TOWER GROVE — Rick Hummel’s look at how Milwaukee has adopted the “Crazy 8″ lineup to such success that catcher Jason Kendall is leading the league in hitting jogged my memory about a email received earlier Tuesday. This one comes from ACTA Sports, the publishing house of Bill James and others, and it’s John Dewan’s “Stat of the Week.” This week’s topic:

Whose batting slot is the best in baseball thus far?

Using on-base-percentage-plus-slugging (OPS), Dewan ranks the best performing spots in the order across baseball. There, No. 3 on the list, is No. 9 in Brewers’ order. And that was before Kendall raised his average to .526 with three hits in the nine spot tonight against Cincinnati. The top spots in baseball, according to Dewan:

Team … Slot … OPS … Primary player
Phillies … 5 … 1.434 … Pat Burrell
D’backs … 7 … 1.398 … Justin Upton
Brewers … 9 … 1.364 … Jason Kendall
Tigers … 9 … 1.328 … Brandon Inge
Cubs … 5 … 1.289 … Kosuke Fukudome – why isn’t this guy hitting No. 2?
Cubs … 3 … 1.288 … Derrek Lee – … so this guy is driving him in?
Marlins … 1 … 1.285 … Hanley Ramirez

The closest a Cardinals’ spot in the order comes to this group is the No. 2 spot. There wedged ahead of Albert Pujols, the Cardinals’ No. 2 hitters have an OPS of 1.091. The Cardinals’ OPS by spot in the order is a little like the order itself, rather unimpressive so far. The Cardinals’ .212 batting average with runners in scoring position (RISP), for example, ranks 24th in the majors. The Cardinals’ OPS with RISP is .613, and that ranks 25th in the baseball.

Three National League teams rank behind the Cardinals in that regard.

They just happen to be three of the Cardinals first four opponents this season:

• San Francisco … .555 OPS RISP (27th)

• Houston … .479 OPS RISP (28th)

• Colorado … .367 OPS RISP (30th)

So, following Hummel’s lead and using Dewan’s list as inspiration, here is the Cardinals’ OPS by position in the order going into tonight’s game against Houston — not that that many spots moved the needle in tonight’s victory.

Statistics are by spot in the order, obviously, and the MLB rank of each OPS is in parentheses. Also there is the player with the most at-bats there and perhaps a short comment. The list:

1. .582 OPS (20th) … Skip Schumaker … Before Schumaker’s triple against Houston on Tuesday, Brian Barton had the only hits at leadoff.

2. 1.091 OPS (2nd) … Rick Ankiel

3. .946 OPS (11th) … Albert Pujols

4. .602 OPS (28th) … Troy Glaus … This has to be an upgrade for the Cardinals if this offense is going to improve, because so far it’s not that different from last year’s .706 OPS — which ranked last in the majors.

5. .952 OPS (8th) … Ryan Ludwick … Why it’s the NL leader in triples.

6. .792 OPS (16th) … Yadier Molina

7. .704 OPS (10th) … Adam Kennedy

8. .465 OPS (26th) … Pitcher … Still better than three NL teams, one AL team. And that would be Seattle, which has catcher Kenji Johjima there.

9. .560 OPS (13th) … Cesar Izturis … Is fourth-best in the NL, though Izturis on his own has a .543 OPS in this spot.

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The alma mater has a brief on last night’s game in New Orleans, featuring the beginning of Joel Pineiro’s rehab assignment. He went six innings, made 78 pitches (57 strikes) and, according to The Times-Picayune’s recap, did this:

The Zephyrs missed a chance to score in the fourth when Pineiro escaped a bases-loaded, one-out situation by getting Adam Bostick to bounce into a double play.  

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For anyone keeping track of the infield outs for the Cardinals this season — as discussed in the Duncan Doctrine entry a couple days ago that might have been lost under the semi-successful live blog attempt (someone voted it one star?) — here is the total after tonight’s game in Houston. With one caveat: Since Brad Thompson only got through four innings, I added in Anthony Reyes’ three innings:

STARTERS (and Reyes tonight): 151 outs collected.

INFIELD OUTS: 121 outs (or 80 percent)

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