ESPN MLB

The St. Louis Cardinals don't have the best record in the National League, but by one measure -- perhaps one even more important than win-loss record this early in a season -- they've easily been the most dominant team.

The Cardinals own a run differential of plus-62 runs -- that's greater than the sum of the Nationals (+14), Dodgers (+12), Braves (+27), Reds (+5) and Giants (+3). St. Louis is second in runs scored (to Atlanta) and second in runs allowed (to Washington). The Cardinals have done this despite the spring training injury to Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright's slow start coming back from Tommy John surgery (a strong effort on Sunday lowered his ERA to 5.61), Lance Berkman's DL stint (he's missed 21 games) and Allen Craig's late return from offseason knee surgery (he just returned last week).

The accolades run deep -- Jon Jay leads the league with a .392 average, David Freese is fifth with 24 RBIs, Rafael Furcal has a .402 on-base percentage -- but credit for the hot start has to begin with Lance Lynn and Kyle Lohse. The two are a combined 9-1 with a 1.88 ERA in 11 starts. Lynn, who starts Monday night against the Diamondbacks, ranks fifth in the NL with a 1.60 ERA; Lohse ranks 11th with 2.11 ERA.

When pitching coach Dave Duncan resigned from his post in January to spend more time with his wife Jeanine (who had a brain tumor removed last August), there were concerns the pitching staff would suffer without Tony La Russa's right-hand man. The early returns under Derek Lilliquist are positive as the Cardinals have a 3.08 ERA and have walked just 58 batters, fewest in the NL. Last year's staff posted a 3.74 ERA and also relied on throwing strikes -- the Cardinals walked the fourth-fewest hitters in the league -- but that staff also featured Carpenter as rotation anchor.

That's what makes the first months for Lynn and Lohse so important (Jake Westbrook is also 3-2 with a 2.19 ERA). Lynn's numbers may be the most surprising since he pitched out of the bullpen as a rookie last season after getting called up from Triple-A (he still qualifies as a rookie). He pitched so well in relief -- 40 strikeouts in 32.1 innings, plus a dominant 5.2 scoreless innings against the Brewers in the NLCS after missing more than a month with a strained oblique -- that many forgot that he was groomed as a starter in the minor leagues. The 39th overall pick in 2008 out of the University of Mississippi, Lynn threw hard but never posted dominant numbers as a starter in the minors. When Carpenter went down, there was speculation the Cardinals would move to sign free agent Roy Oswalt. Instead, they promoted Lynn to the rotation

All he's done in winning his first five starts is allow six runs and hold opponents to a .167 batting average. Two things stand out for the burly right-hander: He's maintained his velocity (after averaging 93.2 mph on his fastball in relief, it's held at 92.4 so far as a starter) and he's thrown strikes. He's cut his walk rate from 2.9 per nine innings as a reliever to 1.9 as a starter (he averaged three walks per nine in 12 starts in Triple-A in 2011). Lynn relies on three different fastballs: a four-seamer that touches 95, a two-seam sinker and an occasional cutter. He mixes in a curve and an infrequent changeup that he uses against left-handers, but relies primarily on his various fastballs, which he throws about 70 percent of the time. In the minors, he relied a lot on his sinker, but he used his four-seamer more out of the pen last year, when he would crank it up to 97-98 mph at times. He seems to have taken that philosophy with him when he starts a game.

Looking at his heat map for 2012, you can see his game plan: feed left-handers on the outside corner, while throwing a lot of fastballs up and away to right-handers.



This is where we have point out that four of Lynn's five starts have come against the Cubs and Pirates. Nonetheless, right now this is a confident pitcher who trusts his stuff. If he continues to pound that outside corner against left-handers, I don't see why Lynn's success can't continue. After his last win, Cardinals manager Mike Matheny praised his pitcher's mental toughness, telling MLB.com, "I think he was just following along what we've been preaching, and that is one pitch at a time." Cubs manager Dale Sveum described Lynn's fastball as a heavy fastball and praised his ability to move it around the strike zone. What you have is a young starter with a power pitcher's body starting to pitching like a power potential. His upside is clearly much higher than a year ago, maybe who can slot in as a No. 2 starter.

Lohse is a little more difficult to analyze, since his raw stuff is nowhere near impressive as Lynn's. His average fastball clocks in at 89 mph. After the journeyman right-hander posted a 5.54 ERA with the Cardinals in 2009-10, his career appeared to be in jeopardy, especially after forearm surgery in May of 2010. He had something called "compartment syndrome," in which a sheath covering a muscle in the forearm doesn't allow it expand. The injury is apparently extremely rare in baseball. When Giants pitcher Noah Lowry suffered the same injury in 2008, the Giants failed to find another pitcher who had had the same injury. Lowry never returned to the majors.

Lohse ended up returning in August and then went 14-8, 3.39 last year, the lowest ERA of his career. In 2012, he's been even better, as opponents are hitting .209 against him. Always a guy who relied on control, he's cut down on his walks to two per nine innings.

So what's been the difference for Lohse in 2011-12 as compared to 2009-10, besides better health? Since his fastball is hardly overpowering, it's all about location and keeping hitters off-balance with his two-seam sinking fastball, slider, changeup and occasional curve. Look at the heat map below and you can see the fine line between Lohse succeeding and Lohse getting hammered. On the left, Lohse's pitch location in 2009-10; on the right, Lohse's location in 2011-12.



The differences are slight but noticeable; he's catching more of the inside corner against lefties/outside corner against righties and less of the center of the plate. He's also pitching down in the zone a little more.

Lohse doesn't throw as many groundballs as Lynn, so a key for him is keeping the ball in the park. After not allowing a home run in his first four starts, he gave up two against the Brewers on April 28 and a three-run shot to Houston's Jose Altuve in his only loss on May 4. Like Lynn, Lohse has benefited from a low BABIP so far and also high strand rates, so we can obviously expect both pitchers to regress from their hot starts. That may be true of the St. Louis staff as a whole: Despite its early success, it ranks just 15th in the NL strikeouts.

