Tag: Adam Wainwright

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Baseball’s Back! (Right?)

CREDIT: Taka Yanagimoto / St. Louis Cardinals

As Major League Baseball opens the first made-for-TV season in the sport’s history, 30 clubs will be measured by four components: pitching, hitting, fielding, and what might best be described as bubble management. The defending-champion Washington Nationals return the best one-two pitching punch in the game: Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg. They have one of the most exciting young sluggers in the game in Juan Soto. They lost a slick-fielding third baseman when Anthony Rendon departed for the Los Angeles Angels. But here’s the question that may decide the champs’ 2020 fate: How antisocial are the Nats?
Taka Yanagimoto / St. Louis Cardinals

Mike Shildt

This is where we are in the age of coronavirus. A baseball team’s starting rotation will only be as strong as the five men in that group are at self-isolation. An urge to stray outside a team’s “bubble” — whether at home or on the road — could prove catastrophic when “quarantine” and “contact-tracing” become part of the box scores we check in the morning. There’s never been required teamwork quite like this. How smoothly your favorite team’s shortstop and second baseman turn the pivot may be less important than how quickly your outfielders don their masks upon leaving the ballpark.

AutoZone Park will remain dormant, as the St. Louis Cardinals’ minor-league training camp will be housed in Springfield, Missouri (home of the franchise’s Double-A club). But several former Memphis Redbirds — including skipper Mike Shildt, the 2019 National League Manager of the Year — will help determine if the upcoming 60-game season will be memorable for reasons beyond its brevity. Here are seven to watch.

Yadier Molina — The 38-year-old catcher’s remarkable streak of 15 consecutive seasons with more than 100 games behind the plate will come to an end, but Molina has a pair of significant milestones within reach. He needs 37 hits to reach 2,000 for his career, a number that should all but punch a Hall of Fame ticket for the nine-time Gold Glove winner. And when he plays his 17th game this season, he’ll become only the third man — after Stan Musial and Lou Brock — to play 2,000 games for the Cardinals.

Adam Wainwright — Like Molina, Wainwright — who turns 39 in August — is climbing some significant charts in the record book. With two wins, Wainwright would move past Bob Forsch (163) for third place on the Cardinals’ career chart. Should he start six games with Molina behind the plate, the two will climb into sixth all-time for games played as battery mates. (Six more would give them 271, the most in a half-century.)

Jack Flaherty — In a regular season squeezed down to two months, pitching will be more of a premium than ever, and Flaherty enters the season as the Cardinals’ unquestioned ace. Still only 24 years old, Flaherty is coming off a season in which he struck out 231 hitters, the most by a Cardinal since Hall of Famer Bob Gibson in 1970. A team simply cannot endure a losing streak in the abbreviated campaign, and Flaherty would appear to be the antidote for such.

Tommy Edman — The 25-year-old Edman can be classified as a throwback player, a utility man — remember that tag? — who can play six positions, bat at the top or bottom of the batting order, and bring speed to both the base paths and the field. Look for Edman to play every day, but check the lineup for exactly where.

Paul DeJong — If you asked me to identify a player most likely to be a Cardinal in the year 2030, I’d go with DeJong (who turns 27 next month). After less than two months in Memphis, DeJong took over at shortstop for the Cardinals in 2017 and has slugged 74 home runs in the three seasons since (30 last year). He’s emerged as a strong fielder and was the Cardinals’ lone representative in the 2019 All-Star Game. If he can cut down on the strikeouts (149 last season), DeJong has several more All-Star trips in his future.

Matt Carpenter — The designated hitter has arrived in the National League, and Carpenter could be the man to make it a position of impact for St. Louis. Having bounced from second base to third and over to first since 2012, Carpenter has been a hitter without a position to call his own. Having lost 89 RBIs when Marcell Ozuna departed for Atlanta, the Cardinals desperately need the 34-year-old Carpenter to find his All-Star form at the plate. After drilling 36 homers and finishing ninth in MVP voting after the 2018 season, Carpenter slumped to a slash line of .226/.334/.392 (with 15 homers) in 2019.

