TOWER GROVE — The Cardinals jet off on their first road trip of the season having let so few of their opposing hitters take flight at all this season. Much has been made of the Cardinals rotation’s sub-1.00 ERA through six games and the staff as a whole has an ERA of 1.83, better than every team in baseball save the LA Dodgers and their 1.70.

That’s the macro picture. The micro is even more astonishing.

It’s reflected in this number: 86 outs.

And now what that means …

As we all know by now, the Cardinals preach a groundball philosophy to their pitchers. Coach Dave Duncan loves the sinkerballers, ala Brad Thompson, Jason Marquis, etc., etc., and the arms who have pitches that induce groundballs, like Chris Carpenter’s cutter, Adam Wainwright’s assortment and, yes, Todd Wellemeyer’s changeup.

“They get groundballs, they throw strikes,” Duncan said listing the reasons he likes his staff so far this season. “They are pitching aggressively.”

They are pitching according to the Duncan Doctrine. 

The Cardinals’ pitching staff leads the majors in Ground Out to Fly Out Ratio (GO/FO), at 1.95. Or for every flyball the pitchers have allowed, they’ve gotten two groundballs. For reference, here are the other division ratios:

• Cincinnati … 0.79 (watching Pat Burrell tee off on that flyball staff right now)
• Cubs … 1.00
• Pittsburgh … 1.00
• Milwaukee … 1.13
• Houston … 1.18

So, it’s not even close within the NL Central.

Of the 24 outs Wainwright has record this season, 12 have been groundouts. For Braden Looper, 12 of his 18 outs have been on the ground, and Thompson got 10 of his 20 outs on the ground. Really, only Wellemeyer lags as two of his 15 outs were groundouts.

But those numbers don’t tell the story.

The Cardinals’ starters have record 113 outs this season, and 86 of the DID NOT LEAVE THE INFIELD. That’s eighty-six. Or, 76 percent.

Technically, an 87th was recorded in the infield Sunday when Yadier Molina picked off Lastings Milledge at first base. An 88th could be the throw to home by Skip Schumaker on Thursday.

While Wainwright has gotten 12 groundouts in his 24 outs, a list of the outs that did not leave the infield — popups to infielders, strikeouts, groundouts, etc. — totals 19. Wellemeyer had only the two groundouts, but throw in all the other outs that did not get to the outfield grass and 10 of his 15 outs were in the infield. The list:

• Wainwright … 8 IP, 24 outs, 12 groundouts … 19 infield outs
• Kyle Lohse … 12 IP, 36 outs, 13 groundouts … 22 infield outs
• Thompson … 6 2/3 IP, 20 outs, 10 groundouts … 18 infield outs
• Wellemeyer … 5 IP, 15 outs, 2 groundouts … 10 infield outs
• Looper … 6 IP, 18 outs, 12 groundouts … 17 infield outs

And really Looper could have been 18-for-18 in his outs. Immediately before the one flyball to the outfield that Looper allowed, the hitter grounded out to second and reached on an E4.

“If pitchers feel like the defense can go out there and make plays, they go after hitters,” manager Tony La Russa said Sunday. “If the defense feels a pitcher is going after hitters, they’re more on their toes. All of our guys, you watch it, they catch it and they’re ready to throw it. The pace of the game has been outstanding. That helps everybody.”

To get a sense of how the rotation is putting the defense to work it’s important to massage the infield out numbers just one more time. Combined, the five starters have 24 strikeouts, including a career-high six by Thompson in his start. Subtract those from the 113 outs to get the number of outs from balls put in play. Of the remaining 89 outs, 62 were recorded by infielders. (Again, not including Molina’s pickoff and Schumaker’s assist.)

That drops the average, but still shows the story: 69.7 percent of the outs recorded on balls put in play against Cardinal starters this past week were fielded by an infielder.

As if Duncan designed it.

“You don’t want to get too excited this early in the season,” Duncan said. “You don’t know how the other team came out of spring training swinging the bats. Obviously, we’re excited with what we’ve seen far.”

***

Here’s the email from Baseball America I received this morning about the Cardinals’ prospects in action Sunday, complete with pithy comments:

STL AAA Freese, David 3B ……….. 5 0 2 1 .214 - 2B (1); the bounty for Jim Edmonds, making jump from High A
STL AAA Rasmus, Colby CF ……….. 4 1 2 1 .368 - HR (1); first AAA homer; how many more until callup?
STL AA Jay, Jon CF ……………. 5 1 3 1 .278 - 2 2B (2)

STL AA Ottavino, Adam ………. 3.2 6 4 4 4 5 9.82 - L (0-1); rough debut

***

His hometown paper takes a look at how Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak rose from batting practice pitcher for the Colorado Rockies — a lefty, he plunked Dante Bichette the first day on the job — to head honcho for the local nine.

***

The Busch Stadium infield will have a slightly different look to it when the Cardinals return from their week on the road. The team’s groundskeepers carved out a differenty design for the infield this season. Instead of the traditional quarter-circle cutouts around first and third bases, the Cardinals went with a rounded rectangle. Many teams around baseball have a similar design for their cutouts.

The cutout extends more toward second base from the baselines and is more shallow toward home plate. Adam Kennedy said each team has a different distance for the start of the cut toward second — and sometimes that makes it tricky to use the cut as a reference point for taking a lead.

(At Busch, for example, “there’s no way you would get that far out,” he said.)

The reason for the switch from quarter-circle to rounded-rectangle is the theory it extends the dirt around the base in the direction of the throws to that base. In other words, it gives the first baseman more room for skipped throws from infielders to hit dirt instead of the randomness of grass.

While the team is away they will make one alteration to the cutout, at the request of Albert Pujols. When he first tried out of the new cut to the infield, Pujols noticed that the start of the cut between him and home plate is right at the spot where he fields a grounder when he comes off the bag. So, the grounds crew will move that cut closer to home, adding depth the cutout.

***

Tempted to do a live blog from the FSN Midwest studios tonight during the game. Will be appearing on the postgame show and that means bunkering in with host Pat Parris and producer Max Leinwand. Any interest? We can count infield outs together.

-30-