Cy Three (One Sixty-Two: Day 130)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day One Hundred Thirty: Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter & Jaime Garcia, St. Louis Cardinals

Every summer, our local library holds contests for kids each week in different parts of the building. There’s the “Find Buddy the Worm” contest, in which children have to find the laminated cut-out of a cartoon worm somewhere in the children’s section. There’s the “Fun Facts” contest, in which kids are asked a science question, often one about animals. There’s also the “Guess How Much Candy” math question, in which the youngsters try and determine how many Tootsie Rolls or lollipops are inside a clear jar. For all of these contests, the kids write down their answers, place their paper into a large jar, and hope that their correct answer will be the one randomly chosen that week.

So this morning, the phone rings, and it’s the library. Chelsea, I’m told, has won the “Find Buddy” contest, and her prize is waiting at the front desk. I tell her this, and her eyes light up. Her immediate instinct is to go and tell her sister … who is not so happy.

“What about me?” Katie asks. Oh, dear. Here we go.

The phone rings again. It’s the library once more. Katie has won the “Fun Facts” contest this week. Her prize is waiting, too.

Crisis averted. Cheers of joy in the house. It must be my day.

You can’t win everything. It’s just not possible. Even Michael Jordan finished more NBA seasons without a championship than with one. We learn, early on, to enjoy the journey and the many triumphs along the way in life, rather than expecting a prize for everything we do. Somehow, though, that hasn’t stopped me from announcing all the chores I do each day; my wife has explained that no medal is forthcoming, nor will it ever be. But that’s a different blog post for a different day.

The girls pulled off the rare sibling sweep of summer library prizes this week. But that kind of stuff doesn’t usually happen. Over on the baseball field, a trio of pitchers by the names of Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter and Jaime Garcia would all love to win the National League’s Cy Young Award this season. And all have put together years quite worthy of this honor. In fact, it is staggering to see just how much these three starting pitchers have carried the St. Louis Cardinals this year. Going into tonight’s action, the Cardinals were 69-59 on the year, good enough to keep them in second place and five games behind the Cincinnati Reds in the National League Central.

But without Wainwright, Carpenter and Garcia, the Cardinals’ season would be long gone. Out of the 69 team wins, the three aces have combined to win 43 of those games. Out of the 59 losses, they’ve claimed only 19 of them. All three men have earned-run averages below 3.00, with Wainwright and Garcia actually both below 2.40. In the way of strikeouts, the three pitchers have combined to punch out 440 batters, versus only 160 combined walks.

To put all of this in perspective, no other Cardinals starter has more than four wins on the year. The next-highest win total on the team comes from closer Ryan Franklin, who has won six games. The Cardinals have baseball’s best player at first base in Albert Pujols. But this season, Pujols has not been the only one handling the heavy lifting.

If any of these three men is to win the Cy Young Award, it will likely be Wainwright, who has more wins (17) and strikeouts (178) than the other two. But Wainwright could easily fall short of the honor himself, to premier pitchers such as Ubaldo Jimenez of the Rockies, Roy Halladay of the Phillies or Tim Hudson of the Braves. For now, though, one thing is very clear: The Cardinals are still in the pennant race because of the pitching of three incredibly capable men. These guys don’t need their library to call and tell them they’re winners: They’ve got a dugout full of teammates telling them that every day.

Here I Come to Save the Day (One Sixty-Two: Day 125)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day One Hundred Twenty-Five: Ryan Franklin, St. Louis Cardinals

There is a small rack of batteries at the front of an aisle in a Staples store on Route 22 in Springfield, N.J. It’s nothing you’d notice while on your way to make copies or buy a three-ring binder. But on a drizzly summer evening, this little rack held a saving grace for a man wearing gym clothes and holding a driver’s manual in his hand.

I kept clicking the car alarm sensor, and it just would not beep. I opened the plastic sensor case, took out the tiny battery, and placed it back in the case. Still no beep. Searching for another way to disarm the alarm, I unlocked the car door and grabbed the driver’s manual out of the glove compartment. Ten minutes later, with the alarm blaring throughout the Bally Fitness parking lot, I gave up that idea. I soon set out on foot through a few neighboring lots alongside hectic Route 22.

As I reached Staples, a red-shirted employee directed me to that rack of batteries. It was here that I found the one-inch-long alkaline battery I needed. A few minutes later, I had disarmed my car and could drive it home. Two dollars, 17 cents and a less-than-scenic walk – that was all it took to save the day.

A few years ago, there was a generally mediocre pitcher toiling in the Cincinnati Reds’ bullpen. His name was Ryan Franklin, and his career numbers were the kind you’d easily flip past while looking through a baseball magazine. In the 2004-05 seasons, for instance, Franklin’s combined record with the Seattle Mariners was 12-31. But as the St. Louis Cardinals prepared for the 2007 season, they needed some help in their bullpen. So they spent a few dollars on Franklin, and signed him up in the hope that he could turn things around.

After almost four seasons in St. Louis, Ryan Franklin has given the Cardinals far more than a little battery power. He has risen up the ranks to team closer, and has saved 76 games for the team over the past three years. Last season, Franklin earned a spot on the National League’s All-Star team. This year, he’s striking out five times as many batters as he’s walking.

A closer’s most important job is to preserve a win in the final inning. When he does this, he’s credited with saving the game. When Franklin takes the mound in search of a save, he – like the rest of his teammates – dresses in red. Same as the guys at Staples. And like a battery you never knew you’d need, Ryan Franklin has hopped off the shelf, shut down the alarms, and made the ride home a lot smoother for the fans in St. Louis.