Beyond Clement’s pitching line
TOWER GROVE — Matt Clement, the most enigmatic pitcher on a staff seemingly stacked with as many rehabbing arms as it has healthy arms, made the first start of his rehab assignment Tuesday, throwing for High-A Palm Beach. As mentioned before in the blog and in the paper, that means one thing:
His clock is ticking.
As detailed in Joe Strauss’ notebook in this morning’s paper, Clement threw six innings of one hit baseball, striking out five and walking none. It was, by all accounts, an encouraging start to what is a pitcher of unknown expectations. The Cardinals signed Clement to a one-year, $1.5-million deal laced with incentives. The righthander missed all of 2007 as he recovered from shoulder surgery, and it wasn’t too long into spring training this year that the Cardinals decided his arm was not in the shape to compete. Pitching coach Dave Duncan took him off the mound and put him on a throwin program. He’s been there ever since the Cardinals left Jupiter, Fla., working his way through simulated games and extended spring outings.
Though Clement opened the season on the disabled list, Cardinals officials said that he wasn’t a medical decision. He was, in the lingua franca of the clubhouse, a “baseball decision.”
General manager John Mozeliak said that decision will now be based on moving Clement “aggressively.” The Cardinals want to see what they have in the former All-Star who didn’t miss a start in his pro career until his shoulder blew apart like a shredded tire and needed more than a year to mend.
Clement threw 73 pitches, 50 for strikes Tuesday. You can read all about in the box score here. Keep in mind that Mark Mulder, also coming back from a serious shoulder injury and surgery, pitched five innings and allowed one earned run in his Palm Beach start, the first of a rehab assignment that would be halted one start shy of the majors. Mulder did not walk anybody either. He also allowed six hits.
Better to go as the title above says — beyond the pitching lines.
The pictures in this blog entry are provided by Chris Tunno, one of the Mr. Everythings at Roger Dean Stadium. And there is also this breakdown of Clement’s start, showing not only what he did inning by inning, but also charting the speed at which he did it. He’s come a long way from the low-80s we saw back in March, the kind of velocity that left Duncan saying it wasn’t enough for him to get hitters out in the majors.
The breakdown beyond the line:
INNING ……… #PIT … #B … #K … FAST … CUTTER … SLIDER/CURVE
1st INNING …. 9 … 3 ….. 6 … 86-88 … 85-86
2nd INNING … 15 …. 6 …… 9 … 86-88 … 85-86 …. 79
3rd INNING …. 10 ….. 2 ….. 8 …. 85-86 …. 85-86 … 78-80
4th INNING ….. 15 … 4 ….. 11 …. 87-88 …. 85-86 …. 82
5th INNING … 14 … 6 ……. 8 …. 86-87 …. xxxxx …. 77-79
6th INNING …. 10 ….. 2 ….. 8 … 86-87 ….. 85-86 …. 79-80
TOTAL …… 73 ….. 23 …. 50
Clement struck out three of the final five hitters he faced. He went to a full count only twice and got both batters out — one on a strikeout and the other on a groundout. Still way too early to know what that means for the major-league team and whether Clement will make an appearance there this season. Clement has still got 29 days to go on his rehab assignment. He’ll probably take every inning.
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Derrick Goold said he was going to Mizzou for capital-J journalism, but after growing up in the Time Zone Baseball Forgot he was really drawn to MU sitting between two major-league cities. Goold joined the Post-Dispatch in 2001 after working for The Times-Picayune and Rocky Mountain News, covering sports from LSU to NHL and every level of baseball in between. 
Ask Jimenez about the trade-offs between velocity and movement. The poor guy throws the straightest fast ball I have ever seen. They looked like they were headed to the plate pretty fast, but it was nothin’ compared to how fast they were leaving.
Speaking of updates I noticed that the Cards website posted Duncan’s numbers so far. Not tearing things up yet in Memphis. Looks like he was getting his share of walks though.