The St. Louis Cardinals are winning high-scoring games with their potent bats. They are winning low-scoring contests behind their surprising pitching and brilliant defense.
The Cardinals have taught baseball fans a lesson: Never buy into the preseason hype.
St. Louis, not picked to finish among the top two in their own division, has the best record in baseball and is on pace to become the first NL team since the 1986 New York Mets and 1975 Cincinnati Reds to win at least 107 games.
“It’s why you don’t get carried away with all the predictions and all the hoopla because it never comes out true,” center fielder Jim Edmonds said.
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“We’ve been on the other end. We’ve been picked to win and didn’t play well. You play the game long enough, you know it’s a 162-game process and you know that in any given year, somebody’s going to play well and somebody’s not.”
The Cubs’ Mark Prior and Kerry Wood and Houston’s Andy Pettitte and Wade Miller were projected to have big years but have not, primarily because they have been hurt. Cardinals journeyman Chris Carpenter has outpitched them all, in part because he’s finally healthy after missing most of the last two years with shoulder problems.
Who knew?
“In the beginning of the year, there was a lot of talk that Carpenter was going to have to win a lot of games if we were going to be good,” said Matt Morris, the senior member of the St. Louis rotation. “I was thinking, `Man, that’s putting a lot of pressure on the guy coming off an injury and pitching for a new ballclub.’ You do nothing but tip your hat to the way he’s handled everything.”
Starters Jason Marquis and Jeff Suppan also have been revelations.
When people marvel at the Cardinals from afar, the immediate image is of a high-powered offense that not long ago added Larry Walker to a batting order that included Albert Pujols, Scott Rolen, Edgar Renteria, Reggie Sanders and Edmonds.
But most of those hitters had big seasons in 2003, too, and the Cardinals didn’t even win the NL Central, much less post baseball’s best record. The pitching has been the surprise, perhaps the biggest difference.
“If your pitching can’t stay healthy, you’re in big trouble,” Pujols said. “That’s what happened to us last year. This year we stayed healthy and the pitching has been unbelievable. I don’t think people are giving credit to our pitching.”
But even if an improved rotation and a solid bullpen that is anchored by Jason Isringhausen (42 saves) is what propelled the Cardinals from a decent club to the best in baseball, the essence of this team has always been its lineup. Edmonds, Rolen and Walker are not only cleanup-caliber hitters, they are Gold Glove defenders. The Cardinals also believe they have the league’s best players at two other positions–Renteria at shortstop and Mike Matheny at catcher.
“I think the biggest key to us is we have 25 guys who are just good athletes,” Edmonds said. “Everybody can do it all. We’ve got pitchers who could play in the field. Our hitters run the bases and play defense. When you have an athletic team, you can do a lot more things well.”
“The key to this team?” Rolen said. “First of all, starting pitching. We go out every night with a chance to win. But then when it’s 3-3 in the seventh, you look at our lineup and you look at whoever we’re playing, and I’ll take our chances.”