially consisted of two fly balls (one misplayed for an error, one caught for a sac fly).
• wainwright relied on his 3d-best pitch, the slider, to escape trouble in the 7th inning --- both kendall and hardy grounded out on it. the curveball deserted adam that inning --- he threw 6 of them, and 5 missed the strike zone. but 3 of the misses were probably quasi-intentional --- they came against rickie weeks, and adam seemed to be pitching around him to get to jj hardy, who hasn’t hit a ball out of the infield vs wainwright this year (0 hits in 7 tries --- 3 groundouts, 2 pop ups, 2 strikeouts).
• here’s one of those little splits that is not predictive --- ie, we shouldn’t count on the trend to continue --- but is mildly descriptive: the cardinal hitters in 2008 have been the most productive in the league in innings 7 through 9. that split comes courtesy of Baseball-Reference. through the first 20 games they’re hitting .302 / .392 / 493 in the final 3 innings. the cardinals have played most of their games to date against three of the league’s weakest bullpens (milwaukee san francisco and houston), which is one reason we shouldn’t expect them to keep this up.

Lincecum	Piñeiro
2-0, 2.25	0-1, 14.73

First off, I want to thank Lboros for covering for me on Wednesday.  I greatly appreciate the helping hand, Lb.  You made a very difficult time a little bit easier to bear. 

Tremendous win last night by the Cardinals.  The offense put together it's biggest inning of the year so far, the six run fourth, it's biggest run total at 11, and the largest margin of victory so far.  All of this against one of the best young pitchers in the game today. 

The real key to this game, and, in my ever so humble opinion, the key going forward, was the performance of the top of the lineup.  The top two hitters last night, Skip Schumaker and Chris Duncan, respectively, combined to go 4 for 7 with three walks.  Between the two of them, they got on base ahead of Albert and the middle of the lineup seven times.  Duncan hit a homer and a double, driving in two.  Schumaker drove in a pair as well with a two run single in the fourth that continued the inning.  Even more remarkable than the run production from those two spots was the runs scored.  The two of them combined to score six, count 'em, six times. 

There's been a ton of talk recently about trying to find some better protection for Albert in the lineup, and most of it has focused, naturally, on the cleanup position.  To me, though, the first two spots in the lineup represent the only real chance the Cardinals have to get that protection for Albert.  There is no hitter in baseball that's going to force opposing pitchers to pitch to Albert.  Runners on base ahead of him, though, will.  The top two spots in this lineup are far more important to whether or not Albert will see any pitches to hit than the hitters behind him, in my opinion.  As long as those two can continue to get on base, teams will be forced to try and get Albert out.  We saw firsthand last night what sorts of results we can expect in those cases. 

There is, however, a downside to the performance of those two outfielders last night, though, particularly Duncan.  As long as they keep producing, it makes it much harder for me to complain that Crab Man should be getting more playing time.  This puts me in a bind, as I happen to be a huge backer of Mr. Barton.  It's a very trying situation, you know, whenever reality interferes with your personal preferences.  Sigh...

As impressive as the offense was, I was personally more astounded by the performance of Wellemeyer.  I've been a very vocal critic in the past of Welley in the rotation, but I've been mostly won over.  I say mostly because I still fear he isn't able to give consistent six plus inning performances, and I worry about the burden on the pen, probably more than I really should.  Last night, though, Wellemeyer turned in probably the best start of his career, and one of the two or three best starts we've seen from a Cardinal hurler this season. 

In his seven innings of work, Wellemeyer gave only one run on four hits, (the run scoring hit, of course, being an infield single off of his- ahem- lower back type region area) with six strikeouts to two walks.  Those last numbers, to me, represent the really important statistic to look at here. 

With the addition of those numbers, Wellemeyer now has 26 strikeouts to only 9 walks, in 25 innings of work.  That's almost exactly in line with his 3:1 K/BB ratio from last night's game.  The knock on Wellemeyer, of course, has always been his elevated walk numbers and high pitch counts.  If this is a genuine improvement, (and obviously, the sample size isn't large enough to determine a whole lot, but it is getting close to being at least significant) then suddenly Wellemeyer isn't a serviceable starter, but a potential front half of the rotation starter.  I'm not sure how this has happened, and I don't know if it's sustainable, but I'm hoping. 

