Archives for July 2017

Score One for the Enigmatic Cardinal Bullpen

In the bottom of the sixth inning, the St Louis Cardinals scratched for their third and final run of the game. After a fatiguing 107 pitches. Lance Lynn – the Cardinal starter – would be through for the day.

After receiving their twelfth quality start in the last 19 games, the fate of the game would once again rest in the hands of the enigma that is the Cardinal bullpen.

After a season of bullpen frustration culminated with Trevor Rosenthal failing to cover first, handing the New York Mets a 3-2 win on July 20, followed almost immediately by a two-run eighth-inning meltdown that granted the Chicago Cubs a 3-2 victory on July 22; the bullpen came back three nights later to serve up another one-run lead. After another strong six innings from Lynn, Lance went to the mound in the seventh with a 2-0 lead over the Colorado Rockies. But eleven pitches put his lead in jeopardy as he walked DJ LeMahieu and served up a double to Nolan Arenado. Kevin Siegrist relieved and limited the damage to a sacrifice fly. The heartbreak came an inning later when Trevor Story tied the game with a home run – one of only 4 hit off of Matthew Bowman this season.

The inning then threatened to unravel when Bowman hit Ryan Hanigan with his next pitch. That brought Rosenthal into the contest for the first time since his gaffe against the Mets.

Trevor would finish the night throwing 34 pitches to 8 batters over two innings. He would bend a little – allowing a sacrifice hit in the eighth, and two singles that threatened disaster in the ninth. But Trevor would not walk a batter and did not break, walking off the mound at the end of nine innings with a 2-2 tie. He would get the win in this one, courtesy of Jedd Gyorko’s sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth – 3-2 Cardinals.

Was it a turning point for Rosenthal and the Cardinal bullpen? The Colorado series ended with a comfortable 10-5 win, and the subsequent Arizona series began with a 4-0 loss, in which the bullpen threw four scoreless innings.

Now it’s Friday July 28. After five-and-a-half scoreless innings, Tommy Pham leads off the second reaching on an error. He promptly steals second, moves to third on a grounder, and scores on a single from Gyorko. 1-0 Cardinals. But could it last? Michael Wacha had been dominant through six. As it would turn out, the offense would score no more. So the bullpen would have nine outs to get from a very formidable Arizona lineup with no margin for error.

Seung-hwan Oh flirted with disaster in the seventh, allowing a couple of singles, but he worked his way out of trouble. But Brett Cecil ran into immediate peril in the eighth, allowing a single and a double that put runners on second and third with no one out with the toughest part of the lineup coming up.

Summoned to do a Houdini act, Rosenthal struck out A.J. Pollock. David Peralta rolled a groundball to drawn-in second-baseman Kolten Wong, who teamed with catcher Yadier Molina to make the play of the series when he threw out the runner trying to score from third. Five pitches later, Paul Goldschmidt struck out, and the lead was preserved. Trevor made his second consecutive two-inning relief appearance, setting the Diamondbacks down in order (with two more strikeouts) on 9 pitches in the ninth.

The pen did let Saturday’s game get away – turning a 3-1 deficit into a 7-1 loss.

But now, here they were again. Nine outs to get with no margin of error. Arizona threatened a little in the seventh, but Tyler Lyons and Bowman combined to keep them off the board. Oh and Rosenthal were money in the eighth and ninth, retiring all six Diamondback batters – striking out 5 of them – and the Cards were in with a 3-2 win (box score).

And suddenly this grey cloud that has hung over the Cardinal bullpen since opening night is starting to dissipate. They have now become a main part of the encouraging turnaround of the Cardinal pitching staff. Going back to a 4-1 win over the Mets on July 8, St Louis has maintained a 2.75 team ERA over the last 19 games. With 57 games left in the season, those who counted this team out may have spoken too soon.

Lance Lynn

As I type this. Lance Lynn is still a Cardinal – for which fact we should all be grateful. I mentioned here that I would like to see Lance make his case for being an important part of the Cardinal future. He has certainly led the way in this little pitching renaissance. Over his last five games (all quality starts), Lance has given us 31.1 innings, allowing just 4 runs on 21 hits (just one home run) – walking just 9. He is 3-0 (and could be 4-0) during the streak, with a 1.15 ERA and a .194 batting average against. Of the 21 hits, only 6 have been for extra-bases, so the slugging percentage against Lynn since July 9 is .269.

If Lance remains a Cardinal, and if he pitches like this down the stretch – I grant you, two big ifs – then the management may have to re-asses the Lance Lynn situation.

