A breakdown of the Cards’ staff’s historic start
By TIM MULLHAUPT
What now? The questions began early in the offseason when the Cardinals dealt their young fourth starter to the Atlanta Braves for the middling yet talented Jason Heyward and reliever Jordan Walden. At the time there weren’t too many unsettled in the heart of Missouri; these are the Cardinals, someone’s always waiting in the wings. Sure enough, the Cardinals turned to starter-reliever Carlos Martinez, a 23-year old with 94 games in the bigs to his name. While his numbers were by no means dominant, the general consensus was that you could do worse than to give Mike Matheny and pitching coach Derek Lilliquist a 23-year old with upside to close out your rotation.
It was business as usual when April came around; the Cards went 12-4 in their first 16 games, largely off the backs of a staff that allowed three runs or less in 12 of those contests. Then came the night of April 25th; a day that will live in DH vs no-DH infamy. Batting with no outs and a 2-0 lead in the fifth, St. Louis’ long-time ace Adam Wainwright sent a can of corn soaring about 45 feet down the first base line. While exiting the box, Wainwright’s left ankle was caught in the dirt, visibly buckled and immediately drew trainers on to the field. Within hours of the injury, accurate reports circulated stating Wainwright’s season was over, courtesy of a torn Achilles tendon.
Now real concern begot real questions (as well as a fair amount of panic for this writer’s fantasy baseball prospects). Who was going to fill the now gaping hole in the rotation? Yes, the four remaining starters merely stepped forward one spot in the rotation, but who would pitch that fifth day? Unlike its predecessor, the search for this understudy proved much less accommodating. The initial answer was 24-year old Tim Cooney, who failed to finish three innings in his only start. Tyler Lyons was next, but the 6-4 lefty failed to record a single decision in three starts, never going further than five frames in a contest. The turmoil in a patching what was becoming an increasingly large hole in the Cardinals juggernaut began to take a bit of a toll.
In the first 16 games, the Cardinals had given up just 35 runs total (both earned and unearned) for a rate of 2.19 runs allowed per game. In the next 16 games (eight games before Collins’ first start), the team gave up 65 total runs, good for a rate almost double its prior at 4.06 per contest. The Cardinals went 15-10 from the night of Wainwright’s injury to Jaime Garcia’s first start as the fifth man. Not terrible when all things are considered, but the entire pitching staff was erratic. In that stretch, Cooney, Lyons and Collins combined to go 0-1 with four no decisions, and the Cards went 2-3 in games started by one of the three. Not one pitcher allowed more than three earned runs in any start but like Cooney, Lyons struggled to provide length, going five innings just once.
Ironically, the only loss was charged to Garcia, who not only went seven innings but also gave up just two runs, the highest and lowest respective totals posted by any member of the group. The quality start gave reason for the Cardinals to give Garcia more. He’s rewarded them in his two ensuing outings since; he’s allowed just four earned runs in 13 innings for an ERA of 2.77. In that same stretch he’s yet to walk a batter and has allowed just 11 hits, good for a WHIP of 0.85, translating to an average of less than one base runner surrendered per inning pitched. The six-year veteran doesn’t boast a high K/9 ration, but his groundball/fly out mark is an outstanding 2.28, a rate that would be best in the league if Garcia had enough starts to qualify as a league leader.
The clincher? Through the roller coaster of May where the Cardinals’ team ERA nearly increased an entire run before Garcia’s stabilizing presence, that same ERA never broke 3.00. As FOX Sports Midwest’s Luke Thompson notes the company St. Louis is keeping is pretty impressive.
“They’re leading Major League Baseball with a 2.91 ERA through 322 innings, better than any St. Louis team at the end of a season since the 1969 group led by Bob Gibson and Steve Carlton. No MLB rotation has posted an ERA under 3.00 since the dominant 2011 Phillies team that featured Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels and won 102 games.”
Each starter has played their part in this level of success:
Lance Lynn goes about his business relatively quietly without garnering the headlines of some of his teammates, but Lynn brings the workhorse mentality to the staff. With 11 games started on the season, Lynn has not once thrown for less than five innings. He’s broken the 100-pitch mark in nine of his performances, showing Matheny’s confidence in a “here’s the keys, don’t scratch it approach,” with the 28-year old. Beyond that, Lynn has brought the nasty-he boasts an impressive K/9 of 9.48. Predictably, the right-handed Lynn has performed well against right-handed opponents, holding them to just nine runs in 153 at bats. He hasn’t had as much success keeping lefties from crossing the plate, allowing 14 runs in 109 at bats, but he’s held them to a .239 average lending to the belief that the runs from lefties should come down.
John Lackey has rebounded in his fight against Father Time. At 36, Lackey appeared to be nearing the end of his rope following his trade to the Cardinals last year. In 10 starts, he posted a mediocre 4.30 ERA. This year he’s been sensational; in 11 starts Lackey has allowed more than 3 runs just twice. Now in his 12th season, Lackey currently holds career-bests in opposing average (.244), slugging percentage (.333) and .OPS (.629). What will help preserve his aging body and likewise his success at 36 is if he can maintain the strong mark of just 3.39 pitches per opponent’s plate appearance, good for the 15th-best rate in the league amongst starters. Lackey’s 14.1 pitches per inning is the league’s fourth-best total. These metrics allow not only for the vet to preserve his body but also increase the potential length of his outings.
The most impressive of the Cardinals many weapons has been the blossoming Michael Wacha. A mere 23, Wacha is outdoing many of his more experienced contemporaries. He’s tied for the league-lead in wins with eight. He’s eighth the in the league in ERA with a sterling mark of 2.18. Like Lynn, he’s managed to go at least five innings in all 12 of his starts, and consistently cross the 100-pitch plateau. While 2-1 at home with a solid 3.24 ERA, Wacha has made his living on the road, holding a sterling 1.59 ERA to go along with a sterling 6-0 record. In prior years, traveling had been Wacha’s weakness, posting a 4.34 ERA in 2013 and a 4.04 in 2014 with a combined record of 2-6. Now battle-tested and honed in year three, he’s making a quiet case for team MVP and quite possibly even more awards on a macro-scale.
After a rocky start May in which he gave up a combined 14 runs in consecutive starts, Carlos Martinez has surrendered just three runs in the past 32.1 innings pitched. That encompasses five starts to within which Martinez has managed a 3-1 record, a 0.84 ERA, a 1.02 WHIP, and a monstrous 11.13 K/9. On the season, he’s posted the 13th best ground out to fly out ratio with a mark of 1.28 limiting balls that land in the seats as well as in potential sac-flies. While Wacha has stolen focus, Martinez is at the moment the filthiest arm the Cardinals have to offer.
The Cardinals’ has truly been a team effort. Their starters’ statistical rankings of note:
1st in ERA shutouts (6)
4th in opponents’ batting average (.242)
4th in home runs allowed (26)
5th in Opponents’ OBP (.300)
6th in Innings Pitched (329.0)
7th WHIP (1.21)
8th in strikeouts (284)
What it all boils down to is that though the pieces may consistently change, the stability of the 21st-Century Cardinals organization is rarely rivaled in professional sports-just ask their rings. There’s no element of the team that embodies that idea more than the current pitching staff. Who knows, maybe there are bumps in the road to come, but as it stands the Cardinals are on the fast track for another deep trip into the postseason. Pitching wins championships but it also breeds consistency. In the words of the film Dr. Strangelove and more recently Stephen Colbert, the lyric haunting NL contenders and perhaps even the AL champion to be is a simple phrase “We’ll meet again.”
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