Cardinals’ Shelby Miller retires 27 straight in 1-hitter

Shelby Miller gave up a single to start the game then nothing else. Not a walk or a hit batter. No one even reached on an error.

The St. Louis Cardinals rookie was perfect after that leadoff single by Eric Young Jr., retiring 27 in a row for his first career complete game, 3-0 over the Colorado Rockies on Friday night.

“I feel really good,” Miller said. “It’s definitely the best game I’ve thrown in my life. How it finished was unbelievable. It was a great experience. Yadi (catcher Yadier Molina) was calling a great game and they were making great plays for me. It was a start I’ll remember the rest of my life.”

Miller (5-2) struck out Young to end it with his 13th K, tying a Cardinals rookie record.

Young felt fortunate just to reach base at all.

“It was a jam shot and I just put it in a good location,” Young said. “I was just fortunate enough to find grass.

..The one-hitter was the fewest hits allowed by a Cardinals pitcher since Bud Smith tossed a no-hitter on Sept. 3, 2001, and it was the second one-hitter of the night in the major leagues. Boston’s Jon Lester was perfect until he allowed a two-out double in the sixth against Toronto.

In a near-perfect performance, Miller threw 113 pitches..

Thanks to Cappy Drew.

KMOV: Bailey: Wrigley Field is the treasure that never was

My kind of stadium, Wrigley ain’t
My kind of freeloaders, too
Toothless ushers who smile at you

There is something ghastly about watching the St. Louis Cardinals play the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field akin to watching the prom queen dance with Quasimodo in a fetid alley.

Busch Stadium is a modern, clean facility with excellent views of the playing field, wide inner corridors, easy access to vendors, large restrooms, plentiful parking and compelling views of a vibrant downtown.

The Busch Stadium field announcer unashamedly welcomes fans to “Baseball Heaven.” Ushers smile, vendors have a full set of teeth, and the field is immaculate. 

If Busch is baseball heaven, then Wrigley Field is that other place, a sort of baseball hell where fans can purchase a ticket only to find their seat obstructed by a support beam, or located so far under the upper deck that fly balls are not visible, like watching the game from a tunnel. So distant is the upper deck, the game is just a rumor.

...Perhaps the most curious aspect of Wrigley Field are the freeloaders who squat on various neighboring rooftops in seats only marginally less distant than Voyager II. They don’t just pilfer the game as they once did, years ago, when they put out a few lawn chairs and watched a couple of innings from across the street. Building owners have erected stadium seating – large metal bleachers onto which dozens of people sit, often paying large sums of money to sit across the street, at least 200 feet further than the farthest outfield seat. Literally hundreds of fans cram into these steep bleachers in full view of fire inspectors and building code enforcement, convinced that they are enjoying a unique experience.

The worst seat at Busch Stadium is a field box compared to these, yet they are more coveted that the handful of decent seats inside Wrigley itself.

They have another tradition, that of singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” in the 7th inning, led off-key by some minor celebrity dragged in to aver his undying allegiance to a team whose moniker is “The Lovable Losers.”

And they are, in more ways than one.

RetroSimba: Sandy Koufax: ‘I still don’t know how to pitch to Curt Flood’

All that and a Jerry Buchek Republic mention!

Curt Flood, a career .293 hitter but never known for his power, slugged two home runs against Dodgers ace Sandy Koufax. Both were historic.

The first was a leadoff shot that sparked a rare feat. The second was significant because it was the last home run hit against Koufax.

On April 26, 2013, Matt Carpenter and Carlos Beltran, the first two batters in the Cardinals’ order, hit consecutive home runs in the first inning against the Pirates’ Jonathan Sanchez. Boxscore They are the first pair to lead off a game for the Cardinals with home runs since Tony Womack and Reggie Sanders did it against the Rockies’ Denny Stark in April 2004, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Boxscore

Before that, the last pair of Cardinals who led off with back-to-back home runs in the first inning were Flood and Gene Freese _ against Koufax.

...It would be the last homer hit against Koufax, who would retire after the season. (Koufax yielded 204 home runs in 12 big-league seasons, plus two in the 1963 World Series.)

Still, Koufax was in control. In the ninth, he struck out the first two batters, Lou Brock and Jerry Buchek. Next up was Flood. He doubled to center, keeping alive the Cardinals’ hopes.

“I got a little tired near the end and made a mistake with Flood,” Koufax said to United Press International. “Imagine, after eight or nine years in the league, I still don’t know how to pitch to Flood.”

(Flood hit .296 [32-for-108] in his career against Koufax.)

