Good day; hope you all have a fantastic weekend.

Just some quickies, researched and written after the Cardinals whacked the Royals 10-5 on Friday night in Kansas City…

1. RASMUS ON A ROLL: Not only is Colby Rasmus the best rookie hitter in the bigs so far this season, but he’s also emerging as one of the top hitters in the majors against righthanded pitching. After Friday’s four-hit barrage, Rasmus is batting .331 against the RH, with a .365 onbase percentage and a mushrooming .561 slugging percentage. Rasmus has six homers, 16 doubles and a triple against RHP.

These are excellent numbers for a 22-year-old rookie making his first tour through the show. He’s been hammering fastballs, sliders and changeups thrown by the RH. The curve and the split-fingered fastball have been giving Raz some problems, but overall, there aren’t many holes in his swing against righthanders.

Rasmus has the team’s second-best OPS vs. RH pitchers so far; only Albert Pujols (1.080) tops Rasmus (.926) in this category.

The Rasmus batting average vs. RH (.331) is 13th-highest in the majors, and 8th-best in the National League. Moreover, his OPS (.926) vs. RH pitching ranks 12th in the NL. Rasmus actually has a higher batting average vs. the righties than Pujols (.327).

The lefthanded-hitting Rasmus has 157 ABs vs. RHP but only 43 against the lefties. He’s been ineffective against the LH, batting only .116, with only one extra-base hit (a homer). Manager Tony La Russa is undoubtedly playing to Raz’s strengths right now, but at some point Ten will have to turn the kid loose against the lefties. Rasmus handled lefthanders pretty well in the minors; you’d have to think that he can do the same in the majors once he gets enough exposure to them and adjusts. But for now the rookie has emerged as a force against RH pitching. And that’s important, because Ryan Ludwick, Rick Ankiel and others have dropped off against RH pitching this season, compared to what they did in 2008. Rasmus can deliver substantial impact in the No. 2 hole.

2. SPEAKING OF LUDWICK AND ANKIEL: They each homered in Friday’s romp; it was a great sign for a team that absolutely must receive power production from the duo to seriously contend in the NL Central or the NL Wild Card. Last season Ankiel and Ludwick homered in the same game five times; they hadn’t done it in 2009 until Friday night in KC. Before Friday’s game, Cardinals’ No. 4 hitters were batting only .225 for the season, which makes it easy for opposing managers to take a detour around Pujols. That’s why it’s imperative for the Cardinals to pack some TNT, some danger, in the 4 hole. When the Royals intentionally walked Pujols in the third inning Friday to load the bases, Luddy made ‘em pay by walloping a grand slam. Ludwick hit a four-seam fastball thrown by Kyle Davies. A positive sign. The heat from righties has been giving Ludwick fits; perhaps he’s getting his timing down.

3. BRAD THOMPSON … WINS AGAIN: Thompson pitched well again Friday in KC; he was better than his line (7 IP, 4 ER) would indicate. Thompson was aided by a merciless lineup attack from the Cardinals. That tends to happen when he’s on the mound. The Cardinals are now 20-8 when BT starts a game. He’s been a spot starter, going back to 2006. Curious, I wanted to check on his run support as a Cardinal starter and see how it compares to other Cardinals’ starting pitchers.

So I went back to the start of the 2006 season, and here is the Run Scoring Average for each Cardinal starter, minimum of 100 innings. The RSA figure represents the average number of runs that the team scores while the pitcher is in the game; runs that are scored after he leaves are not part of the average. I’ll go from highest run support to the lowest; and the numbers are courtesy of STATS LLC… and in parenthesis, I include the Cardinals’ won-loss record in the games started by each pitcher.

Again, these numbers cover 2006 through 2009 and include only their work as a Cardinal:

1. Mark Mulder,  6.19 RSA   (10-11)

2. Adam Wainwright, 5.77 RSA  (43-23)

3. Jeff Suppan,  5.73 RSA  (17-15)

4. Brad Thompson, 5.54 RSA  (20-8)

5. Joel Pineiro,  5.13 RSA   (24-25)

6. Todd Wellemeyer,  5.12 RSA   (32-25)

7. Jason Marquis,  5.05 RSA   (15-18)

8. Braden Looper,  4.99 RSA   (31-32)

9.  Chris Carpenter,  4.67  RSA   (26-18)  

10.  Kip Wells,   3.62 RSA  (6-20)

11.  Anthony Reyes,  3.33 RSA  (11-26)

Thoughts? Well, sure, Thompson has received generous run support. And his metrics as a starter aren’t the greatest. But he’s made those runs stand up, eh? Others on this list have been given a plenty of runs to work with and didn’t fare as well. I guess that we shouldn’t be surprised to see that Chris Carpenter get a lot out of his OK (not great) run support. A Reyes was a hard-luck starter, eh?

Nothing about these numbers are conclusive; for instance the team W-L record under each pitcher doesn not take into account the number of times a starter left the game only to have the bullpen blow up. This is just a quick n’ blurry snapshot; nothing more.  

4. FINALLY … A hand clap for Khalil Greene. Hope that the outstanding game in KC was a positive step down a new path for him.

* Random Music Note: I was listening to Joy Division as I wrote this late Friday night. “Dead Souls” remains powerful and haunting after all of these years. Especially when there is a summer thunder storm raging outside.

As always, thanks for reading…

-Bernie