Everyone is atwitter (pun mostly intended) about David Freese’s performance Thursday afternoon. But the stat that most people are quoting is the Cardinal rookie third baseman’s six runs batted in; some even are noting that it’s the most RBIs for a rookie since 1925*. That’s admirable as far as it goes, but many people now realize that RBIs are largely a dependent on game circumstance and teammates. In other words, RBIs contain some noise.

As far as counting stats for creating runs go, we prefer runs created. So here are the top batting performances by a Cardinal rookie (using the current criteria of no more than 130 AB or 45 days on the roster before Sept. 1):

*Wonder how they learned that?

Tony La Russa revived the old pitcher-hits-eighth tactic Tuesday, and Brendan Ryan, the ninth-place hitter, started the winning rally. Almost as importantly (to us, at least), Ryan also happened to surpass former teammate and fellow shortstop Cesar Izturis for the most plate appearances as a non-pitching starter batting ninth (in non-DH games):

Most of the top 10 are Cardinals, of course; one notable exception is Joe DeMaestri. You’ve heard of him, right? Oh, you haven’t? He was the main ninth-place hitter for the 1957 Kansas City Athletics, who employed the tactic in 56 games, the third-greatest single-season pitcher-hits-eighth effort:

In fact, those A’s were the culmination of a mini-movement in the 1950s toward the approach: during the decade, 10 different organizations (Orioles, White Sox, Red Sox, Yankees, Senators, Indians, A’s, Cardinals, Pirates, Giants) had someone other than the pitcher start in the nine spot. The 1955 Yankees even batted their pitcher seventh in a handful of games.

In any case, the 2010 Cardinals, despite featuring the all-time ninth-place hitter, won’t be able to match their team record, set in 2008. They can make a valiant effort, though: Including Wednesday’s game, they now have two games in which the pitcher hit eighth; if they keep it up, they’ll finish with 143.

The Cardinals got away with less than perfect play again Tuesday night, edging the Braves 5-4. Their defense and starting pitcher repeated the blase performances of the previous game.

It looked like "another one of those nights" in the second inning when Brendan Ryan botched a forceout. With Troy Glaus on first, Jason Heyward grounded softly up the middle. Ranging across the diamond past second base, Ryan fielded the ball and prepared to tag the oncoming Glaus, who braked, causing Ryan to panic and throw to first. Glaus then resumed his run to second, beating Albert Pujols’s throw. Perhaps Ryan was being greedy in trying to keep the double play alive, but he should’ve simply tagged the lead runner. The dodgy defense continued when the next batter, Melky Cabrera, lined a single to center and Colby Rasmus spiked the throw home into the dirt behind second base.

After consecutive double-digit-strikeout starts, the only thing that Chris Carpenter missed was the strike zone, racking up three walks among the 25 batters he faced, while getting only five swinging strikes (four strikeouts total). But again, a home run — this one from Ryan Ludwick — awakened the team from its funk, almost like the signal for Batman to save them from their malaise, and the Cardinals pulled another win from a seeming loss.

Other notes:

• Carp appeared to pitch timidly to Chipper Jones. Looking at the head-to-head numbers, it’s understandable: Jones has a .500 OBP/.350 GPA against the Cardinal righty (though cleanup man Troy Glaus has a .343 GPA).
• With runners on the corners and one out in the fourth, Carp benefited from a wide strike-three call to McLouth to neutralize the Braves’ threat.
• If Albert Pujols gets more than Ryan Howard in his next contract, it won’t (or shouldn’t) be because of his baserunning acumen. Pujols is aggressive, yes, but to a fault: He has a bad habit of trying for third base on the second out, and was nearly nabbed in the fourth inning when he waited for Chipper Jones to throw out Holliday before dashing to third. He made it (barely), but it was a reckless decision, and fans shouldn’t reward it with unthinking cheers.
• La Russa batted the pitcher eighth for the first time this season, and who sparked the winning rally? None other than Brendan Ryan, batting ninth. Memo to TLR: The tactic works; keep it.
• Yunel Escobar made another fine play in the field, robbing Yadier Molina of a hit in the second. For all the trouble he gives Bobby Cox, he’s a solid and underrated shortstop: He’s one of the top five in the league in fielding, and his hitting — currently at .245 wOBA — will regress to his career level (.346).
• Colby Rasmus was victimized by a wide strike-three call for the second night in a row (caught looking with a runner on third in the fourth).
• La Russa was lucky he didn’t have to go to extras. Ryan Franklin was the only reliever left, and he was only technically available, having pitched the last two days. Perhaps now we know what role Aaron Miles (career xFIP: 6.48) will play when he is recalled.