Carlos Martinez — The team’s ace as a starter merely three years ago, Martinez took over closer duty last season when Jordan Hicks went down for Tommy John surgery. While he’d like to start again, Martinez would bring a degree of ninth-inning certainty to a team that will, presumably, play a lot of low-scoring games.

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2016 St. Louis Cardinals Preview

The St. Louis Cardinals are unaccustomed to playing the role of hunters. Having won the last three National League Central titles and no fewer than 100 games last season (despite ace Adam Wainwright and slugger Matt Holliday missing significant time with injuries), the Cardinals enter the 2016 campaign in the shadow of the Chicago Cubs. Having signed a pair of significant free-agent cogs from last year’s Cardinal roster — outfielder Jason Heyward and pitcher John Lackey — the South Siders are the trendy pick to win the World Series and end the most famous dry spell (now 107 years) in American sports. Centered around two of baseball’s strongest young hitters (Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant), the Cubs are flexing under Joe Maddon, who was named 2015 National League Manager of the Year despite his team finishing third in the Central Division.

These longtime rivals met in the postseason for the first time last October and the Cardinals were eliminated in a division series at Wrigley Field, as disheartening a finish to a season as any in four years under manager Mike Matheny. St. Louis looked injured, old, and tired, particularly in contrast to the youthful vigor that fueled Chicago’s run to the NLCS. Was that series a tipping point in what has been a one-sided “rivalry” for generations? The next six months — and 19 games played between the two teams — will clarify just how far the Cubs have risen and if, in fact, a glorious era of Cardinal baseball has entered its sunset years.

Even without Wainwright (who missed virtually the entire season with an Achilles rupture), the 2015 Cardinal pitching staff posted the lowest team ERA (2.94) since the 1988 New York Mets. And in a season of conditional qualifiers, the biggest “if” facing the 2016 Cardinals hovers above their starting rotation. Michael Wacha has an ace’s repertoire but wore down last season, posting a 4.01 ERA in the second half after making the All-Star team with a 2.93 mark in the first. Carlos Martinez enters his second season as a member of the rotation after being shut down before last season’s playoffs with shoulder tenderness. Jaime Garcia’s health has been a coin flip for most of his six seasons with St. Louis. With Lance Lynn shelved by Tommy John surgery, this leaves the newly acquired Mike Leake as perhaps the steadiest arm in the mix. (Leake made at least 30 starts each of the last five seasons with Cincinnati and San Francisco.) If — that word – these five pitchers stay healthy, St. Louis will have the best National League rotation west of New York, enough to keep the Cubs within arm’s length.

A healthy Matt Holliday (another “if”!) would boost a Cardinal offense that finished last season 11th in the National League in runs scored. (The Cardinals became the third team in major-league history to win 100 games while averaging fewer than four runs per game.) Holliday’s return should offset the loss — for at least three months — of shortstop Jhonny Peralta, who drove in 71 runs last year but injured his left thumb during spring training and required surgery. (St. Louis signed former Met Ruben Tejada — a career .255 hitter — to man the position, though he’s started the season on the disabled list.) With Holliday (now 36) and Yadier Molina (33) climbing toward middle age, the heart of the Cardinal lineup may soon shift to a pair of recent Memphis Redbirds: outfielders Randal Grichuk and Stephen Piscotty. Each is capable of more than 20 home runs and upwards of 90 RBIs.

If you’re looking for a swing factor — beyond the starting pitchers’ health — for the 2016 Cardinals, you might focus on the bench. Gone are the likes of Pete Kozma, Peter Bourjos, and Tony Cruz, members of a punchless group of reserves last season. New to the roster are infielder Jedd Gyorko (49 homers in three seasons with San Diego), catcher Brayan Pena (a .260 career hitter), and another former Memphis outfielder, Tommy Pham (.327 in 48 games with Memphis last year).

Last season was a rarity, one in which both the Cardinals and Cubs contended for the National League pennant. Count on 2016 being an encore of sorts.