During this streak, all four runners who have scored against Lynn have reached base with no one out. Over his last five games, Lance has been most vulnerable before the first out of an inning is recorded. Those batters are hitting .244/.289/.415 against Lance. After he has gotten that first out, the remaining batters in the inning hit .164/.233/.179. Last night, batters were 2 for 6 against Lynn with no one out, and 2 for 14 thereafter.

Tyler Lyons

Lyons has pitched his way into some high-leveraged situations. He started the seventh last night, retiring 2 of the 3 he faced. Tyler is unscored on in his last 8 games (6.1 innings), during which he has given only 2 hits and no walks (although he did hit a couple). Tyler has struck out 9 batters over those 6.1 innings, and 25 of his last 91 pitches have been taken for strikes.

Trevor Rosenthal

As for Trevor, He has pitched 5 innings facing 17 batters in his last 3 outings. He has given up exactly two singles to those batters. While 73% of the pitches he has thrown (48 of 66) have gone for strikes. Over his last 10 games, Trevor has given us 11.2 innings allowing 1 run on 4 singles, 1 walk, and 19 strikeouts. The last 41 batters to face Rosenthal are missing with 38% of their swings – and that’s not all fastballs, either.

Jose Martinez

The game’s offensive hero was Jose Martinez – who drove in all three Cardinal runs. Fourth outfielder is always a tough situation to play under, but lately Jose has been cashing in on his chances. Including his two-hit, one-home-run night last night, Martinez has hit safely in 6 of last 10 games (only 4 of them starts), hitting .421 (8 for 19), and slugging .737 (with 2 home runs). He ended July hitting .333 for the month.

NoteBook

In splitting the four-game series with Arizona, the Cardinals scored 5 runs. That is the fewest runs the team has scored in any series this year of any length. Earlier this season, St Louis swept a three-game series from Pittsburgh during which they only scored six runs – winning each game by a 2-1 score.

Coming off a series loss to the Cubs, Milwaukee breaks a string of 5 straight Cardinal opponents who had won its previous series. The Brewers have lost 9 of their last 12 and 11 of 16 since the break. They look as vulnerable now as they have at any time during the season.

Baseball

Two Strikes Not Quite Enough

It was all so agonizingly close for Luke Weaver. After A.J. Pollock opened the fourth inning with a double, Weaver fell behind Jake Lamb 3-0. Swinging on 3-0, Lamb fouled off a boarder-line fastball. Weaver then threw two pretty good changes, but Lamb fouled those off as well. Now 3-2, Luke was one pitch away from getting the first out of the inning. But Luke missed with his fastball off the outside corner, and Lamb joined Pollock on base.

Now it was superstar slugger Paul Goldschmidt., with two runners on, no one out, and the game still scoreless. Luke just missed with his first-pitch change, but he got back ahead with two fastballs – one that Goldschmidt watched and the other that he fouled. Again, Luke was in position to get either the strikeout – or even better, a double play that would take the steam out of the inning.

But his 1-2 cutter missed up and away, and his 2-2 changeup bounced. Now it was 3-2 to one of the top sluggers in the game. Luke tried to get him to chase the change-up, but – temptingly close as it was – Paul took it for ball four, loading the bases.

That brought former Tiger J.D. Martinez to the plate. No longer in a mood to mess around, Weaver came after him with three straight fastballs. For his part, Martinez was up there to swing – which he did at all three even though the last two were off the plate (he fouled the last one off to stay alive). At 0-2, Luke was once again in a position to take the steam out of the inning. But Martinez laid off the 0-2 change that dropped low. Gaining one more pitch in the at bat – the twentieth, now, of the inning from Weaver – Martinez lofted Luke’s misplaced 1-2 fastball just fair around the right-field fouls pole.

And that was the game. Before and after that, Luke went pitch for pitch with Zack Godley and his untouchable curve. Luke faced 21 batters in his 5 innings. He pushed 14 of them (66.7%) into two strike counts. Except for the three at bats in the top of the fourth, the other 11 managed one single (Goldschmidt, again, grounded a 3-2 changeup into right field for a single leading off the second) and 5 strikeouts.

It was almost a brilliant performance from the Cardinal rookie who is trying to establish himself as a major-league caliber pitcher.

Cardinal Bullpen Shuts the Door

Continuing a month long pattern, the Cardinal bullpen closed the door once it was sort of too late. After Weaver coughed up the grand slam, the Cardinal relief corps put up zeros for the last four innings. While they have had struggles holding onto narrow leads, the Cardinal bullpen currently holds a 1.97 ERA this month (15 earned runs in 68.2 innings). They have held opponents to a .241 batting average, allowing just 5 home runs and walking only 19 (7 of those intentionally).

