MANHATTAN — St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa is allergic to scouting reports.

He winces when one of his pitchers talks about how he needs to improve his fastball or use his slider more. He cringes when told that pitching coach Dave Duncan discussed in a little too much detail how, say, Adam Wainwright isn’t spotting his two-seam fastball with the same effectiveness or how, well, one of the young-gun relievers hasn’t been able to spot his breaking ball for a strike for a few weeks.

It is because he loathes what he calls such “scouting reports” that he took a different tack when confronted with questions about Joel Pineiro and the righthander’s sinker and how he coaxed 22 groundouts. La Russa decided to play the red herring. He called Pineiro’s admission that he’s going to rely on the sinker, ride the sinker, rise and sink with the sinker this season pure genius.

Get opponents thinking about the sinker, La Russa insisted, and they ignore the quality of his changeup and his slider and that curveball he doesn’t throw all that much. It’s a smart ploy, the manager insisted.

“It’s not just his sinker,” La Russa said. “He’s much more than that-pitch pitcher.”

One problem. Pineiro really is throwing the sinker that much.

And tha’ts where the 10@10 starts …

1. The 22 groundouts that Pineiro collected from the New York Mets in his two-hit shutout Tuesday were the most in a game by the Cardinals since May 2006, when Mark Mulder and Adam Wainwright combined to get 23 groundouts. By his count, Pineiro threw three four-seam fastballs in his 100 pitches against the Mets. MLB.com’s Matthew Leach went through the pitch-by-pitch and counted up about 24 or so off-speed pitches. That means three out of every four pitches Pineiro threw were his sinking fastball, or between 70 and 75. That jives with what the number sites say. According to Bill James Online, of the 1,289 pitches Pineiro has thrown this season, 797 have been fastballs. That’s good for 62 percent, or the highest in his career, a steady rise from 57 percent last season, 56 percent in 2006 and 53 percent in 2005. Fangraphs.com echoes those numbers, though it shows a bit more of a disparity — with Pineiro throwing 67.6 percent fastball this season compared to 58.4 percent last season, and doing so at a less velocity. One word: Sinker. And his teammates don’t blame him. “He had his sinker working, and he’s had it working all season,” infielder Skip Schumaker said. “It’s a nasty pitch.”

2. La Russa didn’t just laud Pineiro’s selection of pitchers or his aggressiveness, he also pointed to Pineiro’s ability to play his position (he is the best fielding pitcher on the team) and hold the runner. In the sixth inning, the Mets tried a hit-and-run with the pitcher at the plate and Luis Castillo at first base. Castillo isn’t the speedster he used to be, and didn’t get the good jump that he needs because Pineiro held him close to the bag. Pineiro, La Russa said, had a 1.1- or 1.2-second delivery to the plate and Yadier Molina lasered a throw to second. Castillo didn’t have a chance. “He could have thrown out a lightning bolt there,” La Russa said.

3. A few days ago, Post-Dispatch sports editor Reid Laymance asked his minions the following question for the afternoon blog around these parts, Round 2: “Would you pitch to Albert Pujols with the bases loaded?”. Today, after Pujols improves to 5-for-5 with 16 RBIs in bases-loaded spots this season, that’s the poll presented to the readers:

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4. Pujols, however, isn’t the only player in the National League with three grand slams this season, and his 16 RBIs don’t even lead the league in bases-loaded situation RBIs. LA Dodgers first baseman James Loney leads the league with 16 bases-loaded at-bats, and he has 17 RBIs from those chances. Both Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard (of course) and Marlins outfielder Cody Ross (huh?) have three grand slams to tie Pujols. The top five hitters this season with the bases-loaded, ranked by the number that really matters in those situations: RBIs:

• Prince Fielder … 19 RBIs … 6-for-11, 1 HR
• Ryan Howard … 17 RBIs … 4-for-9, 3 HR
• James Loney … 17 RBIs … 5-for-16
• Albert Pujols … 16 RBIs … 5-for-5, 3 HR
• Cody Ross … 16 RBIs … 5-for-14, 3 HR

5. It’s that first name atop the list that isn’t a surprise there but was a surprise last week when I checked on another set of rankings that ESPN keeps on its Web site. ESPN tracks what it calls “player rankings”, and it picks from four different player-ranking services and equations. The rankings used come from ESPN’s only formula, Elias, Inside Edge and The Baseball Encyclopedia. Last week, Fielder ranked No. 1 on the Elias rankings. A quick check today, and the Milwaukee first baseman has been replaced by KC ace Zack Greinke atop the Elias list. Pujols, meanwhile, is tops on two of the lists and does not rank lower than three on any of them. If nothing else it’s a conversation starter, because the player to rank No. 1 — Joe Mauer, on the Inside Edge rankings — is coming to St. Louis this weekend, and some think that means the best players from each league will be at Busch Stadium for a three-game series.