So, yes, maybe regression will happen, but it's also true that Lynn and Lohse make the Cardinals' rotation a lot stronger than it appeared when the club left Florida at the end of spring training.

Follow David Schoenfield on Twitter @dschoenfield.

Eric Karabell and I have a new segment we're calling SweetSpot Stock Watch, where we rationally discuss and occasionally argue about a few players. Today's edition: Red Sox prospect Will Middlebrooks, Cardinals starters Lance Lynn and Kyle Lohse, red-hot Bryan LaHair and Orioles pitcher Jake Arrieta, coming off his dominant effort against the Yankees on Thursday night. And don't forget to check out Eric's fantasy baseball blog on ESPN Insider!

I tweeted a note Thursday morning from our Stats & Information department: Only two walk-off home runs had been hit so far (by Alex Aliva and Todd Helton), the fewest this late in a season since 1982.

Sure enough, we got another one later in the day when Tampa Bay's Brandon Allen golfed a low fastball from Jordan Walden over the wall in right-center for a dramatic two-run blast to give the Rays a 4-3 victory over the Angels, completing a series sweep over the reeling Albert Pujols & Co.

In typical Joe Maddon fashion, he pulled the right strings in sending Allen up to hit for Jose Molina. Claimed off waivers last week from the A's, Allen had just one previous plate appearance with Tampa, drawing a key bases-loaded walk the night before. So he hadn't really swung the bat since April 7. He hadn't delivered a hit all season, since he went 0-for-7 with five strikeouts with Oakland. Walden tried to blow him away with five straight fastballs, but Allen crushed a 2-2, 97-mph four-seamer deep into the stands, getting up and personal with his teammates during the ensuing home-plate celebration.

Allen is a fringe major leaguer, a guy with big-time power but who has struggled to make contact in his brief trials with Arizona and Oakland. In many ways, it was just another baseball game, a mid-April affair played on an afternoon when most of the sports world was focused on the NFL draft. But, you know, this game could end up being one of the best moments of Allen's big league career, which makes it pretty neat in my book.

"Baseball is luck. It's a lot of luck. You just do what you can to prepare for it," Allen said after the game. "I just got in there and stayed within myself."

Maddon had told Allen to be ready when the Rays signed him. "To do this, to basically win two games for us two nights in a row, is pretty special," Maddon said.

The Rays are 12-7, which isn't necessarily surprising since many picked them to make the playoffs. But what is surprising is they've done this amid a tough April schedule and they've done it with a lot of offense, supposedly the team's weakness.

Currently fourth in the AL in runs scored, Tampa's hitting attack looks legitimate. Evan Longoria is hitting .309 with a .427 on-base percentage. Matt Joyce is proving last season's All-Star appearance wasn't a fluke with a .322/.394/.644 start. Carlos Pena is hitting .284 and drawing walks. Luke Scott is providing power from the DH slot. Add in Ben Zobrist, Desmond Jennings and B.J. Upton and you get the feeling the Rays may score some runs.

And the pitching ... Well, you get the feeling the pitching hasn't even gotten their groove on yet.

Here are three more big surprises after three weeks.

1. Lance Lynn and Kyle Lohse.
The Cardinals have withstood Chris Carpenter's injury and Adam Wainwright's slow start since these two guys have dominated. Lynn replaced Carpenter and, yes, he's faced the Cubs twice and the Pirates in three of his four starts. But he has allowed one run in each start and has an impressive 24/6 SO/BB ratio. Remember, Lynn was a first-round supplemental pick and a decent prospect coming up through the minors before excelling in the bullpen last season as a rookie. Actually, he's still a rookie. He has a good arm, he is a 6-foot-5 beast on the mound and there is a good chance he's a solid No. 3 starter. As for Lohse, I'll be honest: I didn't expect him to repeat last season's 3.39 ERA. He has kept his changeup down in the zone so far and hasn't allowed a home run, leading to a 0.99 ERA. Both have a chance of being middle-of-the-rotation starters ... or better, certainly more than the back-of-the-rotation guys I projected them as.

2. Jose Altuve
This little guy can rake. He's off to a .377 start, which is surprising enough, but the biggest surprise is the mature approach the 5-foot-5 21-year-old has shown at the plate. After hitting .389 between Class A and Double-A last season, the Astros called him in July. While he hit a respectable .276, he drew just five walks in 234 plate appearances, leading to concerns he would be exposed this season. But he has already drawn seven walks, and after swinging at 41 percent of pitches outside the strike zone as a rookie, that has dropped to 25 percent this season. He's a key reason the Astros are third in the NL in runs scored and playing respectable baseball -- they're 7-12 but have outscored their opponents.

3. Pirates pitching
OK, the Pirates are hitting .221 with a .269 OBP. But they're 8-10 behind a pitching staff that has allowed less than three runs per game. The Pirates have neither scored nor allowed more than five runs in a game. Can they keep it up? Even though the starters have a 2.59 ERA, I'm a little skeptical. The Pirates' 6.54 K's per nine ranks 25th in the majors. Their .256 BABIP allowed is third-best. Those two numbers are a bit at odds with each other. It should be noted we saw a similar result last year as the Pirates had a good run in the first half before collapsing. Still, give credit to the pitchers (and defense) for an amazing run of games.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

Of course, it's much more fun to overanalyze everything that goes on in the first few weeks of a baseball season. Albert Pujols has lost it! CC Sabathia's velocity is down! Matt Kemp is going to have the greatest season of all time! The Red Sox are terrible!

OK, maybe the Red Sox are terrible.

In this vein, Bill Baer of Crashburn Alley has a piece on not overreacting to early season sample sizes. He uses John Mayberry Jr. of the Phillies as an illustration, but his point holds true for nearly all players off to a cold start (or, in reverse, a hot starts: It's a small number of plate appearances to get worked up over. Here is an excellent graphic that shows the 10 qualified players with the lowest OPS through April last season; as you can see, all performed much better the rest of the season.

So, it's early. No need to panic or overreact.

Right, Red Sox fans?