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A Memphis Redbirds Wall of Fame

The St. Louis Cardinals do history well. Their marketing slogan this season is “Tradition Meets Today.” With no fewer than nine statues of Cardinal greats just outside Busch Stadium — two for the greatest Cardinal of all, Stan Musial — a blindfolded fan might literally bump into a bronzed Hall of Famer on his way into the ballpark. Once inside the stadium (blindfold removed), that fan can count the retired uniform numbers of Cardinal heroes in two different locations. The team’s 11 world championships? There are 11 flags flying high above the rightfield stands, and 11 pennants painted atop the Cardinals’ dugout with every championship year from 1926 to 2011.

Here in Memphis at AutoZone Park, the Cardinals could teach local fans a history lesson or two. And now that the parent franchise has an ownership stake, it’s time to crack the books.

Deep in the bowels of the 15-year-old stadium, next to a batting cage, Memphis baseball championships are painted on the wall. This is the only place you’ll see any indication the franchise has two Pacific Coast League titles (2000 and 2009) to its credit. The red Pujols Seat remains — now a solitary chair — on the rightfield bluff, just inside the foul pole where Albert Pujols’s championship-winning home run landed on September 15, 2000. (The chair needs a small plaque for those oblivious to the most famous hit in franchise history.) As for the heroics of other former Redbirds, good luck.

Baseball history fades entirely at Third and Union, some of the fading intentional. Stubby Clapp’s number (10) was retired in 2007, but the back-flipping face of the 2000 PCL champs had his name removed from the bullpen wall last winter, the Cardinals asserting the number had been retired for Hall of Fame manager Tony LaRussa, negating the same honor — for the same uniform number — elsewhere in the farm system.

There have been too many good players — popular players — to wear a Memphis Redbirds uniform for the stadium to remain devoid of any form of tribute. My proposal: A wall of fame — presented where any ticketed fan can see it — with a photo or plaque saluting former Redbird heroes. Borrowing from the Cardinals’ own Hall of Fame, a new member of this wall of fame would be announced near the start of each season. And Memphis baseball tradition would, finally, meet today at AutoZone Park.

We’ll need an inaugural class, of course, so here are the five Redbirds that would receive my vote. Let’s establish a minimum of 100 games played with the team for position players, and either 50 games or 10 wins for pitchers. Apologies to the likes of Pujols and Yadier Molina. Great Cardinals, to say the least, but Redbirds all too briefly.

• Rick Ankiel — His two stints as a Redbird were Ruthian. As a 20-year-old flame-thrower in 1999, the lefty won seven games and struck out 119 hitters in 88 innings pitched. He was the last Memphis baseball star at Tim McCarver Stadium. Eight (long) years later, having lost his ability to throw a baseball over the plate, Ankiel returned to Memphis as a centerfielder and led the Redbirds with 32 home runs and 89 RBIs in just 102 games. There will never be another like him, for good or ill.

• Stubby Clapp — His backflips (a tribute to Cardinal great Ozzie Smith) are memorable, but Clapp was the heart and backbone of that 2000 championship team, leading the club in runs, hits, and dirty uniforms. He remains third in franchise history in games played (425) and hits (418). Stubby was the Gashouse Gang by way of Canada.

• Skip Schumaker — He’s the only player to appear in 200 games as a Redbird and 500 games as a Cardinal. Never a star, he merely played solid baseball, in the outfield and at the plate, then at second base for a team that won the World Series. In trying to define the fabled “Cardinal Way,” Schumaker would be good source material.

• Nick Stavinoha — The Redbirds’ career leader in games (479), hits (531), home runs (74), runs (531), and RBIs (316). Stavinoha was a slugger without a position, but not quite enough slugger to find his way to an American League team where the DH lives and breathes. He played in 72 games for the 2009 PCL champs, but was with the parent club when Memphis reeled off six straight playoff wins.

• Adam Wainwright — Waino was a .500 pitcher (14-14) over two seasons with Memphis, though he led the PCL with 182 innings pitched in 2005. Since then, though, he’s won 121 games with the Cardinals and climbed to second on the franchise strikeout list behind Hall of Famer Bob Gibson. As a rookie out of the bullpen, Wainwright was integral to the Cards’ 2006 World Series win.

