When a Luxury Becomes a Necessity: Cardinals Forced to Lean on Pitching Depth

Now, his regression in performance isn’t necessarily related to the increased workload. It could be hitters are simply making the adjustments he isn’t, it could be he’s simply been unlucky this year (.429 BABIP – batting average on balls in play) compared to last year (.306).

Whatever the reason, Kelly’s been one of a number of pitchers who’s struggled this year. Boggs returned to the majors after a stint in the minors and gave up a home run his first inning, and this actually lowered his ERA. Mark Rzepczynski, who was anticipated to form a LOOGY tandem with Randy Choate, has also pitched poorly in the majors this year and is currently in Memphis, where he has fared somewhat better.

I…was going somewhere with this. I had a point. Hmm.

Whatever. Despite all these developments, the Cardinals still have the best ERA in baseball (3.16), and their starters have the best ERA of any rotation (2.61; Cincinnati is next at 3.21). With the promotions of the young arms, the bullpen has even settled down from their early woes (5.81 ERA, .297/.357/.450 line in March/April; 3.06 ERA, .265/.265/.327/.339 in May). Additionally, the door has been left over for Chris Carpenter to return to the team sometime in July; while it’s likely he’d work out of the bullpen, he could provide a huge boost to the team and allow one of the rookie relievers to get stretched out and make a few starts.

Reader Questions

Well, I have one. Heh. An old buddy of mine from high school who’s also an avid fan asked a question about a funny play that happened this week.

Mike asked:

You probably saw the “homerun” Miguel Cabrera hit in the Tigers 11-7 win over the Indians last night. The “homerun” bounced in and out of Michael Bourn’s glove and over the wall (see link below). Question for you: Why was this scored a homerun? Isn’t this an error on Bourn? Or is there some rule that comes into play here because it never touched the ground (which obviously would have made it a ground rule double at best)?

The play in question, for those of you who haven’t seen it (if the image doesn’t load, click on the image or click here):

An excellent question, Michael, and believe it or not, there’s a specific rule to address this. According to Rule 6.09 (h):

6.09
The batter becomes a runner when –
(h) Any fair fly ball is deflected by the fielder into the stands, or over the fence into foul territory, in which case the batter shall be entitled to advance to second base; but if deflected into the stands or over the fence in fair territory, the batter shall be entitled to a home run. However, should such a fair fly be deflected at a point less than 250 feet from home plate, the batter shall be entitled to two bases only.

Now, that last part has never really been an issue in the last 50-60 years, as there hasn’t been a stadium with a shorter fence than 258 feet (Polo Grounds in New York)  since…well, I don’t know since when.

Interestingly, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. Jose Canseco, the walking pharmacy, gained some notoriety when he managed to turn an out into a home run thanks to…his head.

I got it.
Nevermind.

Thanks for reading.

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