6. Philadelphia Phillies lefty Jamie Moyer collectedhis 251st career victory on Tuesday, tying Cardinals Hall of Famer Bob Gibson on the career wins list. In its morning recap of the previous night’s game, ESPN’s research department compared the two pitchers:

• W-L … Gibson 251-174 … Moyer 251-191
• ERA … Gibson 2.91 … Moyer 4.22
• CG … Gibson 255 … Moyer 31
• K … Gibson 3,177 … Moyer 2,294
• HBP … Gibson 102 … Moyer 134
• Cy Youngs … Gibson 2 … Moyer 0

7. FARMNIK REPORT: Righthanded pitcher Deryk Hooker, a seventh-round pick in 2007, returned from his 50-game suspension to throw four shutout innings for short-season Batavia. Hooker struck out four and allowed two hits. Hooker was suspended earlier this year for a positive test of a drug of abuse. He did not get the victory. That went to Tyler Lavigne who followed Hooker with another four scoreless innings and four strikeouts. Lavigne allowed one hit. …  Matt Carpenter went 3-for-4 in the 7-0 victory for the Muckdogs. Ryde Rodriguez drove in two runs. … The Gulf Coast Cardinals began their season with a victory. Johnny Rodriguez, just drafted, went 3-for-3 with an RBI. Virgil Hill flashed his speed with an infield hit, a stolen base and a run scored. Keith Butler struck out three in relief, using 23 pitches to battle back from falling behind in counts. … Angel De Jesus had a 12-to-3 groundball to flyball ratio in his start, allowing one run (it was unearned). … Memphis won, 6-3. Sugar Shane Robinson hit a solo home run and Brian Barden, playing third base, hit a two-run shot. Barden had three hits. Jess Todd got his 14th save with a perfect ninth. … For short-season Johnson City, Matthew Adams went 3-for-5 with three RBIs and a home run. Robert Stock, the Cardinals’ second-round pick, started at catcher and went 0-for-3. … Lance Lynn improved to 6-2 with a his win for Class AA Springfield. He struck out four and allowed eight hits in 5 1/3 innings. Francisco Samuel got his 18th save of the season. Pete Kozma pivoted two double plays, walked twice and went 1-for-3. He batted leadoff for the S-Cards. … Adron Chambers scored on a wild pitch in the ninth inning against Sarasota to get Palm Beach a 5-4 victory Tuesday. Chambers had three hits, including a home run as the PB-Cards’ leadoff hitter. The homer was Chambers’ first of the season. Shane Peterson hit his sixth of the season. Lefty Nick Additon struck out seven and got the no decision after five innings of work.

8. The suspension of Cardinals’ minor-league lefty Dail Villanueva on Tuesday for a positive drug test makes 14 total for the Cardinals system since baseball began publicly announcing minor-league suspensions. That count is done with the help of Scout.com’s Brian Walton, who charted the first 13 at his blog.

9. Several years ago, then Cardinals shortstop David Eckstein had a pointed take on the National League’s struggle in interleague play: Most NL teams, he said, have a $10-million bat just waiting on their bench to DH. It’s true that part of the edge the American League has year-in, year-out in interleague play is the structure of the roster. The AL spends on its DHs. The NL spends on its position players, and often doesn’t have that big thumper to slide into the DH spot without removing him from another position. But when I went through the 45 interleague games played between June 12-18 and compared the salaries of the DHs, there was a surprise … of sorts. Only 24 times did the AL team have a higher-salary at DH than the NL team. The AL DH’s averaged $6.68 million; the NL $5.90 million. The NL DHs during that stretch included, however, Gary Sheffield ($14 million salary from AL team), Carlos Lee (usual LF at $19 million) and Chipper Jones (usual 3B at $10 million). Those were the big dollar DHs for the NL. The AL, by contrast, had 16 $10-million plus DHs, from Travis Hafner to Hideki Matsui to Vlad Guerrero. The NL had 12 DHs making $750,000 or less to the AL’s six. Make of it what you will. I was struck that there wasn’t more of a gulch between the two leagues.

10. Speaking of the designated hitter, a few nights ago at Busch Stadium, I (tongue firmly planted in cheek) suggested that to “spice-up” interleague play the leagues should play by their rules no matter the venue. That would mean the AL would get the DH in NL ballparks, and the NL would continue having to bat the pitcher wherever the game was played. KTRS/550’s John Marecek fired back, as he described later, that instead all AL teams must bat their pitcher eighth, true to their double-leadoff leanings. Ah, my friend, I said, we’re looking to “spice-up” not “tony-up” interleague play. And thus a hashtag was born.

You can see the exchanges that ensued on Twitter.com under the search for “#tonyup”.

My best contribution to the discussion:

All-time leader charts are deleted. Everyone is “tied for first”. #tonyup

Got any rules you’d like to see get the #tonyup treatment?

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