When you pitch like that, you look like an ace to me.

– Bobby Cox on Adam Wainwright

When they leave the ballpark the night before knowing it’s his turn to pitch, his teammates get excited about coming back the next day. They know they have a chance to win.

– TLR

He’s a stud. He’s a flat-out stud. He’s a young guy with a great arm. He’s not intimidated by anyone. It’s really fun to play behind him, because you know every time he’s out there, you have a legitimate chance to win the ballgame.

– Ryan Ludwick

We mentioned two starts ago that Wainwright was the de facto ace of the team now. But statistics aside, the feeling in the clubhouse is perhaps just as important an indicator of whether a pitcher is an ace. It sounds like Wainwright qualifies.

Several writers are picking up on Wainwright’s second-half surge. We’ve never been a big fan of stats by small sample, such as what "Wainwright has done in his past 14 starts: an 8-4 record with a 2.87 ERA," as Bernie Miklasz explains; at any given point in the season, most pitchers can string together a good run. Beside, with so much noise involved in statistics like Wins and ERA, it’s salutary to look at something more representative of the pitcher himself. One of the traits that the best pitchers in the league — Peavy, Webb, Penny, Oswalt and Smoltz — share is a low HR rate on the season:

The encouragement we find in Wainwright’s and the Cardinals’ particular recent success is that it happens to occurring at the end of the year, rather than the beginning, thus signaling improvement rather than regression. Like last year, the team may be saving its best for last, which is the name of the game in this postmodern playoff environment.

I don’t think anybody has a clue what a remarkable job he’s done, whatever happens the rest of the year. The transformation is amazing. It just doesn’t happen like this. He’d never thrown 200 innings in a season, I’m sure. It’s a very remarkable, under-the-radar feat to attempt. From afar, for somebody who used to be a teammate, it’s pretty impressive to watch.

– John Smoltz

For the record, Wainwright’s innings high was 184 in 2005 (184 at AAA-Memphis, two with St. Louis). Wainwright’s "transformation" hasn’t been overnight, though. Smoltz perhaps remembers the 22-year-old Wainwright who pitched well enough at AA-Greenville in 2003. It was actually after he was traded to the Cardinals that he had some difficulty, seeing his HR and walk rates climb in 12 games with Memphis in 2004. But he returned to his sub-1.00 HR rate and sub-3.00 walk rate in 2005 before dominating as a reliever in his rookie MLB season. Perhaps Smoltz’s comments reflect a possible organizational coverup of Wainwright’s potential. But a former #1 draft pick (in 2000) and #2 top organizational prospect (in 2005) could hardly be considered "under-the-radar."

Everything he does he does way better than me. So it’s going to be tough for me to compare myself to him. But where I like to try to compare myself to him is mentally. He’s worked on me mentally a lot. He’s helped me a ton with the mental aspect of baseball. If I can think and be confident on the mound like he is, then I’m pretty happy.

– Adam Wainright on Chris Carpenter

Countless minor-league pitchers (and number of major-leaguers) have "big-league stuff." Yet only a precious few possess the mental acumen to be the best. It’s a credit to Wainwright — and to the Cardinals, for recognizing it — that he’s humble enough to take instruction. Carpenter’s an awfully expensive pitching coach, though, which makes the Pirates’ acquisition of Matt Morris, of whom Wainwright reminds us quite a bit, look a little more comprehensible. Speaking of Matty Mo, let’s look at his and Wainwright’s career stats at the age of 26, which Wainwright turns this Thursday:

Remarkably similar. With a hammer curveball like Wainwright’s, Morris would set his career-high in strikeouts with 185 in his Age-26 season the following year, then taper off. Wainwright may not become a strikeout pitcher, either, but he surely has a chance to outstrip Morris’s success with the Cardinals. He’s already had a better start, and remember, Morris had already undergone Tommy John surgery at that point in his career. And if Wainwright continues to assimilate the wisdom of Carpenter, he could be better than both of them. Curiously enough, Morris’s #1 similar pitcher is, you guessed it: Chris Carpenter.

I think this is my best outing up here. You can’t worry about the win or loss, you’ve just got to worry about making every pitch count.

– Jo-Jo Reyes

With a fine 3.23 DERA Sunday, Reyes — whose first name tops "Kip" in requiring a certain level of testosterone to pull off — did indeed have his best outing. And we commend him for not worrying about his record, though things looked like they were going well for enough him through the first four innings to pick up the "W." So it turned out that Jojo was a man who thought he was a winner, but he knew it wouldn’t last.

Get back, Jo-Jo. Go home.

This entry was posted by Pip on Monday, August 27th, 2007 at 2:56 pm and is filed under quotebook. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.