After the first week of the new campaign, the Cardinals find themselves perched atop the NL Central and tied for the best record in the majors with the Brewers at 5-1. If that weren’t unexpected enough, the reason for their success is even more unlikely: their starting pitching.

With four of their starters on the shelf — Chris Carpenter, Mark Mulder, Joel Pineiro and Matt Clement — the team has opened with a rotation of sometime relievers Adam Wainwright, Kyle Lohse, Todd Wellemeyer, Brad Thompson and Braden Looper. Yet the less-pedigreed pitchers have held their own; indeed, they have combined to lead the league in starter ERA thus far:

As we’ve been pointing out, the starters are pitching well, but perhaps not that well. Here’s a look at their FIGS (Fielding-Independent Game Scores):

Those aren’t stellar individual scores — the Pirates’ Ian Snell, for example, registered a 78 FIGS with his 10-strikeout performance Sunday. But they have been consistent. And they are still good enough collectively to put the Cardinals fifth in the league in average FIGS:

This isn’t to take anything away from the Cardinals’ starters, nor to suggest that they won’t continue their winning ways. Indeed, although the group may be pitching better than expected, given their careers, they cannot be said to be the beneficiary of any particular "luck"; the team’s Defensive-Efficiency Ratio (DER) behind its starters — .714 — is only slightly above-average (.699 for all pitchers in the NL). Perhaps they’ve enjoyed a small park advantage, but it’s too early to tell. As the Cardinals set out on their first road trip, beginning in Mickey Mouse Park — which, by the way, has become somewhat less of a pitcher-killer in the last few years — the staff will face two anemic offenses in the Astros (.224 GPA through Saturday) and the Giants (.210; league average is .249 so far), so the true tests may have to wait another week. For now, though, the team and its fans have to be pleasantly surprised by its underestimated rotation. The question, if they keep it up as the others get healthy, will be whether the replacements in waiting will prove to be better than the "fill-ins."

Oh, and in honor of the team’s strong starting performances, we’ve unveiled our humble new Calculators page, which features a little FIGS calculator (hat tip: the guy behind this). Hopefully, the Cardinals will continue to give us reasons to enjoy using it.

This entry was posted by Pip on Sunday, April 6th, 2008 at 11:01 pm and is filed under analysis. 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.