History matters in baseball. It should be given life at AutoZone Park

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Grizzlies, Cavs, Cardinals: Wounded Hopes

Injuries in teams sports are like pages ripped from a book you haven’t yet finished. The more significant the player, the more pages are shredded. The later in the season a player goes down, the closer to the book’s end you discover the missing pages. It’s maddening, disappointing, vexing . . . as many negative descriptors as you choose. Bottom line: When players are sidelined by injury, the story we read — the one that enters the history books — is altered permanently.

Maybe the Memphis Grizzlies, Cleveland Cavaliers, or St. Louis Cardinals (or a combination involving one of the NBA teams) wins a championship in 2015. More than likely, though, these three teams will fall short of the goal every pro team lists above all others. Fan bases for each franchise will find significant pages missing from this year’s metaphorical book.

The Grizzlies seemed to be peaking at precisely the right time after a lackluster conclusion to their regular season. On their way to a 3-0 lead against the Portland Trail Blazers, the Griz had the 67-win Golden State Warriors in their sights for a second-round battle that would test the entire concept of “grit and grind” basketball. Then C.J. McCollum’s elbow met Mike Conley’s face. The Memphis point guard left Game 3 in the third quarter and underwent surgery to repair facial fractures last Monday.

The Griz finished off the Blazers in five games to land that slot opposite Golden State in the bracket. With Conley in street clothes (swelling still visible on his face), Memphis traveled to Oakland and took a beating in Game 1 of it series with the Warriors Sunday afternoon. It’s hard to imagine one player — not named Jordan or Bird — erasing the Grizzlies’ 15-point margin of defeat, but the story would have read differently. It would have been the story as intended.

The Grizzlies aren’t alone. With Kevin Love sidelined by a shoulder injury, the Cleveland Cavaliers will find what amounts to a chapter missing from their 2014-15 book. And turning to baseball, the St. Louis Cardinals will tear out every fifth page this season with ace Adam Wainwright shelved by a torn Achilles’ tendon. Maybe LeBron James is enough for the Cavs to reach the NBA Finals anyway. And the Cardinals have a precedent for winning the World Series without Wainwright (2011). Missing pages don’t necessarily mean a book ends sadly.

Here’s hoping Grizzlies coach Dave Joerger concocts a scheme to steal a win when Game 2 is played Tuesday night. (Anyone seen Jordan Adams recently?) His team’s fate rests on how those missing pages are replaced.

• In evaluating the eight remaining teams in the NBA playoffs, remember the Superstar Rule. Since 1980, every champion except the 2003-04 Detroit Pistons has featured a player with multiple first-team All-NBA selections on his resume. Only three teams vying for this year’s title qualify: the Cavaliers (James), the Clippers (Chris Paul), and the Rockets (Dwight Howard). The Warriors’ Steph Curry has multiple first-team selections in his future, but this year’s will be his first.

• With San Antonio and Dallas eliminated, the Western Conference will be represented in the Finals by a team that hasn’t been that far in at least 20 years, if ever. (Houston won the 1995 title.) This is healthy for a sport dominated in June by a precious few brands.

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St. Louis Cardinals Return to Postseason Play

Adam Wainwright

The 21st century has been mighty good to the St. Louis Cardinals. Since 2000 arrived, the Cardinals have made the playoffs 11 times (second only to the New York Yankees, who have reached the postseason 12 times in the same period). Over the last 15 seasons, St. Louis has crossed the finish line with a losing record but once (in 2007). Four National League championships and two World Series victories have been added to the franchise record book since the millennium’s arrival.

But how will the 2014 Cardinals fit among the franchise’s flag-waving predecessors? This year’s club is but a blurry reflection of the 2013 National League champions. Consider the infield: first-baseman Matt Adams, second-baseman Kolten Wong, shortstop Jhonny Peralta, and third-baseman Matt Carpenter. None of these players manned the same position on an everyday basis a year ago. And offensive production has been inconsistent at best. Two-hundred and sixty pounds of Adams has yielded the Cardinals three more home runs (15) than 185 pounds of Wong. For the first time since 1968, St. Louis sends a team to the postseason without a player scoring or driving in 100 runs.

