So over the past few weeks I've been hearing bits and pieces about the St. Louis Cardinals, however most of it was centred around a few subjects: The potential end of Carpenter's future as a starter, Edward Mujica's performance as closer and the new prospects in the Cardinals rotation, bullpen (Trevor Rosenthal and Shelby Miller) and how amazing Adam Wainwright has been. Now what I missed was that those sneaky birds have managed not only to get ahead of the competition in the NL Central but they've also managed to secure the best record in baseball. WHEN THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN?! Ok so lets break all this stuff down.
The end of Carp's career as a starter. Now I understand where this is coming from because Carpenter has not been able to pull through a full season for a while without being sidelined with a fairly nasty injury, and I'm sure some Cardinals fans might be thinking this is blasphemy and Carp will be able to do anything. Now I don't believe this HOWEVER Carp used to play for the Jays and first as a ex-Jay I'm hoping he manages to turn everything around when he gets back, but during those years of watching him I know he has an extreme ethic and a dedication to what he does, which is why he's continued to be a very solid starter despite all of these injuries. So even if he does end his career as a starter I have a huge amount of faith that he will find a way to become dominant in that role. I mean it's not like his stuff has diminished in a bad way like it has for say Tim Lincecum.
Next up Edward Mujica as the closer. So Mujica has done a pretty nice job sneaking into the closer role after Motte was set down by injury, which turns out has ended his season and likely a bit into next season, and Boggs was faltering in the role BIG time. Now his stuff has been pretty electric as most of his saves as he has gotten a few strikeouts in each of his opportunities and on top of that even when he's allowed a run or two, which hasn't happened often, he's managed to get his head back in the game and close the door. Now that last part is a very important aspect of being a closer because one run can throw your teams lead out the window in save situations and you have to be able to not let hits or runs effect you mentally and just pitch your tail off to get out of the inning. So kudos to Mujica, though at this rate Motte may have a problem getting his job back when he returns.
Shelby Miller and Trevor Rosenthal. Now these two were the talk of the town during spring training as their fight to get into the starting rotation seemed like a bar fight, one day one of them would pitch amazing then the next day the other would do something just as good. Though that didn't continue forever as only Shelby Miller made it into the rotation. Now evaluators believe that both of these guys will be impact pitchers at some point in there careers and honestly St. Louis is one of the best places for young pitching prospects because the staff their knows how to properly develop them into players who will produce stellar results in the future. I mean look what Jaime Garcia, Lance Lynn and Adam Wainwright are doing now, all of them home grown in the cardinals organization and all of them either currently looking like ace level pitchers or soon to be at that level. The only place that I can think of having a better pitcher development staff is Tampa Bay, and I don't think I need to say much about that considering how many amazing pitchers have come out of that team.
The amazing Adam Wainwright. Ok so this isn't terribly news because he is only a couple years removed from 2 seasons where he put up high enough numbers to be one of the runner ups for the NL Cy-Young, unfortunately for him the competition those years was stiff as those were the year Tim Lincecum had his career year and Roy Halladay pitched his perfect game and post-season no-hitter the following year. However it seems like since returning from Tommy John he's seen improvement, now don't get me wrong I know he was mediocre in 2012 but it seems like a trend that it takes pitchers about a year to get back into the swing of things and regain their form and thats definitely the case with Wainwright as he's currently at a record of 4-2, an ERA of 2.72 a K/9 (strikeout per 9 innings for those who aren't stat-inclined) and a K/walk ratio of 16! (and one of those walks was intentional). So as you can see he's off to a stellar start and those stats listed are very important ones as it shows a pitchers ability to consistently get strikeouts in a game and not walk batters so keep your eyes on Wainwright as he is poised to have another explosive season.
Overall it seems the Cardinals are beating the odds, and injuries, as it would seem an getting a head of the competition and I say good on em. I was never a big Cardinals fan but then I read Tony LaRussa's book 'One Last Strike' and it put into terms how much he cared for his players and how involved he was in the clubhouse outside of the game and made me like the team a whole lot more. If you have yet to read it I suggest you pick it up. So in short, keep your eyes on the Cardinals as the season progresses, theres plenty of reasons to.
-Eric
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