The 2009 MLB Draft pays off for St. Louis Cardinals

The 2009 Major League Baseball draft is showing its dividends for the St. Louis Cardinals. So is the 2012 draft, mainly in the form of one Michael Wacha, but that’s another story for another day.
Oct 7, 2013; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Michael Wacha throws a pitch against the Pittsburgh Pirates in game four of the National League divisional series playoff baseball game at PNC Park. Image Credit: H.Darr Beiser-USA TODAY Sports
Monday afternoon’s pitching consisted of Michael Wacha, Carlos Martinez, and Trevor Rosenthal. Not a single one of these players are 25 years old and they were pitching in an elimination game for the Cardinals. Until Pedro Alvarez hit a home run in the eighth inning, Wacha had a no-hit bid going.

In throwing a no-hitter into the start of the 8th inning, the Cardinal rookie became the first pitcher to have consecutive no-hit bids of 7+ innings since Dave Stieb did so for the Toronto Blue Jays in 1988…and Wacha was only in college during the first half of 2012.

Furthermore, his 7.1 no-hit innings set the new record for the longest by a rookie during the postseason. The previous record belonged to Jeff Tessreau of the New York Giants in 1912. He had a no-hit bid last 5.1 innings.

Here are some tweets that Yahoo! Sports baseball writer Jeff Passan tweeted this afternoon:

That last one is pretty important. The 2009 draft consists of Shelby Miller, Joe Kelly, Matt Carpenter, Trevor Rosenthal, and Matt Adams. That’s hard to believe. Adams has stepped it up over the last month with Allen Craig not able to play.

Passan later wrote an article singing the Cardinals praises for their young pitching. It certainly helps that Cardinals veteran pitcher Chris Carpenter has been on hand to support his teammates.

From Sports Illustrated writer Joe Sheehan:

This just proves the power of the Cardinals organization and the Cardinal Way.