In many respects, the numbers don’t add up for a division champion. The Cardinals finished last in the National League with 105 home runs, and next to last with only 57 stolen bases (one more than San Francisco). In the most vital category of all — runs scored — St. Louis scored fewer (619) than any of the National League’s other four playoff teams. No power. No speed. No problem?

St. Louis pitched its way to October baseball. The Cardinal staff combined for 23 shutouts, four more than any other team in the National League and the most for the franchise since 1968, the pitching-dominated season that led to lowering the mound to regain some advantage for hitters. The Cardinal bullpen led the league in saves with 55 (45 of them by Trevor Rosenthal), a figure all the more impressive when you consider St. Louis went 32-23 in one-run games. The Cards never won more than six games in a row, but they never lost more than four straight. This despite lengthy stays on the disabled list for starting pitcher Michael Wacha (last year’s postseason hero) and catcher Yadier Molina, the franchise’s backbone.

Waiting for the Cardinals in a division series that starts Friday are the Los Angeles Dodgers, the team St. Louis vanquished in last year’s National League Championship Series. If there’s a team that can top the Cardinals’ one-two pitching punch of Adam Wainwright (20-9, 2.38 ERA) and Lance Lynn (15-10, 2.74) it’s the Dodgers with Cy Young Award perennial Clayton Kershaw (21-3, 1.77) and Zack Greinke (17-8, 2.71). The Dodgers’ rotation also features former Memphis Redbird Dan Haren (13-11, 4.02), while the Cardinals have three men vying for two more spots in the rotation: Wacha, John Lackey, and Shelby Miller. Keep this in mind: In a five-game series, a team’s Game 3 starter can swing the series (and be the difference for the Cardinals between facing Kershaw once or twice).

The Dodgers took three of four from the Cardinals in L.A. in late June, outscoring St. Louis 17-4. Then the Cardinals won two of three between the two teams at Busch Stadium right after the All-Star break (beating Greinke and Haren). The Dodgers will have home-field advantage this time, meaning Game 5 would be pitched by Kershaw at Dodger Stadium, a scenario no Cardinal fan would embrace. (Don’t think Kershaw has forgotten his meltdown in Game 6 of last year’s NLCS at Busch. The best pitcher in baseball is motivated.)

When they take the field for Game 2 Saturday night, the Cardinals will be playing their 50th playoff game since 2011. The team and setting will feel familiar even if there’s no such thing as a “fall chill” in L.A. air. But any return to the World Series for St. Louis will require new heroics from a new face or two. Postseason butterflies never get old.

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Top 10 Former Memphis Redbirds’ Big-League Seasons

Albert Pujols as a Memphis Redbird

Entering this week’s action, St. Louis Cardinal first-baseman Matt Adams is second in the National League with a batting average of .316 (a distant second, as Colorado’s Troy Tulowitzki is hitting .340). Only one former Memphis Redbird has won a batting title: Albert Pujols with an average of .359 in 2003. This had me considering the best major-league seasons by former Redbird players, which led to the list below, one man’s top ten.

[An important qualifier: For the sake of variety, I’ve limited players to no more than two appearances on this countdown. We’ll call this The Pujols Rule.]

10) J.D. Drew (2004) — The Redbirds’ first real star, Drew made his big-league debut late in the 1998 season in the considerable shadow of Mark McGwire. He was a five-tool golden boy, on his way to comparisons with Mickey Mantle. As it turned out, this was the best Drew had. After arriving in Atlanta in a trade that sent Adam Wainwright to St. Louis, Drew hit .305 with 31 homers and 93 RBIs. He scored 118 runs and finished 6th in the MVP voting. The Braves, alas, fell in the divisional round to Houston while St. Louis won its first pennant in 17 years.