Other stuff to check out:

• Philip Humber's perfect game is a reminder that the Mets still haven't thrown a no-hitter in their history. Since Humber is an ex-Met, DJ Gallo guesses which former Met will be next in line to toss a no-no.
• The Yankees scored seven runs in consecutive innings to rally from a 9-0 deficit on Saturday. Diane Firstman discovered that's been done before. She even found a fairly recent instance of a team scoring eight runs in consecutive innings.
• Speaking of that collapse, Chip Buck examines what went wrong. He also looks at the state of the bullpen and who the Red Sox could bring in or call up to help.
• It's Derek Jeter's New York City penthouse. Complete with books and telescope!
• The Kansas City Royals ... well, the title of this post says it all: "Surely something has gone right."
• The title of Joey Matschulat's post about the Rangers also says it all: "The (still) hottest team in the world."
• The Dodgers have Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier but could use more help on offense, especially in left field where Juan Rivera has gotten off to a slow start. Jon Weisman looks at prospects Alex Castellanos and Scott Van Slyke. Is either a possible fix for left field?
• Is it time to start drinking the Rockies Kool-Aid?
• Drew Hutchison debuted over the weekend for the Blue Jays and Callum Hughson files a report, saying Hutchison reminds him of former Twins starter Kevin Tapani.
• Is Kyle Lohse the real deal? He's allowed three runs through his first four starts.

Welcome to another Opening Day! SweetSpot blogger Dave Schoenfield and I joined forces for Thursday’s Baseball Today podcast, talking not only about the Cardinals beating the Marlins, but looking ahead!

1. Wow, is that a big ballpark in Miami or what? Dave and I talk about Josh Johnson, Kyle Lohse and how the Marlins seem ill-fitted for their new stadium.

2. Another day, another bit of news concerning the Boston Red Sox closer situation. By the way, producer Jay Soderberg doesn’t like the team’s chances this year.

3. The Washington Nationals demoted John Lannan to the minors. While we applaud the move, do veteran players deserve a team’s loyalty?

4. Other email questions dealt with where Albert Pujols should bat in the order, Starlin Castro’s future contract, and an entirely new way to build pitching staffs.

5. We look ahead to Thursday’s action, with Clayton Kershaw facing off against a potentially rejuvenated right-hander in San Diego, and whether we should be worried about Matt Kemp's poor spring training.

So download and listen to Thursday’s excellent Baseball Today podcast, because baseball is awesome and you can’t get enough!

There are few events in baseball more exciting than Opening Day. Or Opening Night. Er … let’s just go directly to some observations from the Cardinals’ 4-1 victory over the Marlins, ushering in Marlins Park in disappointing fashion for the home crowd onlookers.

• Kyle Lohse was brilliant, of course, taking a no-hitter into the seventh inning and reminding everyone of Bob Feller's Opening Day no-hitter. Lohse said after the game that the no-hitter "probably did cross my mind after the fifth inning." He doesn’t throw hard, keeping hitters off-balance with a little slider and a changeup that he kept at the knees at night. Lohse had the best season of his career in 2011, although there was some luck built into it: He allowed a .269 average on balls in play, well below his career mark of .302. There’s nothing in the numbers that suggests he was doing something different -- his ground-ball rate matched his career and his line-drive rate was actually 1.1 percent higher than his career mark. Everyone expects some regression in 2012, but his first start was more 2011. No walks on the night and through six he threw a first-pitch strike to 13 of the 18 batters he faced. Hitters should know Lohse will come right after them when the bases are empty. He walked only 10 hitters last season in 469 plate appearances with nobody on; with runners, he walked 32 in 306 plate appearances.
• Josh Johnson allowed 10 hits for only the second time in his career. While a few of the hits were bleeders and bloopers, he did leave some pitches over the middle of the plate. We can’t read too much into the start other than that he threw 91 pitches, avoided the blister issue that popped up in spring training and has his first start under his belt. Undoubtedly, he was pumped up pitching the first game in the club’s new park in his first start since last May. There's no reason not to expect better results moving forward.
• There was miscommunication in the early innings between Hanley Ramirez and Jose Reyes as both pulled up on Carlos Beltran’s little trickler, allowing the ball to roll into left field. In the sixth inning with two runners on and Lohse up in a bunt situation, Johnson made sure to step off the mound and talk with Ramirez. That stuff will sort itself out, but the Marlins’ defense is an issue to keep an eye on. The Cardinals legged out two doubles to Logan Morrison in left field on balls that weren’t really even in the gaps. As Orel Hershiser said during the broadcast, "A lot of scouts are writing notes down about the arm of Logan Morrison." It doesn’t help that Morrison is still battling a sore knee that kept him out most of spring training, but he was a liability out there in 2011 even when healthy. According to the defensive runs saved metric, Morrison was 26 runs worse than the average left fielder -- the worst mark in the majors (only Raul Ibanez was in the same vicinity) and a whopping 46 runs worse than Brett Gardner’s majors-leading 23 DRS. There is a lot of ground to cover in deep left-center and center in the new park. In Emilio Bonifacio, the Marlins have an inexperienced center fielder (only 29 games started there in his career entering the season). Chris Coghlan, their other center fielder, rated minus-13 runs in 2011, the worst figure in the majors.
[+] Enlarge
AP Photo/Lynne SladkyOpening night of the 2012 season found Kyle Lohse (26) looking a lot like his 2011 self.
• Giancarlo Stanton found out about those center-field dimensions, hitting two deep balls out there that were caught, a towering fly to the warning track in the fifth inning and a deep fly to right-center in the seventh that Jon Jay made a nice running catch on. It’s obviously too early to report on how the park will play, and it might play differently when the roof is open versus closed.
• Jason Motte threw some 99 mph smokebombs to finish it off. A bit of a step up from Ryan Franklin.
• For a while, Lohse had us thinking about the best Opening Day starts. Via Baseball-Reference.com, here are the best Game 1 starts since 1918:
  

  Walter Johnson, Senators, 1926: 111 (15 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 9 K)
  Lon Warneke, Cubs, 1934: 96 (9 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 13 K)
  Bob Veale, Pirates, 1965: 95 (10 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 10 K)
  Mel Harder, Indians, 1935: 95 (14 IP, 8 H, 1 R, 3 BB, 6 K)
  Johnny Vander Meer, Reds, 1943: 91 (11 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 5 BB, 3 K)

  
  Six pitchers scored a 90: Bob Feller twice (including his 1940 no-hitter in which he walked five and struck out eight), Tom Glavine, Bob Gibson, Clint Brown and Johnson again with a 13-inning effort in 1919. The best recent effort was Felix Hernandez striking out 12 in eight shutout innings in 2007. Camilo Pascual holds the Opening Day record with 15 strikeouts for the Twins in 1960. Randy Johnson twice fanned 14 for the Mariners.

