Tony LaRussa on Tuesday again declined to officially name Jason Motte the closer when the season opens in 12 days.
Indices from Jupiter Florida have been trending towards Motte for the past week after Chris Perez was temporarily shut down and the sheer terror of having Ryan Franklin attempt to save games was re-lived via video by Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan.
As Baseball Digest has been reporting this week, third base has become paramount in importance after the pre-season hullabaloo focused on the second base and/or closer position. But it is our belief that at the end of the season… the most important factor in determining if the Cardinals were in contention or not will have been the performance of the fireballer Jason Motte (or Chris Perez at some point).
Fireballer is a pretty magnanimous phrase, usually bestowed on a player when his high heat approaches triple digits on the Juggs. An interesting story on the front page of Yahoo! Sports today tells the story of Stephen Strasburg who theoretically could be the hardest thrower in the history of baseball- able to hit 103 MPH on a semi-regular basis.
I encourage everyone to read the story… but I had to mention my favorite part:
Strasburg wasn’t always in such fast company. He’d been at San Diego State all of a week in 2006 and he was doubled over in the corner of the dugout, heaving and vomiting after a routine conditioning workout. Tony Gwynn, the Hall of Famer and the Aztecs’ coach, shook his head. The sorry spectacle confirmed everything he feared about the freshman pitcher. Filter had convinced Gwynn to give a scholarship to Strasburg, a local kid nobody else wanted.
One thought kept coming back to Gwynn: How can somebody who throws so hard be so soft?
Sure, Strasburg could throw 91 mph, but he was a good 30 pounds overweight. He couldn’t run a few laps without getting sick. He didn’t know how to bench press. The school’s conditioning coach nicknamed him “Slothburg” and told him he ought to quit on the spot.
Pot, kettle. Kettle, pot. Glad to have made the introduction.
Topics: Chris Perez, Jason Motte, Ryan Franklin, St. Louis Cardinals, St. Louis Cardinals Closer, Stephen Strasburg, Tony LaRussa
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