RetroSimba

How Cards’ mystery man nearly derailed Phils’ 1980 title run

May 24, 2013 by retrosimba

On their way to a World Series championship, the 1980 Phillies got sidetracked by a Cardinals rookie pitcher whom Dallas Green, Philadelphia’s tough, savvy manager, called “the mystery man.”

Al Olmsted, a left-hander and St. Louis native, baffled the Phillies with his screwball during a pair of September starts.

Another rookie left-hander, John Martin, who pitched for three minor league teams in 1980, joined Olmsted in the Cardinals’ starting rotation in September and impressed general manager Whitey Herzog as a pitcher “just wild enough to be good.”

With John Gast and Tyler Lyons, the 2013 Cardinals are the first St. Louis team to use two rookie left-handed starting pitchers in the same season since Olmsted and Martin in 1980.

Olmsted was chosen by the Cardinals in the 13th round of the 1975 amateur draft out of Hazelwood East High School in suburban St. Louis.

After a muscle tear in his left arm decreased his velocity, Olmsted developed a screwball. In 1980, he was 13-9 with a 2.93 ERA in 25 regular-season games combined for Class AA Arkansas and Class AAA Springfield (Ill.). Olmsted also earned two wins in Springfield’s four-game sweep of Denver in the American Association championship series.

The Cardinals rewarded him with a promotion to the big leagues that September.

On Sept. 12, 1980, Olmsted, 23, made his major-league debut, starting against the Phillies in the second game of a doubleheader at Philadelphia. Facing a lineup that included dangerous hitters such as Pete Rose, Mike Schmidt, Greg Luzinski and Lonnie Smith, Olmsted held the Phillies scoreless for 9.1 innings before he was relieved by Jim Kaat.

The Cardinals scored five runs in the 11th and won, 5-0. Boxscore Olmsted didn’t get the decision but proved he belonged in the majors.

“I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I’d be,” Olmsted said to United Press International. “I just wanted to go out there and throw strikes and not embarrass myself. I wasn’t really awed by anybody. My job was to make good pitches and have them hit the ball at somebody.”

Eleven days later, Sept. 23, Olmsted started against the Phillies again, this time at St. Louis. He was pitching on two days’ rest as a substitute for Bob Forsch, who left the team to attend the funeral of his mother.

Olmsted shut out the Phillies for the first six innings, extending his scoreless streak against them to 15.1 innings. He went 8.1 innings, yielding three runs and earning the win in the Cardinals’ 6-3 victory. Boxscore

The loss was a crusher for the Phillies, who fell a half-game behind the Expos in the National League East. The Phillies were 82-68 with 12 to play. Two of their last four losses in a 10-game stretch were in games started by Olmsted.

“(Olmsted) doesn’t throw that many strikes, but he gets us out,” Phillies manager Dallas Green said to United Press International. “He’s a mystery man. But you’ve got to give him credit. He’s figured out how to do it and 82 other pitchers haven’t.”

Said Pete Rose: “(Olmsted) knows what he’s doing. He knows he’s not gong to blow a fastball by anybody. Pitchers with slow stuff like that usually give us a lot of trouble.”

Red Schoendienst, the Cardinals’ interim manager, compared Olmsted with Fred Norman, the former Cardinal who went on to become a fixture in the Reds’ rotation, and said Olmsted “gets the ball where he wants it.”

Said Olmsted: “I hope I’m not a mystery man forever.”

Olmsted made five starts for the 1980 Cardinals and posted a record of 1-1 with a 2.86 ERA.

Like Olmsted, John Martin spent most of the 1980 season in the minor leagues. A 27th-round choice of the Tigers out of Eastern Michigan in the 1978 draft, Martin was pitching for Class AAA Evansville (where his manager was Jim Leyland) when Detroit traded him and outfielder Al Greene to the Cardinals for outfielder Jim Lentine on June 2, 1980.

