The Cardinals led the NL last year in runs (855, 5.27/game,) batting average (.278), slugging (.460) and OPS (.804), often bludgeoning their opponents into submission while winning 105 games and the pennant. Lost amid the thunder was the remarkable performance turned in by the no-star pitching staff that quietly allowed the fewest runs (659, 4.07/game) in all of baseball. So ordinary, seemingly, was the rotation that when the best starter on the team---the unassuming and perfectly pedestrian Chris Carpenter---missed the postseason, no one outside St. Louis seemed to even notice. Yet Carpenter allowed the fourth-fewest baserunners/9 in the league, trailing only such well-known studs as Randy Johnson, Ben Sheets and Jason Schmidt, and bettering Roger Clemens, Carl Zambrano, Roy Oswalt, and every other pitcher in the league.

In 2005 Cardinals pitching continues to fly beneath the radar, but that may not last much longer. While several pre-season analyses pointed to the Cardinals pitching as a potential weak spot (Can Carpenter come back from his nerve problem? Can Matt Morris regain his form after off-season corrective surgery? Can Mark Mulder put his horrendous second half behind him and find the command that made him the All-Star starter last year? Can Jason Marquis show that 2004’s advance wasn’t a fluke, and build on shaky peripheral numbers that suggest he was more lucky than good?) the fact remains that the team was returning five starters who won 15 or more games last year, and every team’s staff has question marks.

But so far in 2005, the pitching---and lately, especially, the starting pitching---has been the major component of the team’s success.

Currently, the Cardinals rank in the top four in the league in team ERA, WHIP, and strikeout-to-walk ratio. Sure, it’s early, but that fact makes these rankings even more impressive, given that the Cardinals gave up 23 runs to Philly in two games---those two games representing 1/8th of the season to date---over the season’s first weekend. Through that first weekend the Cardinals allowed 35 runs in five games. Since then, they’ve allowed 24 runs over 11 games.

The bullpen has done well enough (3.52 era in 2005), but over the current nine-game stretch in which the Cardinals are 8-1 it is the rotation---all five starters---that has carried the team.

Since Mark Mulder’s last ugly outing---a 6-5 loss to the Reds on April 13 that dropped the Cardinals to 3-4---the Cardinals starting pitching has gone through Central Division rivals Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Houston like a hot knife through Benecol, Olestra, Simplesse, and Salatrim.

           G    IP    H   R  ER  BB    K  HR   ERA   W L
Suppan     2  14.2   14   3   2   5    5   0   1.23  1-1
Carpenter  2  15.2   12   3   3   4   11   0   1.72  2-0
Marquis    2  13.2   10   7   6   4   13   1   3.95  2-0
Morris     1   6.0    4   1   1   1    7   1   1.50  1-0
Mulder     2  18.0    7   1   0   3    7   0   0.00  2—0

TOTALS     9  68.0   47  15  12  17   43   2   1.59  8-1

Who knows how long this dominance will last; three of the Cardinals’ recent opponents are the bottom three in the league in runs scored, and they’ve only played 5 games this year against any of the top 10 scoring teams.

Still, given the sluggish performance of the hitters (collective .235 average, no starter at .300, only two above .259), Cardinal fans have to be thrilled by the team’s 11-5 record and the rotation’s role in attaining it.

Once the hitters get going (and we all know they will) this is a team that could very well dominate as they did last year---and the Birds’ already sizable 3-1/2 game lead may never be so small.