9) Rick Ankiel (2000/2008) — Ankiel’s story is unique and earns him special placement on this countdown. The club of players to win 10 games in an MLB season and hit at least 50 home runs for his career includes two men: Babe Ruth and Ankiel. The Florida native was first a pitching prodigy in Memphis (1999), then slugged 32 homers as the Redbirds’ centerfielder (2007). His 194 strikeouts for the Cardinals in 2000 broke the franchise rookie record held by Dizzy Dean. Eight years later, he returned to hit 25 homers and drive in 71 runs as the Cardinals’ everyday centerfielder. A generation of baseball fans still wonders what might have been had he not suffered that stomach-turning meltdown on the mound in the 2000 playoffs at Busch Stadium.

8) Jason Motte (2012) — Memphis fans were first introduced to Motte when he played behind the plate for the Redbirds in 2004. (Motte saw another young catcher on his way to St. Louis by the name of Molina. So he moved to the mound.) In 2011, Motte took over closing duties in September from Fernando Salas and ended up throwing the final pitch in the Cardinals’ World Series victory. A year later, he tied for the National League lead with 42 saves, only the fourth Cardinal to save 40 games in a season.

7) Dan Haren (2009) — Pitching for a dreadful Arizona Diamondback team (70-92), Haren finished fifth in the Cy Young vote, winning 14 games with a 3.14 ERA and 223 strikeouts, the most ever by a former Redbird. He pitched in his third straight All-Star Game and made Cardinal fans ache even more over the 2004 trade that sent him to Oakland for, yes, Mark Mulder.

6) Allen Craig (2013) — Craig led the National League champs in RBIs (97) despite missing most of September with an ankle injury. But it was his batting average with runners in scoring position (.454) that got him on this list. Since the statistic was first charted in 1974, only two players have hit better with ducks on the pond than Craig did last year: Hall of Famers George Brett (.469 in 1980) and Tony Gwynn (.459 in 1997).

5) Adam Wainwright (2010) — Waino has finished second in the Cy Young voting twice, and third another time (when he and teammate Chris Carpenter supposedly split the Cardinal-supporting vote). This was his first All-Star season, though, when Wainwright struck out a career-high 213, posted a career-best ERA (2.42) and won 20 games for the first time. He put up these numbers for an under-performing Cardinal team that failed to reach the playoffs. St. Louis winning the World Series the next year while Waino recovered from Tommy John surgery may be the greatest irony in franchise history.

4) Matt Carpenter (2013) — Check out the club of players to lead major-league baseball in hits, runs, and doubles in the same season: Nap Lajoie (1901), Ty Cobb (1911), Pete Rose (1976) . . . and Matt Carpenter last season. Carpenter put together this dream season in his first year as an everyday player while manning a position (second base) he never had as a professional. The catch for the Cardinals’ current third-baseman, of course, will be living up to the standard the rest of his career.

3) Yadier Molina (2013) — Yadi won his sixth consecutive Gold Glove, solidifying his place alongside Johnny Bench and Ivan Rodriguez among history’s greatest defensive backstops. But Molina also won his first Silver Slugger, hitting .319 and setting a Cardinal record for catchers with 44 doubles. The offensive booster landed Molina third in MVP voting. He also became the first Cardinal since Stan Musial and Marty Marion to play in four World Series.

2) Albert Pujols (2003) — Still playing more leftfield than first base (remember Tino Martinez in St. Louis?), Pujols won the Cardinals’ first batting title in 18 years while leading the National League in runs (137), hits (212), doubles (51), and total bases (394), all figures that remain career highs to this day. He finished second in the MVP voting to Barry Bonds, who hit 45 homers, drove in 90 runs . . . and walked 148 times.

1) Albert Pujols (2006) — It’s a testament to Pujols’ greatness — and the inadequacies of MVP voting — that Albert’s two finest seasons came in years he was runner-up for the sport’s most prestigious individual award. Just looking at his triple-crown stats, Pujols was better in ’06 (.331, 49 home runs, 137 RBIs) than he was in his MVP seasons of 2008 (.357, 37, 116) or 2009 (.327, 47, 135). He also won his first Gold Glove at first base this season, not to mention his first World Series championship. Ryan Howard can keep the MVP.