John Brebbia

One reason why the bullpen does better in non-critical moments, is those are the only times Mike Matheny lets John Brebbia pitch. John threw his twelfth consecutive game without allowing an earned run last night (totaling 13.2 innings). He didn’t walk anyone again. He has allowed no walks in his last six games (7.2 innings) and hasn’t given an unintentional walk in his last 17 games (20.1 innings). His ERA is down to 1.48 on the season.

Kevin Siegrist

Kevin Siegrist allowed a couple of singles in an almost-messy eighth innings, but wriggled out of the inning taking no damage. Kevin has now thrown 5.2 scoreless innings in 6 games since his return from the disabled list.

Tyler Lyons

Tyler Lyons tossed a 1-2-3 ninth, striking out two. Tyler has now struck out 5 of the last 6 batters he has faced, and the last 14 batters he’s faced are 0-for-13 with a hit-by-pitch. Over his last six outings, Lyons has allowed no runs and just 1 hit.

Tyler put all three batters he faced last night into two-strike counts. Chris Owings grounded out on a 3-2 pitch, and Ketel Marte and Chris Iannetta both struck out on 2-2 pitches. Lyons has faced 31 batters so far this month. He has pushed 21 of them (67.7%) into two-strike counts. Those batters are just 3 for 18 (.167) with 1 walk, 2 HBPs, and 11 strikeouts.

Feast or Famine Offense

The shutout continues a strange feast or famine offensive trend. Over the last 9 games, St Louis is hitting .269 as a team, and scoring 4.67 runs per game – both very healthy totals. But they have now scored more than three runs in only three of those games. A 9-run eighth inning transformed what might have been a 3-2 loss into an 11-4 victory over Chicago on July 21. Three days later, they handed Colorado an 8-2 loss. And then on Wednesday a five-run fourth pushed them past the Rockies 10-5. In between those eruptions there were 7-3 and 3-2 losses to the Mets; 3-2 and 5-3 losses to the Cubs; a 3-2 win over Colorado; and last night’s 4-0 loss (box score).

In the three “hot” games, the Cards averaged 9.67 runs per game and hit .355/.462/.589. They averaged 2.17 runs per game in the other six, hitting .222/.276/.340.

Paul DeJong

When the dust had settled, Paul DeJong was the only Cardinal hitter who had some answer for Godley and the Diamondback bullpen. He went 2 for 3 with a walk.

Paul is now riding a 7-game hitting streak, during which he is hitting .379 (11 for 29) and slugging .828 (1 double and 4 home runs). His six-game RBI streak did come to an end last night. DeJong had driven in 9 runs through those six games.

After starting the season at Memphis, Paul DeJong has started 21 of the 23 July games St Louis has played. He is hitting .318 this month (27 for 85) and slugging .694 (8 doubles and 8 home runs). Paul has 14 runs scored and 15 runs batted in this month.

Randal Grichuk

One night after Randal Grichuk’s first-ever four-hit night, his six-game hitting streak came to an end in an 0-for-4 performance. During the streak, Randal had 7 singles and 4 home runs in 24 at bats – a .458 batting average and a .958 slugging percentage.

In the fourth inning, Randal chased a 1-0 slider that was in on his hands and fouled out. Later, in the sixth, with runners at first and second and one out, Randal reached for Godley’s low-and-away fastball and bounced into a force play. A lot of Randal’s game has improved noticeably since his return from the minors. Of late, though, he is starting to swing at pitcher’s pitches early in the count. Across all of baseball, batters who hit the first strike thrown them hit .348. Randal, this month, is 3 for 14 (.214) when hitting the first strike thrown him.

Harrison Bader

It is very, very early in the major league portion of Harrison Bader’s career, but he’s shown an early propensity to get into two strike counts. He’s gotten to two strikes in 10 of his first 13 times to the plate (77%), including all four last night. After his 0-for-4, Harrison in 2 for 9 with a walk in those at bats.

NoteBook

Before last night, St Louis had led at some point in each of their 7 previous games. That hasn’t been a very good predictor of success for the Cards this season. They were only 4-3 in those games.

Baseball

Control Issues Help Doom Colorado

In a lot of ways, it was just the Cardinals night last night. Four of the 15 hits didn’t make it out of the infield, and Harrison Bader’s eighth-inning double was looped into right. For a team that finished with ten runs, there wasn’t an awful lot of hard contact.

Compounding the issue for the Rockies was the general inability of their pitchers to throw strikes. In all, four pitchers combined to hurl 185 pitches at Cardinal hitters. Of the 107 that those hitters didn’t offer at, only 28 were called strikes (26%). Of the first pitches thrown to the 46 Cardinals who came to the plate, only 12 were close enough to invite the Cards to swing at them. This takes some doing, as St Louis is about as willing to swing at a first pitch as team in baseball.