Opening Night down. Opening Day up next. Good times have arrived.

Follow David Schoenfield on Twitter @dschoenfield.

The news that Chris Carpenter is “out indefinitely” is an ominous development for the St. Louis Cardinals, but should the reigning champs hit the panic button? With their rotation's strength -- even without Carpenter -- they don’t have to.

This is not to say losing Carpenter is something the Cardinals can shrug off easily. If the weakness in his shoulder is akin to what shut him down early in 2004 and helped him miss almost all of 2008, there’s cause for concern. But because of a strong farm system, they’re not without quality options.

The nicest way to think about the Cardinals’ predicament is that with Carpenter out, they’re essentially putting one ace on the shelf as their other ace is coming back from his own injury. Adam Wainwright’s back in action from Tommy John surgery and looking good as he gets in gear for the regular season. Wainwright spun five shutout innings against the Marlins on Friday afternoon -- striking out five. The lone walk he surrendered suggests the command troubles that so often afflict pitchers coming back from the procedure might be less of a problem for him.

Of course, spring stats don’t really mean all that much beyond the warm fuzzies they generate. The numbers that Wainwright will really have to replace are the 230-plus innings, 34 starts, and 21 quality starts Carpenter gave the Cardinals last season. That’s not the biggest challenge for Wainwright if he’s all the way back to full health and dealing the way he used to: He did manage 25 quality starts in 33 turns in 2010, after all.

The question is not whether Wainwright is good enough to replicate Carpenter's 2011 season, but what other question marks does the team have?

First, can Kyle Lohse keep doing what he did? Last year’s 3.39 ERA and 14 wins were a considerable improvement from the injury-marred 2009-2010 seasons. Projection systems like ZiPS (from Dan Szymborski of ESPN Insider) and PECOTA from Baseball Prospectus are both forecasting baseline projections with an ERA a full run higher. The good news? Well, he’s healthy, his 2011 FIP of 3.64 suggests he wasn’t that much outside of his possible range, and the Cardinals might boast stronger interior defense this year than last.

That brings us to Jake Westbrook, who’s coming off a fairly poor season by his standards. Here again, FIP suggests he was ill-served by ball-in-play outcomes. His 2011 ERQ was 4.66, his FIP 4.22. Give him the benefit of Rafael Furcal at shortstop and Daniel Descalso or Tyler Greene at second, and his ground-ball repertoire might lead to more outs in Lance Berkman's glove at first base.

But most importantly, there’s Lance Lynn, the still-promising prospect taking Carpenter's spot in the rotation. Lynn isn’t just some kid being thrown into the deep end -- according to Baseball America he was the organization’s sixth-best prospect before 2011, and his blend of a consistent low-90s fastball, hard sinker and power curve is the stuff good big-league starters are made of. Projections for Lynn suggest ERAs in the 3.80-4.10 range, and if that’s your last man, you’ve got a pretty good rotation.

It’s also worth remembering that last year’s Cardinals didn’t get everything right at first, even as they struggled to replace Wainwright. They indulged a long, and ultimately unsuccessful, experiment with Kyle McClellan in the rotation before trading for Edwin Jackson for the stretch run. It might be reductionist to say Lynn + an eventually healthy Carpenter is better than McClellan + Jackson, but it also has the advantage of being probably true.

Finally, there’s always the option of bringing up top prospect Shelby Miller who had a tremendous half season at Double-A last year. Miller already figures into the Cardinals long-term plans beyond 2012 -- after Lohse's and perhaps Westbrook's (the club has an option) contracts end.

While the Cardinals initially have to deal with the unfulfilled promise of having Wainwright and Carpenter in the rotation at the same time, they have the talent to succeed in the meantime. This is bad news for the champs, but it’s not the worst news. As they proved last year, they’ve survived this kind of setback as well as the failure of a Plan B. It won’t make things any easier, but there’s no reason to count them out.

Christina Kahrl covers baseball for ESPN.com. You can follow her on Twitter.

A bit of sarcasm was on display for Wednesday’s Baseball Today podcast, as Keith Law and I had a little fun talking about the great game of baseball!

1. KLaw discusses what he saw from Texas Rangers right-hander Neftali Feliz on Tuesday. Feliz lasted three innings before shoulder soreness forced his exit.

2. Meanwhile, I was able to observe Boston Red Sox right-hander Daniel Bard trying to avoid walks on Tuesday. Another converted reliever, KLaw shares thoughts on how this situation will end up.

3. Ryan Braun isn’t hitting this spring, and obviously the rumor mongers can’t get enough. Of course, Keith and I tell you the truth about Braun.

4. Big trade for the Royals! Big trade! OK, so acquiring Humberto Quintero and Jason Bourgeois doesn’t guarantee the pennant, but we discuss their impact, and the Royals' closing situation.

5. Emails and tweets galore! Among the topics are Mike Matheny’s living arrangements, the awful Houston Astros, sixth starters and Dusty versus Walt in Cincy.

So download and listen to Wednesday’s Baseball Today podcast, which includes a funny rant by Mr. Law. Don’t miss it.

The one big ramification of the initial Game 6 rainout is it gives Tony La Russa the option of starting Chris Carpenter on three days' rest in Game 7 if St. Louis wins on Thursday.

