You might have spent your Saturday night sipping an adult beverage with friends, or having an intriguing second date with a new squeeze, or perhaps watching Minnesota-Duluth and the University of Michigan work overtime in the NCAA ice hockey final. You're fully excused if you didn't have an eye on the sandlot action around the majors. While you were otherwise occupied, Ryan Franklin was doing his usual 2011 thing – giving away a ninth-inning lead. And since this is the third meltdown in 10 days, we really should devote some time speculating on the St. Louis options after Franklin. The New York Times Sunday Crossword can wait; we've got a bullpen puzzle to work on first.
Please understand the goal up front: this entire post is an information-gathering exercise and an exercise in speculation. I don't have Tony La Russa's ear on any of this, and I don't know yet how the team is spinning the Franklin struggles (publicly and privately). Often times La Russa will be stubbornly loyal to a struggling player. Maybe he'll blame all the outsiders, or the media, or some strawman. I don't know.
Franklin's loss Saturday came from a mess that was mostly his own making – his control and command have been awful all year – but the final play was somewhat unlucky (video here). Miguel Tejada roped a fly ball to deep left-center, but it appeared that someone – probably Colby Rasmus – had a play on the ball. Alas, Ramus seemed to break stride as he dealt with the presence of left fielder John Jay, and the ball eventually caromed off Rasmus's mitt before falling to the turf. Game over.
In a different era, this sort of thing would be blamed on Rasmus, an error would be charged, and we'd excuse the pitcher. In today's game, you can't actually get charged with an error unless you saw the baseball in half and then air-mail it to the fifth row of the stands. So it goes.
Let's get to the matter at hand – who's the hedge if Franklin can't keep the ninth inning? Round up the usual, unimpressive suspects. Yes, it's a little silly that we'll be analyzing tiny samples of data, but there's not much else to go on at the moment.
Jason Motte has been the heir apparent in St. Louis for a while, but he was ineffective in spring training (9.64 ERA, 2 HBP, 4 BB, 6 K), for whatever that may mean, and he's been bad in two regular-seson appearances (3.1 IP, 6 BR, 2 ER, 0 K).
Mitchell Boggs has five respectable innings under his belt in 2011 (5 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 6 K), though he walked more men than he struck out in spring training. He worked in the sixth and seventh inning Friday, with St. Louis trailing.
Trever Miller is a 37-year-old lefty specialist who usually struggles to get righties out. He's got two clean innings in 2011.
Miguel Batista is a 40-year-old journeyman with an undistinguished career (4.50 ERA, 1.49 WHIP, 1.42 K/BB), and you might remember his days as Toronto's mediocre closer back in 2005. He worked two sharp and scoreless innings Saturday (with three strikeouts), on the heels of two rocky-but-scoreless innings prior to that.
Lefty Brian Tallet hasn't allowed an earned run over 3.1 innings (along with four strikeouts), and he had some solid relief moments with the Blue Jays in the latter part of the 2000s. He was a poor starter in 2009, however, and a mess in all of his 2010 roles.
Kyle McClellan is no longer an option given that he's moved to the rotation. I can't imagine the Cardinals shifting back at this point.
The dartboard is open. Have at it, take your best shot. I made a speculative grab on Batista in one league, but I can't say I feel good (or confident) about it. Will Franklin be fixed? Do you like anyone in the cast of thousands behind him? Are the Cardinals the black cat of the 2011 National League?
If you're looking for an optimistic St. Louis story, I'll offer two things on the way out: Jaime Garcia was outstanding for the second straight turn Saturday (6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 9 K), and Matt Holliday (post-appendectomy) plans to play in Sunday's series closer at San Francisco.
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Image courtesy Associated Press
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