Matt Carpenter: Wunderkind

Meanwhile…

– Adam Wainwright, too, is dispelling those who questioned whether he would return to his pre-Tommy John effectiveness. He ranks first among qualifying starting pitchers in WAR, innings pitched (103), complete games, shutouts, quality starts, Fielding Independent Pitching, and strikeout-to-walk ratio. He’s also given up the fewest home runs per 9 innings as well as walks per nine innings. In fact, if you take into account his intentional walks, he is on pace to have the highest strikeout-to-walk ratio in history.

– David Freese has rebounded nicely from his less-than-stellar start. Since he hit a grand slam for his first 2013 home run on May 17, he’s slashed .361/.430/.542. Sports talk shows have begun to speculate that this could be his final year in St. Louis due to his age and injury history, but as his lines slowly fall more in line with his career averages, this talk will fade.

– Few Cardinals teams have reached the 100-win plateau. The 2004 and 2005 Cardinals won 105 and 100 games, respectively, but overall, this has happened exactly eight times since the 1882 St. Louis Brown Stockings first began play in the American Association.

This year, though, even with the loss to the Marlins(!) last night, the team is on pace to win 104 games. And while there is a good chance some of the shine will fade (Carpenter, Wainwright, and Yadier Molina are all off to unprecedented starts, while Carlos Beltran faded considerably in the second half last year), keep in mind that of the Cardinals’ remaining 95 games, 45 (47% of the schedule) are against seven of the eight worst teams in the majors:

Miami – 5 (.303 winning percentage)

Houston – 4 (.353)

Milwaukee – 9  (.409)

Chicago Cubs – 17 (.415)

LA Dodgers – 4 (.424)

LA Angels – 3 (.433)

Seattle – 3 (.441)

Fun Notes and Anecdotes

Well, not really a fun note, but an interesting one, anyway. Two weeks ago, the Cardinals and Royals waited out a 4 hour, 32 minute rain delay. I was heading to the train station to go to Chicago at roughly 3:00 that Friday morning, and when we drove by the stadium, the lights were still on. That’s gotta be the crew just cleaning up after the game, I thought.

Nope. As it turns out, the umps waited out the whole delay thanks to a rule adjustment that took hold this past winter. Thanks to rule 4.12(b)(4):

“(4) Any suspended game not completed prior to the last scheduled game between the two teams during the championship season shall become a called game, as follows:
(i) If such game has progressed far enough to become a regulation game, and one team is ahead, the team that is ahead shall be declared the winner (unless the game is called while an inning is in progress and before the inning is completed, and the visiting team has scored one or more
runs to take the lead, and the home team has not retaken the lead, in which case the score upon the completion of the last full inning shall stand for purposes of this Rule 4.12(b)(4))”

In other words, if it’s the last scheduled game between two teams (as it was between the Cardinals and Royals), if the game’s stopped in the middle of an inning in which the visiting team has taken the lead (the Royals scored three in the ninth to take a 4-2 lead when the rain hit), if the umpires choose to call the game, the score would revert to the score of the last completed inning, when the Cardinals were ahead 2-1 after eight, and the Cardinals would have won.