The Cardinals haven't announced a starter and that's not just a tactical decision. They need to win Game 6 first, and Jake Westbrook, Kyle Lohse and even Carpenter could be options out of the bullpen.

Assuming none of them appear in Game 6, who would you start? Here's a quick rundown to check out and then you can vote in the poll.

Chris Carpenter: As Buster Olney writes, Carpenter is 36 years old and has already thrown a career-high 267.1 innings. While Carpenter says his elbow is fine right now, he did have treatment earlier in the playoffs. He started Game 2 of the NLDS against the Phillies on three days' rest and lasted just three innings, allowing five hits and three walks. Overall, the recent outlook of guys starting on three days' rest in the postseason -- something they never do in the regular season -- is not good.

Kyle Lohse: He's made three postseason starts this year and has lasted just 12.2 innings, giving up 18 hits, 12 runs and four home runs. Opponents are hitting .321 against him. He struggled in July and August (5.71 ERA), but did pitch well in four September starts. The positive is that he's a good bet to throw strikes; the negative is he hasn't had a good start since Sept. 24.

Jake Westbrook: He's pitched just one inning in the postseason, a mop-up effort in Game 4 in which he threw one scoreless inning, giving up a hit and a walk. He hasn't started since Sept. 27, a game in which the Astros knocked him out in the third inning. Right-handers hit .316 off him this season. The Rangers would have six right-handers in their lineup. Seems like a long shot to me.

The wild-card option is La Russa not trusting any of the three and going with a bullpen game ... say, Fernando Salas to start, followed by Lance Lynn. Those guys could get you four or five innings between the two of them if they pitch well. Then you turn things over to Octavio Dotel, Marc Rzepczynski, Mitchell Boggs and Jason Motte. It's a possibility and one that I kind of like, but my bet is Lohse gets the start with Salas the first guy out of the pen (depending on Game 6 usage, of course).

Update: It's also possible, of course, that Edwin Jackson could start. The rainout would push him back to regular rest. Jackson walked seven in his Game 4 start, although escaped with just three runs over five innings. His starts in the NLCS were poor, as he he lasted a total 6.1 innings and allowed four home runs. He probably has more potential for a good start than Lohse, but also more risk for a disaster start.

What a World Series so far! For Friday’s Baseball Today podcast Mark Simon and me gathered to talk about how Game 2 was really won and many other pertinent matters surrounding the best sport.

1. Oh, those silly managers! Someone finally got to St. Louis Cardinals closer Jason Motte and the Texas Rangers turned it into a surprise win. Should Motte have been allowed to escape the mess he created?

2. Before Motte’s time, there was Allen Craig again beating Alexi Ogando, perhaps setting himself up to again play the role of hero. We also discuss the Rangers manager and his decisions.

3. Ian Kinsler’s stolen base was critical to the ninth-inning rally. Where does Kinsler rank among second basemen in the game today? You might be surprised.

4. Was this the last game in St. Louis? Mark and I give our predictions for the weekend, discussing the starting pitchers and how the offenses could be waking up. It’s time for Kyle Lohse and the Texas lefties!

5. We take your emails, re-examine the worst rotations to win a World Series and hear from some of the contributors to Thursday’s big win as well!

So download and listen to Friday’s awesome Baseball Today podcast, check out a few big games this weekend and come right back with us on Monday! Have a great weekend!

What would you do?

Kyle Lohse had cruised through five innings, allowing one run only because a dropped foul popup gave the Phillies an extra out. But two ground balls -- two ground balls with eyes -- put two runners on with one out and Ryan Howard digging into the dirt at home plate.

In the postseason, one at-bat can change a series. Every game, every inning and, yes, every out, can be vitally important. This was one of those moments. You could feel it, the fans at Citizens Bank Park could feel it, and I'm sure Tony La Russa could feel it.

What do you do? Lohse hasn't thrown many pitches but he has given you five-plus innings. Remember, this is Kyle Lohse we're talking about here, and, yes, he pitched well down the stretch. Your two lefties in the bullpen are the ageless Arthur Rhodes and the hard-to-spell Marc Rzepczynski. In the regular season, you leave in Lohse. But this isn't the regular season. It's Game 1 of the National League Division Series, and the team that has won Game 1 has won the series 47 of 64 times since 1995.

Oh, two more quick notes. Howard isn't the hitter he used to be. The guy who hit .313 with 58 home runs in 2006 doesn't exist anymore; Howard hit .253 with 33 home runs in the regular season. But he's still a scary hitter; 18 of those 33 homers tied the game or put the Phillies ahead. He is, however, far less scary against left-handed pitching: He hit .224 with just three home runs in 170 at-bats this past season. Second note: Howard doesn't hit power pitchers as well as finesse guys. According to data at Baseball-Reference.com, he hit .206 against power pitchers, .282 with more power against finesse pitchers.

Kyle Lohse is not a power pitcher. In fact, Howard was 8-for-16 with two home runs off Lohse in his career entering the game. Granted, a small sample size, but the way La Russa obsesses over his little black book, he had to have known that.

Maybe this is a moot second guessing: After all, La Russa didn't even have his bullpen warming up.

Lohse went after Howard. The count went to 3-2. Lohse kept throwing changeups. Howard fouled off one that was over the plate. On TV, Bob Brenly said Lohse should throw another changeup. In the Cover It Live chat, most readers were saying he should throw another changeup. Lohse threw a changeup.

Howard hit it so high and so far it must have drawn rain from the cloud hovering over Yankee Stadium.

It was a bad changeup, a 78 mph floater that hung over the middle of the plate instead of diving low and away. Howard didn't miss it. The point isn't that Lohse threw a bad pitch, however. You cannot let Howard beat you there with a finesse-throwing right-handed pitcher on the mound. If you want to leave Lohse in the game to face Shane Victorino, you're better off being as careful as possible and walking Howard. If not, why is Rhodes on the roster if you're not going to use him?

Two batters later, Raul Ibanez cranked another home run off Lohse. Needless to say, Roy Halladay wasn't going to give up a 6-3 lead. He had been dominant since Lance Berkman hit a three-run homer in the first inning on the one mistake he made all game. Yes, the game got out of hand from there, but it turned on that one decision.