But on a night when Colorado didn’t have the best of luck, their pitchers kept adding fuel to the fire. The result was a convincing 10-5 Cardinal victory (box score).

With the 10 runs and 15 hits, St Louis approaches the last four games of July hitting .275 as a team and scoring 4.86 runs per game.

Randal Grichuk

Randal Grichuk had two of the infield hits awarded the Cards last night – part of a surprising 4-for-5 night that included no extra-base hits. Grichuk has now hit in all 6 games since his return from the DL, going 11 for 24 (.458) with 4 home runs (.958 slugging percentage). He has scored 6 runs and driven in 7 in those six games.

Randal is now 15 for 53 this month (.283) with 1 double and 6 home runs (.642 slugging percentage).

Grichuk was able to lay off the first pitch in 4 of his 5 at bats – and was rewarded with 3 hits in those at bats. For the month of July, Grichuk has laid off the first pitch a surprising (for him) 69.6% of the time. He has gone on to hit .361 in those at bats (13 for 36) and slug .889 as all of his extra-base hits this month have come in at bats where he has taken the first pitch.

Matt Carpenter

Matt Carpenter’s 2 for 5 evening pushed his season average up to .250. Folks should be aware (especially those thinking he should be traded – and yes I saw a blog where that was suggested) that Carpenter is now hitting .319 in July (23 for 72).

In six plate appearances last night, Matt only swung at the first pitch once, fouling off Jeff Hoffman’s first-pitch fastball in the fifth. That at bat would end with the two-run double that would give the Cards a 6-4 lead. For the season, Matt is swinging at that first pitch just 15.9% of the time. During the month of July, that ratio is even lower – just 12.8% of the time. But when he does, good things usually happen. Carp is 7 for 11 (.636) so far this month in at bats where he swings at the first pitch.

Tommy Pham

It’s rare that we talk about a Cardinal game and don’t mention Tommy Pham – who was 2-for-2 last night with 2 walks. He now has 5 hits in his last 8 at bats, and 6 walks in his last 15 plate appearances. Tommy is coming down the stretch in July hitting .363 this month (29 for 80) and slugging .650 (6 doubles, 1 triple, and 5 home runs). In 22 July games, Tommy has scored 18 runs and driven in 19.

Tommy took the first pitch thrown to him 3 times in his 5 plate appearances – ending up with a single and both walks. For the season, Tommy has been taking that first pitch 73.9% of the time and hitting .346/.450/.593 when he does. Eleven of his fourteen home runs have come in at bats where Tommy has taken the first pitch.

Yadier Molina

Yadier Molina is now 21 for 73 (.288) in July after his third straight two-hit game. Even the notoriously aggressive Molina took the first pitch thrown him three of four times last night.

Carlos Martinez

Carlos Martinez entered July riding a streak of 11 quality starts in 12 outings. This month, though, has been decidedly choppy for the colorful young right-hander. He picked up the win last night (his only one of the month) in spite of the fact that he gave up 5 runs in 6 innings. He gave 7 hits, including a home run – his seventh this month in just 29 innings.

Carlos has already set a career high this year, allowing 17 home runs before the end of July. His totals for the month are a 1-2 record, 5.90 ERA, .308 batting average against, and a .556 slugging percentage allowed. With Carlos’ stuff, you wouldn’t think you would see opponents’ batting .308 against him over a 29 inning stretch.

Of the 25 batters that Carlos faced last night, 17 took his first pitch. Two of those batters went on to walk, while the other 15 managed 2 singles (.133) and 7 strikeouts. The 8 that offered at his first pitch ended up 5 for 8 with a double, a home run, and all 5 runs batted in. For the month of July, batters swinging at Martinez’ first pitch are hitting .372 (16 for 43) and slugging .698 (2 doubles and 4 home runs). These are the kinds of results you would see if Martinez was either becoming too predictable, or if he was tipping his pitches.

For what it’s worth, Nolan Arenado‘s certainly looked like he was expecting the pitch that he homered on.

A Bullpen Note

The pen wrapped up the game with three scoreless innings. It is surprising to note that the bullpen has a 2.09 ERA so far this month – surprising because they’ve also blown four leads in July. They haven’t done well in pressure situations, but they have pitched very well this month when behind or way ahead.

NoteBook

With last night’s win, St Louis has completed a series sweep in 5 of its 7 opportunities to sweep.

Coming off a 10-3 victory over Atlanta, Arizona will be the fifth consecutive team the Cards have played that will have won its previous series.