The Cardinals assigned Martin to Springfield. Soon thereafter, he broke his foot. After he healed, he was sent to Arkansas. He had a 3-3 record and 4.15 ERA in 25 games combined for Evansville, Springfield and Arkansas when he received a surprise promotion to the Cardinals.

Martin’s big-league debut with St. Louis was as unexpected as his call-up. On Aug. 27, in a game against the Astros at St. Louis, Cardinals starter John Fulgham was lifted after one inning when his shoulder stiffened. Martin relieved, limited the Astros to a run in seven innings and earned the win in a 10-2 Cardinals victory.

Martin made 109 pitches. He retired 13 in a row during one stretch. Boxscore

“It caught me off guard,” Martin said to the Associated Press of being called into the game in the second inning. “It didn’t give me time to think about it.”

Said Cardinals catcher Terry Kennedy: “He never really gave them anything good to hit. I think he can compete here. I liked his aggressiveness.”

Martin, 24, made his first start on Sept. 6, in the second game of a doubleheader at Houston, yielded a grand slam to former Cardinals outfielder Jose Cruz and took the loss in the Astros’ 6-4 victory. Boxscore

In the season finale, Oct. 5 at St. Louis, Martin pitched his first complete game and got the win in the Cardinals’ 3-2 triumph over the Mets. Martin pitched a seven-hitter and retired the last 10 batters in a row. Boxscore

Whitey Herzog, the Cardinals’ general manager, said of Martin, “He’s got a good arm. He’s just wild enough to be good.”

In nine games, including five starts, for the 1980 Cardinals, Martin was 2-3 with a 4.29 ERA.

After the 1980 season, the Cardinals traded Olmsted to the Padres in a package for pitchers Rollie Fingers and Bob Shirley and catcher Gene Tenace.

Martin was 17-14 in four seasons with the Cardinals before he was sent back to the Tigers in August 1983.

Previously: How the Cardinals’ deal for Ozzie Smith almost fell apart

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How Ted Simmons got ejected after belting a home run

May 22, 2013 by retrosimba

In the time it takes to circle the bases, Ted Simmons experienced the high of hitting an improbable home run and the low of being ejected.

The incident 35 years ago symbolized the frustrations of the 1978 Cardinals.

In April 1978, after a 6-11 start, the Cardinals fired manager Vern Rapp. A confrontation with Simmons prompted Rapp’s departure. After the Phillies had defeated the Cardinals, 3-2, in 10 innings on April 15 at St. Louis, Simmons turned up the music on the clubhouse stereo in an attempt to loosen a tense atmosphere. Rapp, thinking Simmons was unconcerned about the defeat, argued so loudly with Simmons behind closed doors he could be heard calling his catcher “a loser.”

Though Rapp eventually apologized for his words, he had lost the respect of many Cardinals players, who saw Simmons as a leader who played to win.

Ken Boyer, the former Cardinals third baseman, replaced Rapp. At first, the Cardinals performed better, getting within two games of .500 at 14-16.

Then they nosedived, losing 13 of 14 and falling to 15-29 overall.

Meanwhile, their main rival was rolling. The Cubs were in first place in the National League East Division and carrying a six-game winning streak when they faced the Cardinals on May 27, 1978, at St. Louis’ Busch Stadium II.

Other than Simmons, the Cardinals were being carved up by Cubs pitching that Saturday night.

Simmons had doubled in the fourth off Cubs starter Dennis Lamp. With the Cubs ahead 2-0, Simmons led off the seventh with a triple to center off Lamp. Keith Hernandez drove in Simmons with a ground out.

Frustrated by the losses and with the strike zone of Paul Runge, Simmons had been jawing with the home plate umpire all evening. “(Simmons) seemed to be uptight through most of the game,” Runge said to the Associated Press. “Before the seventh inning, I was joking with him and telling him to relax. There was something working on him.”

In the ninth, the Cubs turned to closer Bruce Sutter to preserve the 2-1 lead. Sutter, 25, was in his third big-league season and already was the kind of dominant reliever who four years later would lift the Cardinals to a World Series championship.