For the Phillies, getting some big home runs from Howard is key to their playoff fortunes. Last postseason, in 33 at-bats, he was homerless and RBI-less. He struck out 17 times, including 12 times in the NLCS loss to San Francisco. So a hot Howard is certainly a good sign for the Phillies.

By the way, La Russa finally brought in Rhodes to face Howard in the eighth inning, after the score was 11-3. He grounded out.

Follow David Schoenfield on Twitter @dschoenfield.

It’s days like this that can get you upset with the sheer injustice of it all. Six months, 162 games, and it all might come down to ... a missed pitch or two? Whether you want to blame the pitcher or the catcher or both on a ball that comes loose and lets runners advance, well, that’s something best left to the official scorer, usually to nobody’s satisfaction. But on Saturday, the Braves and Cardinals, the two teams locked in a race to the finish for the National League wild-card slot, experienced each side of this simple misplay, by taking turns regretting or celebrating pitches that didn’t get caught. And now, because of that, the outcome of the race remains a concern with just four games to play.

The Cardinals benefited from more than a few errant deliveries from baseball’s reigning wild man, Cubs closer Carlos Marmol. Marmol is the man on the mound most capable of deciding everything at home plate, just not always in a good way, between his walking or hitting batters when he isn’t striking them out, giving up a gopher ball, or seeing the occasional offering hop away, through or off his backstop.

On this particular Saturday afternoon, Marmol failed in his fireman duties, instead delivering a hair-on-fire special that Wrigleyville has only become too familiar with, even with two outs and a one-run lead. But getting hung up on this kind of one-game reprieve distracts from the two things really worth keeping in mind about the Cardinals right now. First, Kyle Lohse followed Chris Carpenter’s Friday night gem with a great game of his own, which is easy to fix on, but these games are a perfect example of how good Cardinals starting pitching has been this month. If you define a quality start by runs allowed and not unearned runs -- you know, by paying attention to the scoreboard rather than the official scorer’s opinion of balls that didn’t get fielded -- the Cards’ front five starters have pitched six innings or more and allowed three runs or less in 15 of 21 games, which goes a long way toward explaining why the Redbirds are 15-7 this month.

The second thing worth keeping in mind is that while the Cardinals failed to scratch out a run against the immortal Rodrigo Lopez, you can be 100 percent certain they won’t have to see him on the mound in this or any October. One game’s just proof that, even with MVP talent in the lineup and a Hall of Fame manager in the dugout, sometimes you really just can’t predict baseball. Other than waning enthusiasm for Skip Schumaker that’s only a year or so overdue, there isn’t much you can complain about with the Cards’ offense down the stretch; it's cranked out 4.5 runs per game in September.

Atlanta’s ballgame was similar, in that the Braves also had to endure the indignity of taking a tough loss at the hands of a far-from-dominant retread, Chien-Ming Wang. But the outcome hinged so much on Brandon Beachy and Brian McCann missing on two pitches in the fourth inning that, if you’re a Braves fan, you have to be agonizing over them still. The second was the more damaging, since it moved both baserunners into scoring position, creating the situation in which both could score on Danny Espinosa’s soft single to left-center. That set up Espinosa’s steal, which set up Ivan Rodriguez’s two out intentional walk -- ordered up by Mr. IBB himself, Braves skipper Fredi Gonzalez -- a daisy chain of interdependent events that ended with the indignity of Wang’s RBI single to put the Nats up by four. Football might claim to be the game of inches, but for Beachy’s missing McCann’s glove just barely, it was baseball’s turn to see a team live and die in one game by the narrowest of margins.

These plays, the slightest of mistakes at even the best of times, get magnified because they happened now, when the sense of what’s at stake gets talked up and magnified. Because for one happy team there’s an invitation to a League Division Series at the end of the rainbow, getting to games that mean something, games that mean everything. For the other club, what awaits is a winter’s worth of hunting and club caravans, speaking engagements or -- heaven help them -- golf. These narrowest of margins are the difference between a shot at achieving history versus getting a couple of weeks' head start on the hobbies you’ll spend the rest of your life regretting.

Four games left, and two to make up. The Cardinals might still seem a long shot to make up the difference, but sometimes it’s only the odd inch or two or one man’s bad ballgame that makes all the difference. While the Braves take on the Phillies while hoping for some small measure of mercy from a division rival, the Cardinals have three games to play against the Astros after finishing their series against the Cubs on Sunday. Clearly, it ain’t over until it’s over.

Christina Kahrl covers baseball for ESPN.com. You can follow her on Twitter.

Here's my weekly look ahead, because I didn't get to it in Sunday night's Yankees-Red Sox diary.

SERIES OF THE WEEK

Milwaukee at St. Louis, Tuesday through Thursday

Tuesday: Shaun Marcum (10-3, 3.58 ERA) vs. Edwin Jackson (8-8, 4.11)
Wednesday: Randy Wolf (8-8, 3.61) vs. Kyle Lohse (9-7, 3.45)
Thursday: Yovani Gallardo (13-7, 3.56) vs. Jake Westbrook (9-5, 4.83)

Dayn Perry documents the Brewers' road woes in an ESPN Insider story, although they are coming off a three-game sweep in Houston. OK, that doesn't tell us anything. They are 8-6 in their past 14 road games, though.

Jackson will make his third start for the Cardinals. His outing last week against the Brewers was a disaster, as he allowed 14 hits, 10 runs and four home runs in seven innings. Lohse was 7-2 with a 2.13 ERA through May but has won just two of 11 starts since. He has pitched more than six innings just twice and has posted a 5.25 ERA in 60 innings with just 25 strikeouts in that span. Look for another quick hook on Wednesday.

For the Brewers, Gallardo has lowered his ERA from 4.08 to 3.56 in his past four starts, but two of those came against Houston and one against San Francisco. Ryan Braun has been more aggressive at the plate lately, hitting .373 in his past 16 games with eight doubles and four home runs but only two walks. Let's see whether the Cardinals attack him and whether he'll chase pitches out of the strike zone.

