DOWNTOWN — Coming down off his mini-rant Tuesday about the bullpen taking the hit for an offense not supplying them, Cardinals manager Tony La Russa softened his tone for a little gallows humor.

Referencing the final two games of the series and the troubles his offense has had scoring, La Russa said it shouldn’t be a problem generating more runs against “a couple Triple-A pitchers they have coming up.” He was, of course, kidding. The starters for Milwaukee on Wednesday and Thursday are no Triple-A arms — not CC Sabathia (who just took a no-no into the sixth inning) and certainly not Ben Sheets, who started the All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium.

Look no further than the tools survey.

For the next few days, the tools survey dives into the finer art of pitching, discussing the finest specific pitches. The next few blogs will feature individual pitchers and this little sub-genre of the tools survey will culminate with the votes on the Best Pitcher and Best Reliever. It’s fitting that the first two pitchers are:

1. Best Fastball.
2. Best Curveball.

Both of those categories could feature tonight’s starter for the Brewers: Sheets. The righthander straight out of Louisiana — with a son named Seaver, no less — has long had one of the better curves in the game and his fastball is sure to get at least a few votes, too. Again turning to the resource that Bill James Online, Sheets has thrown 1,201 fastballs this season (61 percent of his total) and 645 curves (33 percent). He’s equal-opportunity with both pitches, throwing them at about the same rate to both right- and left-handed batters.

He can because both are so effective.

Dig deeper into his pitch selection and, well, there isn’t much beyond those two. He’s thrown 75 changeup this season, according to the online stat source, and there have been 56 pitches that were not charted. Carve those up in his standard percentages and it’s only a few more non-fastball, non-curveball pitches to the total.

At the least, the Cardinals will know what’s coming.

Up to you decide if one or both of Sheets’ pitches belongs in the tools top three.

As part of the ongoing (3-star) tools poll, other pitches will follow in the coming weekdays. If you want to check out how the voting is going at the other (3-star) tools entries, follow the links that follow this sentence: Best Hitter. Best Power. Best Bunter. Best Strike-Zone Judgment. Best Hit & Run. Most Exciting Player. And, Best Baserunner. Fastest Baserunner.

-30-