Good evening from Busch… just a few notes before I pack up the laptop and head home.

Rookie closer Chris Perez wiped out the Rays in the ninth, disposing three hitters on five pitches. He got three harmless fly balls and picked up his first big-league win when the Cardinals scored in the bottom of the ninth. Perez throws fastballs in the middle-upper 90s. He has a slider that he can deliver at two different speeds; the slower one serves as a wicked changeup. And he’s a big guy who has an imposing demeanor on the mound. “He’s nasty,” Tampa outfielder Carl Crawford said.  

Manager Tony La Russa is quickly becoming a fan. “If he can repeat what he’s done for the last couple of days for the rest of his career, he’s going to be special,” TLR said. “He’s come in against a very good team, and he’s made pitches. The ball hasn’t been thrown all over the place. It’s been at or near the catcher’s mitt, with good stuff. I mean, that’s a tie game in the ninth and he handled it very well.”

Here’s another cool thing about the Perez outing on Sunday: He fired his first warm-up pitch over the head of catcher Jason LaRue and to the backstop. You don’t think the Rays noticed that? It won’t be comfortable for hitters to step in against this kid. He’s effectively wild.

And it’s a matter of time before La Russa pronounces Perez as ready for ninth-inning save situations. Until then? We’ll, frankly, it’s kind of silly. My pal Brian Stull of KFNS asked Ryan Franklin about pitching the ninth inning with a save on the line, which is a new role. And Franklin said: “I’m just going to pretend it’s the seventh or eighth inning.” And Stull asked Perez about pitching the seventh or the eighth, which he isn’t used to. And Perez said: “I’ll just pretend that it’s the ninth so it feels the same.” So you have Frankling pretending it’s the 8th inning when he pitches the 9th, and Perez pretending it’s the 9th inning when he pitches the 7th. I suppose one option would be to let them pitch where they usually pitch so they don’t have to do all of this pretending, eh?  Just kidding, TLR …

Speaking of closers… when Perez moved up to STL, setup man Jason Motte became the closer at Triple A Memphis. Sunday, in a 1-0 Memphis victory over Oklahoma City, Motte saved it by striking out the side in the ninth, and hitting 97 on the gun. And the starter of that game, Mitchell Boggs, struck out 10 in seven shutout innings. The Cardinals are already getting positive results from three rookies at the big-league level (Perez, Kyle McClellan, Mike Parisi) and Motte, Boggs, Jaime Garcia and others are on the come. The Cardinals haven’t had such an abundance of ascending pitching in their system for many years…

More on Memphis: Big Joe Mather had two hits and a homer Sunday … he’s walloping the baseball. He can play all three OF positions. He runs like an athletic NBA power forward. He should be up soon. In fact, the Cardinals would be stupid to wait too much longer with Rick Ankiel’s sore right shoulder. There is no good reason to take a chance with Ankiel when he can just go on the DL for 15 days to fully recover.  And that’s especially true when there’s an attractive option in Mather. He’s batting .316 and has 8 homers in 95 at-bats …

The Cardinals head to San Diego and will see a Padres team that has lost 23 of the last 31 … and they will not see Jake Peavy, who has been scratched from his scheduled Monday start due to a sore elbow… during this 8-23 stretch the Padres’ starting pitchers have a 5.20 ERA and the batters are hitting .219 and scoring an average of 3.3 runs per game… then it’s onto LA; the Dodgers have lost 7 of 10 and had a 5.90 ERA during those 10 games…

Cardinals hitters with RISP, Month o’ May:

- Schumaker,  5 for 18

- Glaus, 3 for 13

- Ludwick, 4 for 14

- Molina, 5 for 14

- Kennedy, 3 for 10

- Duncan, 2 for 10

- Pujols,  2 for 15

- Miles, 2 for 11

- Izturis,  2 for 12

- Ankiel,  2 for 18

- Ryan,  1 for 9

- Barton,  0-2

- La Rue, 0-2

A couple of notes on that: Glaus has six walks with RISP this month; his May OBP with RISP is .474 … Molina has five walks with RISP; his May OBP with RISP is .526. Kennedy’s OBP this month with RISP is .417…

And finally …

Since May 11, Glaus is 13 for 30 (.433) with a .541 OBP and a .667 SLG…

Since April 28, Cesar Izturis is 18 for 54 (.333) with a .400 OBP … and in the field, Izturis has a revised zone rating of .874; in the NL only Atlanta’s Yunel Escobar has a better RZR among full-time shortstops.

Thanks for reading …

-B