PITCHING MATCHUP OF THE WEEK

Wednesday: Rick Porcello vs. Ubaldo Jimenez, Detroit at Cleveland (Wednesday)

It's not a battle of Cy Young contenders but an interesting showdown in the AL Central. The Indians are four games back of the Tigers and could use a sweep of their three-game series in Cleveland. Unfortunately, they'll face Justin Verlander on Thursday, putting pressure on Jimenez and Justin Masterson to pitch well. Porcello has been a little better of late, as he's allowed three runs or fewer in six straight starts, although they've been more of the quality start-variety (six innings, three runs) and include several starts against weak offenses -- two against Kansas City and one each against Oakland, San Francisco, Minnesota and the Angels. Jimenez allowed five runs in five innings in his first start for Cleveland against the Rangers.

THREE SWINGS

1. Tim Lincecum stopped the Phillies' nine-game win streak on Sunday, but what a roll the Phillies have been on. With a 74-40 record, they're on pace for 105 wins, and ESPN Stats & Info reports that AccuScore's simulation of 10,000 seasons gives the Phillies a 22 percent chance of winning 108 games. Why is that significant? Only two NL teams have won 108 games since 1910 -- the legendary 1975 Cincinnati Reds and almost-as-legendary 1986 New York Mets, both of whom won 108. With a 3.06 team ERA, the Phillies have a shot to become the first team since the 1989 Dodgers to finish under 3.00. We'll wait a few weeks before comparing the Phillies to other great clubs, but it's worth noting that the '86 Mets finished first in the NL in runs and second in runs allowed; the '75 Reds were first in runs and third in runs allowed. The Phillies are first in runs allowed but seventh in runs scored.

2. It's great to see Stephen Strasburg back in action in a rehab start in Class A. How about this 2013 lineup for the Nationals?

2B Anthony Rendon
RF Jayson Werth
3B Ryan Zimmerman
1B Prince Fielder
LF Mike Morse
CF Bryce Harper
SS Danny Espinosa
C Wilson Ramos

Rotation: Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann, John Lannan, Brad Peacock (124 IP, 81 H, 38 BB, 152 SO in Double-A/Triple-A this year), and Veteran Free Agent To Be Named.

OK, I stretched all the position players defensively, but Espinosa should be able to handle shortstop without a hitch (he played there in the minors), and Harper has the speed and tools to handle center field. Prince Fielder? Nats fans can dream, right?

3. Since 1990, only 21 starting pitchers have allowed an on-base percentage of .260 or less. But four pitchers are doing it this season: Justin Verlander (.233), Jered Weaver (.247), Cole Hamels (.253) and Dan Haren (.255). Verlander's total would be the third-best since '90, trailing only Pedro Martinez in 2000 (.213) and Greg Maddux in 1995 (.224). Martinez owns five of the 21 seasons on the list, Maddux four. Johan Santana with three and Curt Schilling with two also appear multiple times.

RANT OF THE WEEK

I'm stealing this great note from our Stats & Information department, which compares Asdrubal Cabrera to Jhonny Peralta:

Cabrera: .289, .832 OPS, plus+1 defensive runs saved, 3.9 WAR (FanGraphs)
Peralta: .314, .873 OPS, minus-10 defensive runs saved, 3.8 WAR (FanGraphs)

Peralta has received about zero media attention for his great year, especially in comparison to Cabrera. Although Cabrera routinely shows up on Web Gems highlights, his overall defense is more league-average than spectacular. Peralta's stick has been slightly more valuable, however, with a .314/.357/.516 line compared to Cabrera's .289/.344/.488. The Tigers are in first place, and Verlander and Miguel Cabrera aren't the only reasons why.

Oh, and the best shortstop in the American League might actually be Yunel Escobar.

I did the Baseball Today podcast with Eric Karabell on Wednesday and randomly mentioned that Colby Lewis is one of the most important pitchers in baseball. He returned from Japan last season and was a huge key to the Rangers' World Series run, winning 12 games with a 3.72 ERA, finishing fifth in the AL in strikeout rate and then beating the Yankees twice in the ALCS and winning his only World Series start. This season, however, he's been up and down, with four starts of six or more runs allowed, but three with zero.

Anyway, after bringing up Lewis, Eric and I decided to each submit our list of the 10 most important pitchers in baseball. The best guys aren't on here; we know Roy Halladay and CC Sabathia and Jon Lester are good and that they just need to stay healthy. So our lists are more a sample of guys who need to keep pitching well or guys who need to step it up. Eric's list tended more to include guys currently pitching like aces; my list tended more towards guys who need to step it up, although we did end up with a few duplicates.

Eric's list
Edinson Volquez, Reds: His ERA is through the roof (5.65), but Dusty Baker chose him for Game 1 of the playoffs last year for a reason, and needs him to anchor the current staff if the Reds are to get back there.

Josh Beckett, Red Sox: Baseball’s ERA leader until Tuesday, if he reverts to his 2010 self this team is in trouble, because depth/health is already an issue.

Jhoulys Chacin, Rockies: He’s taken over ace duties from Ubaldo Jimenez, and better keep pitching well because no other healthy Rockies starter boasts a sub-4.00 ERA.

Shaun Marcum, Brewers: The real ace of the NL Central leaders so far, he’s dealt with a hip problem lately, and the team has lost six of his past seven starts.

Jaime Garcia, Cardinals: The young lefty has won once in eight starts, and one gets the feeling there’s only so long Kyle Lohse can keep his ERA at 2.78.

Erik Bedard, Mariners: He was placed on the disabled list Wednesday, but don’t panic. How the Mariners play in the next month will decide which contender Bedard pitches for the final two months.

Ivan Nova, Yankees: Since I can’t trust Bartolo Colon to stay healthy or Freddy Garcia to stay competent, Nova needs to pitch like the No. 3 starter he occasionally looks like.

