Sports Column | Les Winkeler: Catching up with former Cardinals - The Southern

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Sports Column | Les Winkeler: Catching up with former Cardinals - The Southern

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Former outfielder Jim Edmonds is blossoming in his color commentator role on St. Louis Cardinals baseball telecasts.

The former centerfielder is succinct, has a self-deprecating sense of humor, brings a vast array of baseball experience, is a good storyteller and is not afraid to offer frank criticism of the team. But, most importantly for the purpose of this column, I am totally aligned with his baseball philosophy.

Jack Flaherty, who is widely regarded as the most talented pitcher on the Cardinals roster, started a recent game. He had surrendered just one run, but had amassed 75 pitches going into the fifth inning, something Edmonds noted as the first batter came to the plate in the fifth.

Flaherty got ahead of the right-handed hitter 0-2, but then threw the next two pitches outside the strike zone. Yadier Molina had to backhand the second pitch in the left-handed batter’s box. That set Edmonds off.

“That pitch served no purpose,” Edmonds said correctly.

Citing former Cardinals’ ace Chris Carpenter, Edmonds said at least 15 of the pitches Flaherty had thrown were “non-competitive” in Carpenter’s nomenclature.

In ancient baseball history, pitchers would throw a “waste” pitch or two when ahead in the count 0-2, the idea is to get the batter to swing at a “pitcher’s pitch.” That philosophy is still adhered to today, although pitchers don’t nibble at the strike zone. Their “waste” pitches are so far outside the strike zone that no hitter with of modicum of discipline will offer at them — “non-competitive pitches.”

Edmonds was probably close to correct in his estimate that Flaherty had thrown 15 “non-competitive” pitches out of 75. Think about that.

In today’s baseball, a pitcher, particularly a young promising pitcher, rarely throws more than 100 pitches in a game. A “quality start” is considered pitching six innings without yielding more than three runs. I think that standard is ridiculously low, but that’s a column for another day.

Edmonds didn’t say this, but it’s an also an important part of the “non-competitive pitch” equation. After watching two pitches well outside the strike zone, the advantage now shifts to the hitter. The guy standing there with the bat knows the onus is now on the pitcher to throw strikes.

The hitter can now look for his pitch.

Baseball has always been a numbers driven game, now more than ever. It’s a given that the best hitters fail 66 percent of the time. So, why shouldn’t pitchers facilitate that failure rate? And, by eliminating all the “non-competitive” pitches, perhaps pitchers won’t hit that 100-pitch mark until the seven inning or later.

And, Edmonds also commented on today’s hitting philosophy.

At one point in the game the Cardinals put a runner on second with nobody out. Tyler O’Neill came to the plate and struck out, swinging, at a ball in the lower outside corner of the strike zone. As is prevalent in today’s game, O’Neill took a hefty cut at the ball.

“He’s got to find a way to put that ball in play,” Edmonds said correctly.

Although Edmonds never said the words “situational hitting,” he talked about just that. In today’s world of launch angle and exit velocity, that borders on heresy. Yet, the pitch O’Neill struck out on is the kind of offering Ozzie Smith or Molina would flick to the opposite field.

Of course, there is no guarantee making contact will result in a hit, but it’s virtually certain a strikeout in that situation will do nothing to advance the runner.

All I can add is, “Preach Jimmy, preach.”

LES WINKELER is the former sports editor of The Southern Illinoisan. Contact him at les@winkelerswingsandwildlife.com, on Twitter @LesWinkeler.

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2021-04-16 00:30:00Z
https://thesouthern.com/sports/sports-column-les-winkeler-catching-up-with-former-cardinals/article_614bde46-4453-5824-94ca-dac9485cd0a6.html

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