On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
a Cooperstown inductee.

After starting the season in Memphis, Boggs was quickly called up to the majors when Chris Carpenter went on the DL on April 15. He pitched one game in relief, then took four turns in the starting rotation from April 25 to May 14. He began with a bang in his first two starts, shutting down the Cubs with three strikeouts and one walk over 5 2/3 innings, then struck out nine Nationals five days later. But he walked seven over nine innings of his next two starts and returned to Memphis. Overall, though, he improved his control in his sophomore season, lowering his BB/9 from 5.8 to 5.1 and increasing his K/9 from 3.4 to 7.1. He later made a couple of returns to fill in for Todd Wellemeyer and Kyle Lohse when those pitchers went on the DL and impressed enough down the stretch to earn a spot on the team’s playoff roster, edging out veterans Wellemeyer and Brad Thompson … Despite a respectable 4.19 ERA, had a bloated 4.67 xFIP.

When the Cardinals re-signed Lohse to a four-year, $41-million extension before the 2008 season ended, it seemed like a good deal to some at the time. In the midst of rotation uncertainty, the team gained a known quantity in the unspectacular but solid and, most importantly, healthy righthander (John Mozeliak cited "his age and his durability" as reasons). But with Scott Boras representing him, Lohse got the better end of the deal in the first year as he posted a 4.48 xFIP and only 0.8 WAR, worst since his rookie year. He felt a pop in his right knee and had an MRI after an awkward play at first base on April 23, but it was a strained forearm that put him on the shelf. He injured it May 23, but didn’t go on the DL until he reinjured it, perhaps trying to come back too soon on June 3. He returned a month later but was ineffective the rest of the year … Lost some effectiveness on his changeup, his best pitch, down from 2.90 to 1.81 runs above average per 100 pitches … After his cousin died in an accident this summer, Lohse marked his initials in the mound dirt each time out … The mixing up of the final letters pronounced in his last name is an example of metathesis in linguistics.

Following Todd Wellemeyer, whom we’ve cited in this space for his three-true-outcome pitching propensity, in the rotation, Joel Pineiro took the mound against the Mets and pitched to contact. A lot of it. Pineiro got the Mets to put the ball in play, but kept it in the park, facing 30 batters en route to the team’s 5-2 win Wednesday.

It was an intriguing performance, given that Pineiro had such little apparent control over the outcome of the game. He struck out none and walked only two. With two-seam fastballs and changeups (in 2009, Pineiro is throwing his changeup more than twice as often as he did in 2008), Pineiro induced 17 ground balls en route to a team defensive-efficiency ratio of .786. It was a seemingly amazing 93.3% balls put in play. So how unique a feat was it?

Well, courtesy of BRef, here is a list of Cardinal players since 1954 who faced at least as many batters as Pineiro and had an even higher percentage of balls put in play (of total batters faced):

If nothing else, it’s a fascinating list of stars (Morris, Tudor, Gibson) and also-rans (Lary Sorensen, Lynn McGlothen and Tom Poholsky). It’s amazing that three Cardinal starters have had pitched a game in which every batter put the ball in play. So Pineiro still has a ways to go to top the venerable Jim Kaat (who, incidentally, was a similarly nimble fielder at his position), who faced 36 Pirates back in 1980. But at least the Cardinals won Pineiro’s game: Kaat allowed two one-out singles in the 10th inning at Three Rivers Stadium, then induced a ground ball. But the Cardinals couldn’t turn a double play and the runner scored from third. Sometimes, a strikeout is indeed better than a ball in play, and it’s better to be good than lucky.

With the baseball action at the 2008 Olympic games now underway, featuring Cardinal-related players like Rheal Cormier, Stubby Clapp, John Gall and Brian Barden, we felt a patriotic duty to comment on the ridiculous rules concocted for what can only be called "Beijing ball."

The International Baseball Federation (IBAF) announced shortly before the Olympics began that it would use an extra-inning tie-breaker format for all contests that are tied after 10 innings:

Beginning with the 11th inning and each inning needed thereafter, base runners will be placed on first and second base with no outs … To begin the 11th inning, representatives from each team will meet at home plate and will indicate (at the same time) to the home plate umpire where the team wishes to begin the batting order. That is, the teams have the option of beginning the 11th inning anywhere in the existing batting order that was in effect when the 10th inning ended. Note that this is not a new lineup (just potentially a different order), and it may very well be the same lineup that ended the 10th inning. The rationale for doing so is to ensure that both teams have an equal chance at having what theyconsider to be their best hitters and base runners in a position to score in the 11th inning.

Yeah. IBAF president Harvey Schiller rationalized the move by saying that "We must demonstrate to the international Olympic Committee … our sport is manageable from a television and operational standpoint." So that’s it, is it? We’d be tempted to believe Dr. Schiller if extra-inning games were a problem, but at the 2004 Olympics, no baseball match even went more than nine innings. The reality is that much of the European representation on the Olympic committee simply doesn’t want baseball (hat tip: BaseballGB), and therefore no amount of appeasement is going to work. That’s fine, as far as it goes: No need to throw pearls to swine.

But the Olympics have already dropped baseball for the 2012 games in London, so the IBAF could at least have gone out with some dignity. Perhaps Schiller was an unwitting dupe and that he truly believes that "Extra-inning contests … make it difficult in the context of the Olympic program. Delays cause scheduling and logistical nightmares. Planned security, transportation, drug testing, broadcasts, and entertainment are just a few of the activities that may be seriously affected." We’ll play along for the sake of argument. Presumably, the purpose of the new rule is to end games as quickly as possible after 10 innings have been played. In that case, though, why choose to have runners at first and second? The best way to ensure a change in game state — that is, the score — would be to begin the half-innings with the bases loaded (all states assume no outs and a tie score). Let’s look at win expectancy:

It would take more complicated math (which we have neither the time nor brain for) to "double-compute" win expectancy given two varying states — the visiting team and the home team. And it’s not an insignificant consideration that, as one BTF commenter observes, "the away team cannot play for just one run since that is not guaranteed to win and their optimal strategy is to play for somewhat more than one run. The home team has the advantage of knowing how many runs they need to score and can tailor their strategy accordingly so should have an advantage. Usually this will be to play for just one run." Still, the win-expectancy data should take this into account. It seems reasonable to assume that the higher the possibility of one team scoring runs, the higher "volatility" the game has in terms of ending within one inning. As it stands today, the decision to have runners on first and second seems rather arbitrary, given that the bases-loaded option would give the best results, from a quick-end perspective, anyway.

An additional concern would be to make sure that whatever concocted game state is chosen does not unfairly yield an advantage to one team (namely, the home team). Interestingly enough, that might be the best argument for manipulating the extra-innings endgame, since the real rules of baseball tend to confer an "extra-inning advantage" to the home team, as calcuated by the difference between the visitor’s win expectancy in the top of the inning and the home team’s expectancy in the bottom:

In that case, the most equitable scenario would be to begin with the bases loaded, since the difference between the visting team’s WE and the home team’s is most minimal (84.9% for the visitors, 90.4% for the home team).

So in the final analysis, the IBAF didn’t even mess up the rules right (it sounds like the perfect fit for a Bug Selig career move). Then again, if it gives Stubby Clapp a chance to play some more, well, it may not be baseball, but who can complain, right?