Yes it’s well past 4 a.m. I’m up late. It’s my  Thursday wee-hours tradition. I  put the i-pod on shuffle, hoping that some weird but satisfying combinations will pop up.

(Sidebar:  a little while ago, and I kid you not, here were two songs that came up in order: “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys, followed by “Beauty and the Beast” by Angela Lansbury. It would be impossible to plan that. Randomness can be a beautiful thing.)

Anyway, every Thursday night, I drink some coffee and work  on the Bernie Bits. It’s almost time to pack it in. But before  I sign off, before I can sleep, I must  state the obvious.

Memo to Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan:

Please stop the fight.

Call it a TKO.

Do the merciful thing.

You guys can’t keep running Kip Wells out there to take a beating every five days. If you do, you’ll be hearing from Amnesty International. After games these days, poor Wells, a nice man, looks as confused as the million of Americans who watched the final scene of The Sopranos.

Wells lasted 1.1 innings in Thursday’s 17-8 pasting by the Royals, and he  dropped to 2-11 on the season.

Look,  I know your hearts are in the right place; you want to give Kip time to turn things around. I know  you don’t have a list of appealing, ready-made options  to  plug into the rotation, so you’ve been giving Kip even more rope to … oh, never mind.

Anthony Reyes is about the best bet, for reasons we discussed  in our most recent blog.

Whatever you decide, from now on, it’s gotta be anybody but the Kipper.

Is there a chance for a miracle? Well, in fairness, I suppose it’s possible.  

Andy Benes comes to mind. Let’s go back to 2002. After three starts, the big fella was 0-2 with a 10.80 ERA. He had gimpy knees and a sore back.  The Cardinals encouraged him to retire, but Benes refused. So he was placed on the DL, and went home.  For  six  weeks or so, Andy  drove carpools for his kids and played some golf and tended to his lawn and never picked up a  baseball. But  in June, Darryl Kile died suddenly, and a little while after that Woody Williams had to go on the DL, and the Cardinals were  running out of options. They used 14 starting pitchers in 2002. And so just like that, a call was made to the ‘burbs, and the  Dad driving the carpool was asked to come back to Busch.  

And at age 35, Benes agreed to come back to the team. Expectations were low. After a couple of rehab starts in the minors, Benes  returned to the active big-league roster in mid-July.  From that point on, Benes went 5-2 with a 2.13 ERA (including two postseason starts) and the Cardinals won 11 of his 16 starts, including their lone victory in the five-game  NLCS loss to the Mets. It was an amazing comeback.

Benes retired on top, after that 2002 rally.  

It was a happy ending for everyone.

I don’t see a happy ending for Kip Wells.

When Benes got rocked in 2002, his creaky knees and back had a lot to do with it. Wells, by all indications, is healthy.

At some point, we just have to conclude that Wells isn’t very good, and there is little or no hope that he will do in 2007 what Andy Benes did in the late summer of 2002.  

Let’s move on.

A long time ago, when I was trying to learn how to play the horses at the Baltimore-area tracks,  I took in some advice from the great Andrew Beyer, the legendary handicapper who writes about thoroughbreds for the Washington Post.

When you look at a maiden-claiming race (featuring horses that have never won), always stay away from the proven losers. Take a chance on a young horse that has a few races of experience; such a horse has a chance to find a truer form and improve. But avoid those runners that have a long history of losing; they just aren’t going to get to the winner’s circle, and nothing will change. It was good counsel.  I cashed some tickets that way.

If  believe Kip Wells has reached the point where he’s an automatic toss-out in the race if   we’re trying to identify a likely winner.  

(I know I’m  mixing boxing and horseracing metaphors, but what the heck, it’s 4:30 in the morning, so gimme a break.)

Consider:

Since the start of the 2004 season, Wells is  17-41.

That winning percentage (.293) is the second-worst during that time among all major-league starting pitchers with at least 50 starts.

And you know who’s No. 1 on that list of worst winning percentage?  

Uh, maybe you don’t want to know. The answer is Ryan Franklin at 12-31 (.279) in his pre-STL days. OK, so maybe  it really is a good idea to keep Franklin in the bullpen, where  he’s doing a solid  job for the Cardinals. There goes another option…

It isn’t just Kip’s won/loss record. A pitcher’s W-L  ledger can be  misleading.

Not in this case. Or not much, anyway.

Since the start of the 2004 season, Wells has the 7th-highest ERA (5.38) among major-league  pitchers with at least 50 starts. The only starters with higher ERA inflation are Casey Fossum (5.94), ol’ friend Sidney Ponson (5.75), Joel Pineiro  (5.64), Ramon Ortiz (5.50), Scot Elarton (5.46), and Eric Milton (5.45).

And during the same time frame (2004 until present), only three starting pitchers have allowed more baserunners per nine innings: Russ Ortiz (15.76), Jamey Wright (15.24) and Ponson (15.13). Wells’ rate is 14.87 runners per nine innings.

I could go on with negative stats. But why look at more  numbers? We don’t have to go to the judge’s scorecards to determine that this bout is over.  

Stop the fight.

-B