The Cardinals beat the Braves last night in a two-act play: The first act was a tragic, sad sequence of scenes that foreshadowed a damp, scuttling loss and the unexplained demise of its protagonist, Kyle Lohse. But the second act opened with a thrilling soliloquy by Colby Rasmus and climaxed with a bit actor upstaging the regular hero.

After missing their marks on the base paths — Albert Pujols got caught watching his first-inning clout that didn’t make it out and compounded his error by trying to reach second base, and an ill-fated double steal in the second killed off more win expectancy — and Lohse meandering around the strike zone, the Cardinals appeared destined for a long denouement, even as late as the sixth inning. It was almost as though the Braves, sensing the foregone conclusion, became complacent and started swinging earlier in the count, hoping for a quick finish to a rain-dotted 3-0 win. But their luck wouldn’t break for a big inning, and thus what seemed like an insurmountable deficit the Cardinals incrementally cut into, starting with Pujols’s groundout and then by a round-tripper by Rasmus, the team’s most-productive hitter, which awakened the team to the possibility of a win. Bryan Anderson, getting a pinch-hitting appearance (before extra innings!) picked up for the struggling Brendan Ryan with a two-out double to tie the game in the seventh.

Other notes:

• To his credit, Pujols didn’t make the same mistake twice and hustled out of the box each of his subsequent at-bats.
• On Hudson’s infield chopper up the middle in the third inning, Brendan Ryan appeared to yield to Skip Schumaker, who in addition to not having the range or arm of Ryan was moving away from first. Ryan needs to take some leadership on the infield and go for everything possible. He may be slumping at the plate, but he can make up for it in the field.
• Before Reyes got into trouble and ended up facing Heyward in the eighth, we wondered whether La Russa would leave him in to start the ninth (and face the Atlanta lefty). Despite his wildness (he allowed two walks), Reyes took the mound in the ninth, albeit only as a formality to force Bobby Cox to pinch hit for the lefthanded Nate McLouth.
• With a runner on third in the fourth inning, Martin Prado kept hustling to back up Hudson on throws back from catcher Brian McCann. Does McCann have a Mackey Sasser problem, or is Prado merely exceptionally diligent?
• The MLB.com dispatch included the phrase "The rally made a winner of reliever Dennys Reyes…" Seriously? What is forcing people to write like this these days?

We pointed out on Friday that Colby Rasmus was excelling in the art of the Three True Outcomes. That got us thinking about the TTO in a more general sense. Bill James once noted that the importance of defense is waning; that is, the amount of plays that involve fielders is declining as a percentage of total plays. That trend continues, with about 30% of plate appearances resulting in one of the three true outcomes (home run, walk or strikeout), whereas once only about 5% of plays were TTO, meaning that the defense was involved in 95% of the action. Here’s the graph of baseball’s TTO rate since 1871:

So what has accounted for the many-fold rise in TTO rate? Here’s a breakdown by outcome:

We expected home runs and strikeouts to combine for the uptick, but in reality, the principal thing that has pushed the TTO rate up has been strikeouts. Indeed, the "Two True Outcome" (no strikeouts) rate has been relatively unchanged for more than 100 years:

So it would appear that strikeouts are not necessarily an attendant consequence of hitting home runs. Now whether the increased strikeout rate is because of better pitching or worse hitting is a subject outside the scope of this post, as well as the ken of this writer.

Back to defense for a moment: As Seattle Sports Insider wrote a couple of years ago, "as we get more interested in defense …. ironically, defense continues to affect the game less." Also ironically, defense has gotten better over the same period:

Interestingly, however, defensive efficiency has been declining a bit since a peak period between roughly 1942 and 1972. But the combination of a still relatively high DER and a all-time high in TTO% begs the question: What is the best type of hitter to be in the major leagues today? What will it be in five years?