Miklasz: Kozma confounds those who study statistics

Unfortunately, The Gagarin Computer Rating does not divulge the methodology behind their system.

The Kozmanaut’s performance continues to cause considerable consternation among the sabermetric sons and daughters of Bill James.

To some, what Kozma is doing really is unbelievable.

And let me say that I usually march with the sabes. I crunch so many advanced statistics, I’ve knowingly violated several bylaws of the Baseball Writers Association of America. (Rule: for the love of Max Mercy, son _ stick to Triple Crown stats.) 

My favorite books include the old Baseball Abstracts; I prefer them to the Brothers Grimm – yes, even if Kozma is looking a lot like the Frog Prince.

So I’m not slamming stat heads. I feel their confusion. The dude batted .236 with a .308 onbase percentage and a .344 slugging percentage in 2,752 minor-league at-bats, and that isn’t supposed to translate into Robin Yount.

That said, I’m enjoying watching Kozma shred the sabermetric spread sheets and make paper airplanes out of the reports that suggest his bat carries traces of Mario Mendoza DNA.

...The Kozmanaut’s performance continues to cause considerable consternation among the sabermetric sons and daughters of Bill James.

To some, what Kozma is doing really is unbelievable.

And let me say that I usually march with the sabes. I crunch so many advanced statistics, I’ve knowingly violated several bylaws of the Baseball Writers Association of America. (Rule: for the love of Max Mercy, son _ stick to Triple Crown stats.) 

My favorite books include the old Baseball Abstracts; I prefer them to the Brothers Grimm – yes, even if Kozma is looking a lot like the Frog Prince.

So I’m not slamming stat heads. I feel their confusion. The dude batted .236 with a .308 onbase percentage and a .344 slugging percentage in 2,752 minor-league at-bats, and that isn’t supposed to translate into Robin Yount.

That said, I’m enjoying watching Kozma shred the sabermetric spread sheets and make paper airplanes out of the reports that suggest his bat carries traces of Mario Mendoza DNA.

RetroSimba: Revisiting the Gregg Jefferies deal: Cards’ good gamble

Weeki Wachee Swings…a look back.

The move paid off spectacularly.

Jefferies, 26, had a career year for the 1993 Cardinals. He hit .342 in 142 games, with 16 home runs, 83 RBI and 46 stolen bases. He committed only nine errors.

The deal was made because the Cardinals were looking to cut down on the number of runners stranded in scoring position.

Cardinals batters had struck out 996 times in 1992. Jose, who usually batted third or fourth, struck out 100 times. He too often stranded a runner at third base with less than two outs because of his inability to make contact consistently.

“That killed us more than anything last year,” Cardinals manager Joe Torre said to Rick Hummel of the Post-Dispatch in February 1993.

Jose’s weakness was Jefferies’ strength. ”I take pride in being able to do that,” Jefferies said of knocking in runners from third by making contact.

Jefferies struck out just 29 times in 604 at-bats for the 1992 Royals.

Cardinals pitcher Bob Tewksbury hailed the trade: “Having somebody with thunder in the lineup is going to help. It’s not thunder like Jack Clark, but (Jefferies) is going to hit the ball hard a lot.”

Said Torre: “Jefferies is a legitimate good hitter. Felix probably scared people more, but he would swing and miss too often.”

The biggest baseball card you’ve ever seen

Now…about that Stretch McCovey card.

Topps, famous purveyors of baseball cards, have unveiled the biggest baseball card in the history of big baseball cards. Somewhat fittingly, the record-smothering card is of Prince Fielder, who is himself large and often in charge. The card’s sprawl, though, is larger than a steering committee of Prince Fielders.

Dom Palumbo, Keith Hernandez Impersonator, St. Louis Native, Competes In MLB Fan Cave

I used to bowl in a league with a guy that pretended he was Stu Cook of CCR…until somebody finally beat the golliwogs out of him.

Don Palumbo, a St. Louis native, loves baseball so much that he just might see every minute of every single game this season. And if all goes according to plan, he’ll be watching the games from a swanky space in New York City.

Palumbo—who has a healthy moustache and enjoys impersonating former Cardinal Keith Hernandez—is now a finalist in the 2013 Major League Baseball “Fan Cave” contest, a promotional push by MLB that brings nine lucky folks from around the country to the Big Apple for the entire season. Winners get to meet star athletes, other actor and music celebs—and generally have a pretty friggin’ awesome year.

“It’s every baseball fan’s ultimate dream,” Palumbo, 24, tells Daily RFT.

...As soon as he showed up to the stadium in his outfit, people started approaching him and asking for autographs.

“I was in character the whole time,” he says. “If someone called me Dom, I just ignored them.”