Colby Lewis, Rangers: Lefty C.J. Wilson seems safe, but with Alexi Ogando blowing up it’s critical Lewis cuts down on the home runs and gives the Rangers' offense a chance.

Brandon Beachy, Braves: He’s a lot better than most people think, while touted arms Mike Minor and Julio Teheran just don’t seem ready.

Rick Porcello, Tigers: He’s third on the staff in wins, but you won’t win much when allowing 21 runs over your past 12 1/3 innings (three starts). The Tigers need Porcello to fix things.

Dave's list
Colby Lewis, Rangers: Home runs have been his problem as Eric wrote, as he's allowed an AL-leading 20, just one fewer than last season.

Clay Buchholz, Red Sox: The Red Sox have allowed more runs than the Yankees, so they need Buchholz to return from the DL and give them that solid No. 3 behind Josh Beckett and Jon Lester.

Kyle Lohse, Cardinals: Lohse isn't going to keep his ERA under 3.00, but with the bullpen in tatters, Tony La Russa needs him to keep soaking up innings ... and keep that ERA close to 3.00.

Edinson Volquez, Reds: Johnny Cueto has been really good lately, but the Reds need somebody else in the rotation to become a strong No. 2.

Fausto Carmona, Indians: He's 4-10 with a 5.89 ERA, including 1-7 with a 7.99 ERA over his past nine starts, and while that hard sinker is still there, the Indians can't afford to wait much longer.

Rick Porcello, Tigers: His ERA is 5.06, his strikeout rate is low, and with Phil Coke just demoted to the pen, the Tigers need second-half improvement from Porcello.

Bartolo Colon, Yankees: He's important precisely because he has been so good.

Ian Kennedy, Diamondbacks: If Arizona wants to stay in the NL West race, it needs Kennedy to keep pitching like the staff ace he's been, as he's third in the NL in innings pitched and has a 3.01 ERA (excellent for that ballpark).

Zack Greinke, Brewers: He's 7-3 but his ERA is 5.63; his strikeout-to-walk ratio is an excellent 80/12, so odds are that ERA will drop significantly in the second half.

Brandon Beachy, Braves: He's been so impressive in his 10 starts that suddenly the Braves need him to keep it up, considering their lackluster offense.

Follow Eric on Twitter @karabellespn and Dave on Twitter @dschoenfield.

James Shields’ big turnaround has been remarkable enough, but various interpretive metrics helped anticipate that better times were coming for the Rays’ workhorse after last year’s ill fortune. Shields’ league-leading 34 homers allowed were part of the problem, the product of a career-high ratio of home runs to fly balls of 10 percent.

As Jerry Crasnick noted, a big part of Shields’ ill fortunes were the product of defensive execution -- or the lack of it -- in his starts, producing his MLB-high batting average on balls in play (BABIP). At the same time, Shields was delivering an excellent strikeout rate, getting K’s on almost 21 percent of all plate appearances.

Those kinds of factors go into an interpretive metric developed by Matt Swartz and Eric Seidman published at Baseball Prospectus that does just a tiny bit better than xFIP in anticipating where a pitcher’s ERA should be headed. They invented Skill-Interactive ERA, which estimates ERA through walk, strikeout, and groundball rates. (That’s the short explanation, the full discussion ran in five parts last year.)

If, by looking at last year’s SIERAs relative to actual ERA, you had come up with a list of the 10 biggest differences between a SIERA lower than an ERA, Shields would have ranked third among all pitchers with 90 or more innings pitched -- an interpretive suggestion that he was due for better things in 2011. Shields’ 3.57 SIERA in 2010 gave you a better idea of what he was capable of doing going forward than did his 5.18 ERA, providing you with a better yardstick of where his actual skill level was.

With that in mind, who were the other nine pitchers on this list of expected success from looking at these low SIERA underachievers of 2010, and how are they faring this year?

Obviously, that bounce-back trio of Beckett, Lohse and Shields makes for an impressive group of guys who were supposed to do better, and have. You can add Nolasco and Correia to the list of happy comebacks so far, giving us a quintet that makes for a fairly solid argument that SIERA is a reasonable tool for anticipating future performance. Move into the 11th through 20th biggest differences between a pitcher’s SIERA and his ERA from 2010, and you add several more names from this spring’s most improved starting pitchers: Bud Norris, Jason Hammel, Justin Masterson, Aaron Harang and Chris Narveson.

However, there are also the guys not doing well, but they generally all come with reasonable explanations. Even if you allow for SIERA’s suggestion that he was due to come back some way, Bannister’s SIERA was still pushing 5.00, not exactly someone you race to go out and get. He signed with Yomiuri to play in Japan, but came back stateside after the March earthquake and is currently on the NPB’s restricted list as a result.

Moving down the list, Morrow is coming back from an early-season elbow problem that put him on the DL, while Parra is still on the DL. Like Bannister, Rowland-Smith’s difference between his ERA and his SIERA was big, but still wound up suggesting he wouldn’t be someone you’d want; sending him back to the PCL if you were the Astros seems eminently reasonable. The closest thing to an outright miss so far is Ely; he was crowded out of the Dodgers’ rotation, although he didn’t help himself by getting bombed in his one start, forcing him to make that wrong turn back to Albuquerque.

Where statheads don’t do themselves any favors when talking about the results of these kinds of metrics and evaluating what went wrong for these pitchers in the past is by haphazardly ascribing this sort of turnaround to "luck." The data for all of these pitchers represents symptoms of a failure to execute -- failure from the pitchers themselves, and/or their fielders -- and not just random chance. Beckett and Lohse were dealing with injuries; now they’re healthy and able to deliver something closer to their career numbers.

Shields wasn’t going to be able to just throw his glove back out there this spring and expect that things would just get better because the data said it would -- that his luck would simply turn.

Instead, as Crasnick’s piece reveals, Shields worked with his team to proactively change his mix of pitches, using his curve more often as well as earlier in his batter/pitcher confrontations. By working actively to change their fortunes, these are pitchers creating a good measure of their own success.

Christina Kahrl covers baseball for ESPN.com. You can follow her on Twitter.