Originally on St. Louis Sports 360 on 12/20:
It’s usually well past this point in the year when the complete look of any part of a team is known. However, without some highly unlikely maneuver or another freakish injury before April, the St. Louis Cardinals have aligned their pitching staff completely in mid-December. With the signing of left-handed reliever JC Romero last Thursday, the last remaining question of what direction the team would go in off the mound was resolved. However, with this scene most likely set, how good of an offering will the team really put forward?
The club hopes that a Romero rebound will give the team long-missed left handed bullpen depth.
On one half of the board, we’ve been here before. At this same point last season, Jake Westbrook was resigned and it essentially locked the starting rotation before the calendar year rolled over. However, that theory was thrown out the window in the first week of the season when Adam Wainwright tore his elbow apart in before the first Spring Training lineup was even posted, and threw the staff out of slots that they never really recaptured even by the postseason.
Now, act two of that effort looks to get underway. Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, Jaime Garcia, Kyle Lohse and Westbrook are all basically locks for the rotation. There is some kicking of the tires to move one or both of the latter half of the rotation, but with both clutching no trade causes it’s highly unlikely to happen. And it’s not an all bad thing, because top to bottom it’s arguably the best rotation in the National Central. There’s a lot riding on how Wainwright comes back from surgery and if Garcia can finally kick his Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hide act on the road vs. Busch, but all in all it’s a clear strength of the team.
However, their bullpen mates are in well rounded shape now, and actually may have too much of a good thing; which of course is the best kind of problem to have….
For the rest of how the Cardinals have troops and reserve troops of pitching to lean on this year, check out the rest of this article at St. Louis Sports 360: http://stlouissports360.com/cardinals-new-strength-is-pitching-depth/
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