Last night, he was about as efficient as you can possibly imagine he ever will be.  He threw 107 pitches, 72 for strikes.  He struck out six, got seven groundball outs, eight fly outs.  Anytime you see a strike to ball ratio of better than 2:1, you have to take notice.  Wellemeyer, in addition to being efficient and aggressive, was throwing gas last night.  Going by the Pitchf/x data, (and I'm just getting used to using it, so bear with me if I'm not quite right) he was averaging 93.7 mph on his fastball, with a high of 95.5.  For a starter, that's an incredible combination of velocity and control. 

All of this, of course, really begs the question: what happens to Wellemeyer next?  When Mark Mulder comes back, which should be in about three weeks, he's expected to slide into the rotation.  Wainwright's rotation spot is secure, along with Looper.  Kyle Lohse has obviously done nothing to pitch his way out of the rotation.  Pineiro was resigned just this past offseason, to a two year deal.  He signed with the Cardinals specifically because they guaranteed him a spot starting, so I imagine they would be loathe to move him to the bullpen, even on a temporary basis.  So where exactly does the team go with Welley?  He has better raw stuff than any pitcher on the staff outside of Adam Wainwright, (and that's a close call) and, possibly Anthony Reyes, he's striking out hitters at a rate of better than one per inning, and, most importantly, he's maintaining a K/BB ratio of almost 3:1.  Yet, because of the roster numbers, he may face losing his spot in the rotation. 

I know it's still a ways off, so why don't I just table the question until it actually comes up, right?  Well, I ask because we've already seen one starter bumped for a returning pitcher in Brad Thompson, who now faces an additional crisis with the impending return of Russ Springer.  The decision on what to do with Wellemeyer and the other starters will be here much quicker than we realise, and with the way Welley has pitched so far this year, it could end up being a very significant decision. 

So, a couple of points to discuss this morning. 

One, what do you do with the looming roster crunch?  If all remains equal as it does today, (which I know will not happen, but still) who loses their spot?  Should anyone? 

Two, what have you been most surprised by this season so far?  Pleasant or unpleasant, either way.  My personal surprises have been the aforementioned Messrs. Wellemeyer and Schumaker.  Wellemeyer has improved in the one area that always kept him back, and Skippy appears, at least to my eyes, to have become a viable major league hitter.  It may still be early, but Skip has passed every test presented to him so far with flying colours, and I don't see any major weaknesses in his game to really hinder him.  I freely admit, I never saw it coming.  Reyes has been a pleasant surprise also, but I actually always believed in him.  The other two, not so much. 

Three, in last night's overflow thread, there was a bit of discussion of what theme song would best embody the glory that is the Cardinals' mulletted backup catcher, Jason LaRue.  There were many suggestions, with Def Leppard receiving some shoutouts, (or should that be shouts out?  I'm not very good with the modern vernacular...) Ratt's "Round and Round" coming up, and Styx getting some love.  I want you to give me LaRue's perfect theme song, and any song you desperately want to see used by a player, be it a batter or a reliever.  For LaRue, I nominate Foreigner's "Dirty White Boy" or, even better, pretty much anything from the Red Rocker, St. Louis favourite Sammy Hagar.  I think something from the Hagar catalogue would be particularly good; he's a beloved icon here in the Lou, especially among those who sport facial hair of a similar bent to LaRue's own, he's already associated with red, so there's a nice Cardinal tie in... I think it's a match made in heaven.  What do you guys think? 

One last thing: also from the overflow last night, Mr. Redbird referred to Troy Glaus as "Santa Glaus."  I don't know if this is the first time he's been called as such here; it's the first I've noticed.  Anyhow, I vote that we make Santa Glaus the official VEB nickname for Troy.  I think maybe a really great nickname is just what he needs to get going.  What say you, denizens of El Vivi Birders? 

That's all I got.  It was too good of a game to really complain much, so let's just bask a little bit.  Reality will kick in soon enough, right about the time Tim Lincecum goes into that ridiculous windup of his and blows the first fastball past our leadoff hitter.  Good luck, boys.  You're probably going to need it. 

Later, everybody.

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.