Cardinals Season Hinges on Pitching

The St. Louis pitching staff featured one of the game's best 1-2-3 punches last year, and that was enough to pave the way to the postseason. This season, though, begins with lots of unanswered questions, and most of them center on the team's two aces and a new No. 3 starter.

Foremost, can starter Chris Carpenter continue to deal the way he did in 2009? Carpenter earned the National League's Comeback Player of the Year award, but he also threw lots of pitches. That's a red flag for any power pitcher, but it's especially noteworthy for Carpenter, whose multiple arm surgeries leaves one to wonder whether he might break down due to injury or fatigue. Those injuries limited Carpenter to 21 combined innings in 2007 and 2008. Then he threw 192 innings in 2009. Certainly, he showed few signs of wear. Carpenter finished with a 17-4 record and limited opposing batters to a .226 average.

The second question regards whether staff ace Adam Wainwright will show the wear and tear of throwing lots of pitches during the 2009 season. Wainwright tossed 233 innings and posted a 19 wins, a 2.63 earned run average and 212 strikeouts. All were career highs. Incredibly, Wainwright got stronger as the season moved along. He had a 3.58 ERA on Jun 21 and lowered in 13 straight starts in July and August.

The hope among Cardinals' brass is that both Carpenter and Wainwright continue to throw well and avoid injury. If that does not come to pass, the decision St. Louis made regarding the No. 3 starter spot might prove even more crucial to the team's overall success. Last season, the Cardinals went with Joel Pineiro, and he reclaimed the form that made him a top pitcher in the American League early in his career. Pineiro rarely gave up the long ball, and that kept St. Louis in a lot of games. His value is, perhaps, masked by his team's inability to produce enough runs to earn Pineiro the win. The Anaheim Angels, though, recognized his value and gobbled up Pineiro during this winter's free agency period.

To fill the hole, St. Louis purchased some insurance by signing free agent right-hander Brad Penny, who joins the club after starting 30 games during a 2009 season split between Boston and San Francisco. But will Penny produce as he did for a San Francisco team that signed him for $100,000 late in the 2009 season? Or will he be the pitcher whose struggles resulted in no team offering to match his Boston salary after the Red Sox waived him last August?

It's an important question, perhaps the most important for this year's Cardinals squad. Everyone expects lots of success from the top two hurlers in St. Louis, but the No. 3 spot might determine whether the Cardinals fight for a playoff spot or fall back into the also-ran category.

The 31-year-old Penny demonstrated last season that he's healthy enough to contribute to a team's success, but he's a much different pitcher than his predecessor. Pineiro allowed just 11 home runs in 214 innings and struck out only 105 batters. Penny, meanwhile, allowed 22 home runs in only 172 innings with 109 strikeouts. Essentially, Pineiro is the type of careful worker who limits bad pitches, keeps the ball down, hits spots on the corners of the plate and does well enough to give teams a chance to win. Penny is more susceptible to a bad night, but he's also capable of producing the kind of gem that could give the Cards a 1-0 or 2-1 victory.

But Penny's success ultimately hinges on his health and his consistency. Penny suffered a serious arm injury midway through the 2004 season and spent much of the 2008 season struggling with injuries and control issues. Then, after starting strong in Boston, Penny imploded, finishing his tenure with the Red Sox with a 4-inning, 8-run effort against the Yankees on Aug. 21. It was a strange slide for a guy who was 6-2 in his first 13 starts for Boston, and it appeared that he might have a difficult time earning a starting pitching assignment elsewhere. Then San Francisco snatched Penny off the free agent market, and he began to reemerge as a dominant right-hander. Penny allowed a combined four runs in his first 22 innings with the Giants. He was 4-1 in six National League starts.

The No. 4 and No. 5 spots in the rotation are a little less secure. Kyle Lohse marches into camp hoping to rebound after a subpar 2009 season that saw him finish 6-10 with a 4.74 ERA. He'll need to regain the form that helped him finish 15-6 with a 3.78 ERA in 2008, his first season with the Cards. That means he'll have to limit the longball. Lohse allowed 16 homers in 117 innings last season. In 2008, he allowed 18 in 200 innings.

The fifth start spot is a wide open competition heading into spring training, and it is unclear how management plans to proceed. The options include throwing another youthful arm into the fire or turning to one of the guys who played such a key role in the bullpen last season. Mitchell Boggs is one option. The 26-year-old right-hander started nine games last season and had a 4.19 ERA. Kyle McClellan is one of the options from the bullpen. He posted a 3.38 ERA in 2009 and held opposing batters to a .229 average, but he never started a game. In fact, all of his 134 pro appearances have been in a relief role. In January, the Cardinals signed free agent Rich Hill, who gives the Cardinals a key left-hander to compete for the starting pitcher job. Before his arrival, the Cardinals' only other lefty option was Jaime Garcia, a 23-year-old whose major-league experience is limited to 10 relief innings during the 2008 season. Hill's arrival might tip manager Tony LaRussa's hand a bit. It appears the longtime Cardinal skipper might be prepared to head into the season with situation starters sharing the No. 5 spot in the rotation. Hill might only pitch when the Cardinals face teams featuring lots of left-handed hitters.

If the Cards convert a relief pitcher to a starter, it might leave an even bigger hole to fill. Though Ryan Franklin pitched well last season as the team's closer, the Cardinals ranked just 10^th out of 16 teams in holds, an indicator that the middle relievers sometimes failed to do their jobs.