Sutter entered the game with a 1.52 ERA and six saves in 18 appearances.

The first batter he faced in the bottom of the ninth was Simmons.

Batting left-handed, the switch-hitter crushed an 0-and-2 pitch from Sutter for a home run, the only one of his career against Sutter, tying the score.

As he stepped on home plate after rounding the bases, Simmons tipped his cap to Runge and, according to the umpire, said, “Take that.”

“He definitely showed me up, but he didn’t cuss me,” Runge said. “It was a perfect opportunity for him and he took the opportunity.”

Runge tossed Simmons. With their big bat out of the lineup, the Cardinals were weakened. The Cubs scored a run in the 11th and won, 3-2, sending St. Louis to its 14th loss in 15 games and extending Chicago’s win streak to seven. The Cardinals filed a protest with the National League, arguing that Simmons shouldn’t have been ejected.

“I think this has been happening, or brewing, over a long period of time, but unless you call an umpire a name, he (Simmons) shouldn’t be kicked out,” Boyer said to the Associated Press. “We think very strongly that umpires ought to be fined, suspended or reprimanded, just like players.

“The only job (Runge) had was to see if (Simmons) touched the plate. I don’t think that the average fan knew they were having words before. Teddy never once turned around.” Boxscore

Three decades later, in an interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, baseball writer Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said the ejection of Simmons remained memorable.

“Teddy was not in agreement with Paul Runge’s strike zone,” Hummel recalled. “They had a little debate about balls and strikes. Then Teddy hits a home run to tie the game and as Teddy steps on home plate he is ejected.

“That’s one of my favorites. Home run and gone.”

Previously: The story of how Ted Simmons became a Cardinal

Posted in Games, Hitters, Opponents | 2 Comments »

Ozzie Smith still tops NL shortstops for durability

May 20, 2013 by retrosimba

Twenty years after he established the gold standard for consistency and durability at his position, Ozzie Smith still holds the National League record for most games played at shortstop.

On May 22, 1993, when the Cardinals took the field at Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium against the Pirates, Smith set the National League record of 2,223 games played at shortstop, breaking the mark held for eight years by Larry Bowa. Before Bowa, the National League record had been held for more than 50 years by Rabbit Maranville. Boxscore

Afterward, Smith told Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “It’s a record that’s been there a long time. You have no idea when you start out that you’ll be able to achieve it. It’s an honor.”

Smith achieved the record by overcoming a serious shoulder injury in 1985 that restricted his throwing. Smith chose to let the injury heal naturally rather than undergo surgery. Remarkably, he led National League shortstops in games played in 1985, with 158.

“I had a torn rotator cuff (in 1985),” Smith told Hummel in May 1993. “People don’t talk about that much. I’m proud of (overcoming) that. I thought Mother Nature was the best way to handle it.

“For a while, I knew that I was going to have only one long throw a day. You had to kind of position yourself so you could get the ball over there, but at the same time not make it so far that you were going to hurt yourself for the rest of the day. I battled around that pretty well.”

Smith also topped National League shortstops in games played in 1980 (158), strike-shortened 1981 (110), 1987 (158) and 1989 (153).

Smith played in the major leagues from 1978-96 for two National League clubs: Padres (four years) and Cardinals (15 years).

He finished his career with 2,511 games played at shortstop, ranking him fourth in big-league history. The three ahead of him played either exclusively or primarily in the American League.

The only National League shortstop who might be a threat to challenge Smith’s record is the Phillies’ Jimmy Rollins, 34. But he still hasn’t reached 2,000 games played.

The top 10 in big-league games played at shortstop:

_ 1. Omar Vizquel, 2,709 games. Vizquel performed in the major leagues from 1989-2012. Just four of those years were spent in the National League (with the Giants).

_ 2. Luis Aparicio, 2,581. Like Vizquel, Aparicio is a Venezuelan. In 18 seasons in the big leagues, all in the American League (with the White Sox, Orioles and Red Sox), Aparicio never played a position other than shortstop.

_ 3. Derek Jeter, 2,531. Of the shortstops in the top 10, Jeter is the only one who played even one game for the Yankees. Jeter has been with them since 1995. He once appeared a cinch to overtake Aparicio and Vizquel to become the all-time leader in games played at shortstop. But an ankle injury has kept him from playing this season. The Yankees have said they expect Jeter, 38, to return after the 2013 All-Star Game.

_ 4. Ozzie Smith, 2,511. Like Aparicio, Smith never played a position other than shortstop in the major leagues. He won a Gold Glove Award in 13 consecutive years (1980-92) and led National League shortstops in fielding percentage eight times.

_ 5. Cal Ripken, 2,302. He spent his entire big-league career with the Orioles (1981-2001). Ripken led American League shortstops in fielding percentage four times. After shifting to third base, he led the league in fielding percentage at the hot corner in 1998.

_ 6. Larry Bowa, 2,222. Bowa played his whole career in the National League, with the Phillies, Cubs and Mets (1970-85).

_ 7. Luke Appling, 2,218. He spent his entire big-league career (1930-50) with the White Sox. When he retired, Appling held the major-league record for most games played at shortstop. Six years later, Aparicio became the White Sox starter. It was Aparicio who supplanted Appling atop the career games played list at shortstop.

_ 8. Dave Concepcion, 2,178. Another Venezuelan, Concepcion played his entire career with the Reds (1970-88).

_ 9. Rabbit Maranville, 2,153. A National League shortstop from 1912-35, Maranville was the starter for the 1928 Cardinals pennant winners. He also played for the Braves, Pirates, Dodgers and Cubs.

_ 10 Alan Trammell, 2,139. He spent his entire major-league career with the Tigers (1977-96). Though his prime years overlapped with Ripken, Trammell won twice as many American League Gold Glove awards at shortstop (four) as Ripken (two) did.

Royce Clayton, who replaced Smith as the Cardinals’ starting shortstop, ranks 16th on the career big-league list for games played at shortstop, with 2,053.

Garry Templeton, whom the Cardinals traded to the Padres for Smith in February 1982, ranks 20th on the career list for games played at shortstop, with 1,964.

Edgar Renteria, the starting shortstop for the Cardinals’ 2004 pennant winners, ranks 12th on the career list for games played at shortstop, with 2,114.

Previously: How the Cardinals’ deal for Ozzie Smith almost fell apart

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How Cardinals rookie Dick Hughes struck out 13 _ and lost

May 18, 2013 by retrosimba

As Cardinals rookies, Shelby Miller and Dick Hughes each delivered a dominant strikeout performance that stands out for its artistry and drama.

That’s where the similarities end.

On May 10, 2013, Miller nearly was perfect against the Rockies at St. Louis. He yielded a single to the game’s first batter, Eric Young, retired the next 27 in a row, struck out 13 and earned the win in the Cardinals’ 3-0 victory.

Forty-six years earlier, on May 30, 1967, Hughes was perfect for seven innings against the Reds at Cincinnati. Then a string of bad breaks and bizarre plays occurred. Hughes struck out 13 in eight innings but took the loss in the Reds’ 2-1 victory.

Hughes established the Cardinals’ single-game rookie strikeout record. Five years later, it was matched by Scipio Spinks. (Spinks struck out 13 Mets in the first game of a doubleheader on June 25, 1972, at New York’s Shea Stadium. He earned the win in a 7-1 Cardinals victory Boxscore.) Forty-one years later, Miller became the third Cardinals rookie to achieve the feat. Boxscore

Much has been expected of Miller, 22, since the right-hander was chosen by the Cardinals in the first round of the 2009 amateur draft.

Few expected Hughes to be a rookie sensation. The right-hander spent nine seasons (1958-66) in the minor leagues. His vision was 20-75 in one eye; 20-300 in the other, according to The Sporting News.

In 1966, Hughes turned around his career by developing a slider and a no-windup delivery. He got his first call to the big leagues by the Cardinals in September 1966.

Hughes, 29, opened the 1967 season in the Cardinals bullpen. He joined the starting rotation in May, swapping roles with Al Jackson.

Five days after pitching a two-hit shutout in the Cardinals’ 5-0 victory over the Braves in Atlanta Boxscore, Hughes was paired against Reds ace Jim Maloney at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field.

The start of the game was delayed 1 hour, 35 minutes by rain. Unfazed, Hughes retired the first 18 batters in a row. Then play was halted another 55 minutes by rain.

Hughes retired the Reds in order in the seventh, keeping his bid for a perfect game intact. But the second delay had been damaging.

“My slider was not going where I wanted it to and, after the rain stopped the game (after the sixth), I began relying on my fastball.” Hughes said to the Associated Press.

Said Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst: “The delay in the game by rain took a little of the edge off Hughes.”

With the Cardinals ahead 1-0, Tony Perez led off the eighth for Cincinnati. Carrying a 16-game hitting streak, Perez swung at a 3-and-2 fastball and lofted a high fly to center. The ball hit off the wall at cozy Crosley for a 380-foot triple “that would have been an easy out in any other park,” The Sporting News reported.

With the perfect game bid ended, Hughes focused on trying to preserve the lead. He struck out Deron Johnson for the first out. Vada Pinson was the next batter.

Wrote The Sporting News: “Pinson tried to duck from a high pitch which he later confessed he never saw and, presto, he had a bloop, score-tying double to short left.”

Pinson’s fluke double plated Chico Ruiz, who had pinch-run for Perez, tying the score.

Hughes issued an intentional walk to Johnny Edwards, trying to set up a double play. But Leo Cardenas followed with a single, scoring Pinson and giving the Reds a 2-1 lead. Edwards advanced to third on the play but Cardenas was thrown out at second, trying to stretch the single into a double.

Maloney was due up next. Rather than lift him for a pinch-hitter and turn to a closer in the ninth, manager Dave Bristol opted to let Maloney bat. The pitcher ended the inning with a fly out.

Fortunately for the Cardinals, Maloney was tiring. Orlando Cepeda opened the ninth with a single. Tim McCarver followed with another single, sending Cepeda to third.

Bristol lifted Maloney and brought in Don Nottebart. A right-hander, Nottebart had taken the loss the night before when he yielded a run-scoring, 11th-inning double to the Cardinals’ Julian Javier. Boxscore

Now he would be facing Phil Gagliano, subbing for third baseman Mike Shannon, who was sidelined because of a viral infection.

Gagliano swung at Nottebart’s first pitch and grounded sharply to Cardenas at shortstop. Cepeda should have raced for home. Instead, he hesitated.

Cardenas fielded the grounder and flipped to second baseman Tommy Helms, forcing McCarver. Helms relayed a throw to first baseman Deron Johnson, completing the double play.

On Helms’ throw, Cepeda broke for home. Johnson spotted him and fired the ball to catcher Johnny Edwards, who tagged out Cepeda.

Triple play. Game over.

“Something, eh?” an astonished Bristol said to the Associated Press. “First time I ever threw my cap into the stands.

“I sent Nottebart in to pitch, hoping he would throw a low ball for a grounder. He sure did.” Boxscore

Hughes finished with a pitching line of 8 innings, 3 hits, 2 runs, 1 walk and 13 strikeouts. He struck out Helms three times and Perez, Cardenas and Maloney twice each. Hughes also held Pete Rose hitless, stopping Rose’s 25-game hit streak.

“If it hadn’t rained, we never would have got a hit off Hughes,” Chico Ruiz said. “Hughes was just great.”

Check out this recent interview with Dick Hughes by Corey Noles of The Daily Statesman.

Previously: Will Shelby Miller, Trevor Rosenthal make rookie history?

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Shelby Miller connects with Bob Gibson, Ray Washburn

May 16, 2013 by retrosimba

With the Dodgers’ Sandy Koufax having retired, Bob Gibson of the Cardinals entered the 1967 season ready to claim the role of best pitcher in the National League.

Ray Washburn, meanwhile, just was trying to stay healthy enough to keep a spot in the St. Louis rotation.

In consecutive games against the first-place Reds in early May 1967, Gibson and Washburn showed they were up to the tasks, each pitching a two-hit shutout.

Back-to-back shutouts by Shelby Miller and Adam Wainwright against the Rockies on May 10 and 11, 2013, represented only the second time since 1920 that Cardinals starters had shutouts of two hits or fewer in consecutive games, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. The others who did it were Gibson and Washburn.

Miller pitched a one-hitter in the Cardinals’ 3-0 victory over the Rockies on May 10, 2013, Boxscore and Wainwright followed with a two-hitter in another 3-0 St. Louis triumph over Colorado on May 11, 2013. Boxscore

Gibson and Washburn both were weakened by flu-like symptoms when they pitched their consecutive two-hit shutouts against Cincinnati, The Sporting News reported.

“Maybe that’s what it takes to pitch two-hitters, a couple of colds,” Gibson said.

The first-place Reds entered the two-game series at St. Louis with a 15-5 record. The Cardinals were 9-7 and four games behind.

Gibson was paired against another hard thrower, Reds ace Jim Maloney, in the opening game on May 2, 1967.

To generate more bat speed against Maloney, Cardinals third baseman Mike Shannon switched from a 39-ounce bat to a 33-ounce model, according to the book “El Birdos” (2007, McFarland). In the fifth inning, after the Cardinals loaded the bases on walks to Roger Maris, Orlando Cepeda and Tim McCarver, Shannon hit a three-run double off Maloney.

That was plenty of support for Gibson, who nearly was unhitttable that night. In a stretch from the first to third innings, Gibson struck out six in a row (Vada Pinson, Pete Rose, Tony Perez, Deron Johnson, Don Pavletich and Tommy Helms).

Pinson got the Reds’ first hit, a leadoff double in the fourth, and Leo Cardenas got the last, a two-out single in the fifth. The Cardinals won, 5-0, and Gibson, who struck out 12, became the first pitcher in the major leagues that season to reach four wins. Boxscore

Said Reds manager Dave Bristol of Gibson: “He looked to me like he was throwing hard and I didn’t even have a bat in my hands.”

At 31, Gibson was near his career peak. In his book “Stranger to the Game” (1994, Viking), Gibson wrote of the 1967 Cardinals:

I was clearly the veteran of the Cardinal pitching staff, the only starter with any appreciable experience except for Ray Washburn, who was still trying to work his way back after blowing out his arm in 1963. He would never regain his speed entirely but eventually learned to work with what he had, which provided a useful lesson for our young starters (such as Larry Jaster and Steve Carlton).

I warmed up to the role of elder statesman and demonstrated my paternalism toward the young staff by bestowing nicknames on most of them. I called Washburn “Deadbody” because he moved as if every last particle of life had been sucked out of him.

Washburn, 28, was seeking his first win of the season when he faced the Reds and their veteran starter, Milt Pappas, on May 3, 1967. Washburn held the Reds to a pair of two-out hits _ a fourth-inning single by Rose and a fifth-inning single by Chico Ruiz.

Shannon again delivered the key hit. In the fourth, after Maris reached on a bunt single and Cepeda doubled, Pappas issued an intentional walk to McCarver with one out, hoping to induce the next batter, Shannon, to ground into a double play.

Instead, Shannon punished Pappas by hitting a single to right, scoring Maris and Cepeda. The Cardinals won, 2-0, in a game played in 1 hour, 40 minutes. Boxscore

Previously: How Cardinals placed a team called Marlins in West Virginia

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Rick Ankiel vs. Shelby Miller: Cards’ past meets present

May 14, 2013 by retrosimba

Shelby Miller was a 9-year-old in Texas when Rick Ankiel was drawing raves across the National League as a strikeout artist in his rookie season as a starter for the 2000 Cardinals.

On Wednesday night, May 15, 2013, Miller, the Cardinals’ present phenom, will confront his counterpart of the past, Ankiel, when St. Louis plays the Mets at Busch Stadium III.

Ankiel, 33, is a Mets outfielder, his pitching career evaporating by 2004 because he suddenly lacked both confidence and command. Miller, 22, is developing into a force as a Cardinals starting pitcher.

(Updated: On May 15, 2013, Ankiel was 1-for-2 against Miller. Ankiel singled and popped out. Against reliever Seth Maness, Ankiel hit a two-run home run.)

When Miller struck out 13 Rockies on May 10, 2013, the right-hander became the first Cardinals rookie to achieve at least 11 strikeouts in a game since Ankiel in 2000.

Ankiel struck out 11 four times as a rookie, twice doing it before his 21st birthday. Here is a look at those performances:

_ Cardinals 7, Marlins 6, at St. Louis, May 25, 2000: Ankiel earned his fourth win of the season, striking out 11 in 6.2 innings.

The effort was controversial because Ankiel threw 121 pitches. Scott Boras, Ankiel’s agent, said he believed the Cardinals had agreed to limit Ankiel to 100 pitches a game.

Ankiel, who was averaging 4.25 walks per game, didn’t yield a walk to the Marlins. He struck out the side (Preston Wilson, Derrek Lee and Alex Gonzalez) in the second inning and did it again (Danny Bautista, Cliff Floyd and Wilson) in the fourth. Boxscore

_ Indians 3, Cardinals 2, at St. Louis, June 4, 2000: Six of the Indians’ first seven outs were on strikeouts. Ankiel struck out 11 in five innings and walked none, but was lifted after reaching 98 pitches.

“I had a lot of strikeouts, but I really wasn’t going that well,” Ankiel said to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Ankiel struck out the side (Alex Ramirez, Jolbert Cabrera and Jim Brower) in the second and did it again (Sandy Alomar, Richie Sexson and Ramirez) in the fourth. Boxscore

_ Cardinals 12, Astros 1, at Houston, July 21, 2000: Two days after turning 21, Ankiel struck out 11 in seven innings and improved his record to 7-5. Ankiel struck out Craig Biggio twice and Lance Berkman once.

“He’s got an electric arm,” Astros slugger Jeff Bagwell told the Post-Dispatch.

Said Cardinals manager Tony La Russa: “Sometimes it’s hard to remember how young he is. With him, it’s all about command. His stuff is so good.” Boxscore

_ Cardinals 9, Pirates 5, at Pittsburgh, Sept. 13, 2000: In the last game the Cardinals would play at Three Rivers Stadium before the Pirates moved into PNC Park, Ankiel struck out 11 in 6.2 innings, earning his ninth win of the season.

Ankiel struck out the side (John Wehner, Mike Benjamin and Adrian Brown) in the second. Wehner struck out three times against Ankiel in this game.

Pirates manager Gene Lamont said of Ankiel: “The ball explodes out of his hand. He’s going to be one of the best pitchers we’ve seen in a long time.”

Said La Russa: “I’d love for him to get the Rookie of the Year (Award) because those nine wins do not reflect how well he’s pitched. He’s learning to pitch. He’s not just out there throwing.” Boxscore

Less than a month later, Oct. 3, 2000, Ankiel, a surprise starter in Game 1 of the National League Division Series against the Braves, walked six and threw five wild pitches in 2.2 innings, triggering the downward spiral that led to the end of his pitching career. Boxscore

One cannot help but wonder what Ankiel must be thinking as he watches Shelby Miller embark on a path that appears as promising as Ankiel’s once did.

Previously: Rafael Furcal cost Rick Ankiel Rookie of Year Award

Posted in Games, Pitchers, Prospects, Records | Leave a Comment »

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