St. Louis Cardinals: The rotation is gargling on exhaustion

St. Louis Cardinals manager Mike Matheny hurled insinuation recently that the Cardinals All-Star catcher was “tired.” Perhaps Matheny was looking at the wrong side of the battery.

Let’s get this out of the way immediately, Yadier Molina was not “tired” as Mike Matheny implied. Let’s also admit that the recent eight-game winning streak by the St. Louis Cardinals was fun. But, having disclosed both of the above, can we agree that the starting rotation seems to be gargling on exhaustion?

Can we agree that perhaps what Matheny insinuated about Yadi was misplaced and fits better on the mound?

Here are some numbers to support this idea. First, we know that Matheny is a horrible manager and cannot- despite his years behind the plate- manage the pitching side of things. Second, I firmly believe that Derek Lilliquist is a fine pitching coach but that Matheny wants only “yes” men on his staff and thus Lilly stays quiet. And, finally, third, the numbers support that the rotation arms are wearing down.

Brace yourselves: I’m going to insert some lengthy tables here so you can have a look at the rotational arms and their degradation over as the St. Louis Cardinals season has progressed. From the likes of Adam Wainwright and Mike Leake sputtering of late, to Michael Wacha‘s lack of lengthy appearances, and even to Carlos Martinez‘s numbers here lately.

First up, let’s look at Lance Lynn who has been the most consistent arm in the rotation.

Notice that Lynn ballooned early but then raised his value by both solidifying his game and his numbers in the comfortable 3.00 ERA range. Surely the St. Louis Cardinals are happy with this fact. Noting these things, let’s move Lynn to the side as an outlier.

Another somewhat outlier is Carlos Martinez. Here’s a look at his St. Louis Cardinals games chart:

Notice how Martinez, like Lynn (and like most pitchers in MLB), saw his ERA plateau and hover around the 3.50 mark. This illustrates what we would expect to see from an MLB pitcher: a rising ERA that finds its way to its resting point.

Outside of these two names, the St. Louis Cardinals rotation has been shaky at best.

What the rest of the rotation shows, however, is that Mike Matheny has ridden them into the ground evidenced by either too many innings pitched (or its inverse: not being able to pitch deep into a game), or via their rising ERA and other statistics.

Let’s take a look at Michael Wacha first.

Notice that Wacha had a lengthy stretch wherein he couldn’t muster more than four innings. This cannot be a thing in a MLB rotation without hurting the bullpen (which we all saw happen).

Wainwright, we all know, has been very similar to Wacha but have a look at his chart:

Is Waino done? Perhaps not with pitching but it might be wise to have him transition to a different role.

Mike Leake is in the same or similar boat. Here’s his game log: