When the Colorado Rockies traded for starting Jeremy Guthrie last February, they expected him to be a reliable innings-eating pitcher with a deceptive fastball, a good slider and change up. The right-handed Guthrie was the Opening Day starter for the Baltimore Orioles the last three seasons and Guthrie was the Opening Day starter for the Rockies. By July 20, Guthrie’s 2012 season was a bust and the Rockies sent him to the Kansas City Royals for the disappointing lefty Jonathan Sanchez.

The 2012 season started out well with an Opening Day win against the Huston Astros. But the Rockies lost 13 of the 19 games Guthrie pitched in and he ended up with a 6.35 ERA, 4.5 K/9 and a 3.1 BB/9 over 90.2 innings. In late April and early May, Guthrie also missed 15 games with a right shoulder injury. By June 20, the Rockies sent the struggling Guthrie to the bullpen as their long reliever, going with a four-man rotation. Guthrie rejoined the rotation July 4, but the Rockies lost three of the last four games Guthrie started before being dealt to the Royals.

In his first three starts with the Royals, Guthrie looked like a right-handed version of Sanchez, giving up 14 earned runs over 16.1 innings, 12 strikeouts and five walks, being pegged as the losing pitcher in all three games.

But the last two starts reveal a different Jeremy Guthrie. In a combined 15 innings, Guthrie hasn’t given up a run, earned or unearned and thrown 14 strikeouts and given up just two walks. And the teams he pitched against were the Chicago White Sox and the Oakland A’s, both teams who are in the thick of the playoff hunt.

Since the trade, Guthrie has a 4.02 ERA, 7.5 K/9 and a 2.0 BB/9 over 31.3 innings. Meanwhile, Sanchez has a 9.53 ERA, 6.1 K/9 and a 7.4 BB/9 over 11.1 innings. So far, it looks like the Royals got the better end of the deal.

So why the turnaround? A big part of it is Guthrie’s change of scenery. When Guthrie pitched at Coors Field, he had a 7.84 ERA and a 5.1 K/9 over 12 games in 59.2 innings pitched. When he was away from Coors Field, Guthrie had a 3.75 ERA and a 5.3 K/9 over 12 games and 62.1 innings pitched. Guthrie also gave up 15 homers at Coors Field compared to nine homers in other ballparks. And did I mention Guthrie is a flyball pitcher? That’s not a good thing in the rarefied air of Coors Field.

Kauffman Stadium is more of a pitcher’s ballpark and with the Royals good defensive outfield, Guthrie can afford to be a flyball pitcher. Lately, the Royals offense is improving, so that gives Guthrie and the starting rotation better run support.

Another factor is Guthrie’s attitude when joining the Royals. Sanchez always acted like he didn’t want to be with the Royals and his performance showed it. But Guthrie says the Royals were one of the three teams he would like pitch for and so far he’s displaying a good attitude.

But two good starts doesn’t mean Guthrie will continue his good run. And Guthrie isn’t going to turn the Royals 2012 season around by himself. These are the Royals we’re talking about, and starting pitching is still the weak link of the team.

Guthrie will be a free agent at the end of the year. If he has a good rest of the season, he could command more than his current $8.2 million salary. Would the Royals be willing or able to sign him, or will Guthrie go somewhere else for a bigger paycheck? And the Royals may believe they have better and more affordable in-house options and let Guthrie walk.

For a trade that seemed to be a wash about a month ago, Jeremy Guthrie is becoming a pleasant surprise. And with yesterday’s news of former Royal outfielder Melky Cabrera being suspended for 50 games for testing positive for testosterone, the Sanchez/Cabrera trade doesn’t seem too bad, especially with getting Guthrie out of the deal.

On Wednesday the Cardinals completed a 3-game series against Arizona in the desert. St Louis won 2 of the three games. That in and of itself is not remarkable; as mentioned last week, the Cardinals have had reasonable success in Tucson. What is unusual is how many runs the team scored in those three games.

To recap – St Louis won the opener 8-2 behind the resurgent Kyle Lohse, lost 8-13 behind surprisingly shaky Chris Carpenter, then bludgeoned their way to a 15-5 win in support of a grateful Jake Westbrook. Thirty-one runs in the series, with at least 8 runs in every game. Talk about runs in bunches. More perspective: they had scored only 27 runs total in their first nine games.

That many runs in a series has to be a rarity, right? How often have the Cardinals done that? Well, more often than I initially thought, but less often than one might expect.

Looking back over the past 50 seasons, the Cardinals have scored 8 or more runs in three consecutive games against the same opponent 17 times.

In 1961, two of the three games were played as part of a double-header (on 17 July 1961). The third game of that set was the first game of a double-header played the next day – yes, on July 17 and 18 the Cardinals and Cubs played back-to-back double headers.

Note that over half of these 3-game sets have happened in the last 10 years. If one needed more proof offensive production has taken off in the recent history of the game, here it is. Additionally the Cardinals have turned this trick before in Arizona, ten years ago to the week.

What is unique about the recently completed series is the Cardinals did not win all three games during this offensive explosion. While not a rarity if the series is scheduled for longer than 3 games, it is a rarity for a three game set. The data presented here only goes back to 1961, however, I searched on Baseball Reference to see if St Louis had ever played a 3-game series in which they scored 8 or more runs in all three games and failed to win all three games. Baseball Reference carries game results back to 1919, and I looked at 2300+ games.

Never before had the Cardinals scored 8 or more runs in a 3-game series and not swept until the recently completed Arizona series.

I counted 36 series where they had scored 8 or more runs in 3 consecutive games on consecutive days against the same opponent through the 1926 season, when I stopped writing them down. In each instance where they lost on of the 3 games the series was at least 4 games long (and in 2 instances, 5 games).

A footnote to history, to be sure. However as a wise man once said, the great thing about baseball is you might see something today you’ve never seen before. We did not know it at the time, but during this mid-week series we all saw the Cardinals do something they had never done before.

Mike Metzger blogs about the Cardinals at Stan Musial’s Stance.

The I-70 team has selected Matt Holliday as the 2010 Cardinal position player of the year. When a site supporting a team boasting Albert Pujols on the roster picks someone other than Pujols for this honor, some explanation is needed, perhaps even necessary.

By most measures, Pujols’ 2010 campaign was a step down from his norm both offensively and defensively. He posted his third-lowest season in batting average, on base percentage, and slugging percentage. He finished with his lowest wOBA in a season since 2007. Albert grounded into the more double plays (23) than any season but the 2007 campaign (27). He struck-out more than in any season since his rookie campaign of 2001. On defense, his UZR/150 dropped for the fourth straight year and was barely above average (1.1). His Dewan (+/-) also dropped for the fourth straight season, and he received a negative value (on straight-on chances) for the first time in his career. He was rated the #8 defensive first baseman by that Dewan metric.

To be fair, for the mere mortal, Albert’s 2010 season line of .312/.414/.596 would garner quite a lot of MVP votes. he posted an OPS+ of 173, which is only 1 point behind current MVP favorite Joey Votto. But when your career averages are .331/.426/.624, well, it’s a down year for you.

Matt Holliday did not continue at his 169 OPS+ pace from 2009, but he did put up excellent numbers. Matt’s 149 OPS+ for 2010 is only 1 point off his career high, and he posted that 150 while playing half his games at Coors Field. His .312/.390/.532 line is right on his career averages (.317/.388/.543). He just missed (.396) cracking .400 wOBA for the fourth time in his career. He lowered his strike-out total for the fourth consecutive year. For the first time since Ryan Ludwick (2008 version) the Cardinals had someone who could, and did, make teams pay for pitching around Pujols. Holliday also had a tremendous defensive year. His UZR/150 came in at 8.7, best in the NL and fourth-best in the Majors. He posted the second-best Dewan (+/-) number of his career, and was ranked as the #3 left-fielder by that metric.

His superior glove work closed the WAR gap between the two. Fangraphs rated Pujols at 7.3, Holliday at 6.9 (second and fourth in the league among position players, respectively). By Baseball Reference’s calculation there was a slightly bigger difference; Pujols pulled a 7.2 to a 5.5 for Holliday (AP led the league, Holliday was sixth, among position players per the B-R ranking).

Or, we can throw all that statistical analysis out and simply say this. Matt Holliday was the most consistent Cardinal hitter the entire season. He did not go into an extended funk at any point, and whatever was going on around him he just produced. Pujols ended up with better numbers, but Holliday was the cornerstone for this year’s offense. And that’s before we bring in his defensive prowess in left.

Congratulations to Matt Holliday on his selection.

As the Cardinals venture west to face the Colorado Rockies, we at i70 take our craft public. It is difficult to dismiss the analogies abound.

While the Redbirds will undoubtedly be traveling by plane, the very highway whose name our humble site is borrowed will extend itself the entire way down below. If you have not made the journey by car, let me save you the trouble. It’s as bland a trip as there is within our nation’s borders.

The climb is so subtle that if you didn’t know better you would swear the journey was as level as Italian slate. But make no mistake; your vehicle is battling for its life. It’s an unrelenting, uphill grind.

If this scene doesn’t epitomize the 2010 Cardinals…bland…laborious…a bit dull, but seemingly still battling…it is hard to say what does.

These two teams will find themselves looking across Coors Field at very similar squads tonight. Both are fighting to remain atop their respective division, and both are having only limited, sustained success.

At 45-37, the Cardinals are one win up on the 44-38 Rockies, albeit from within a group that has redefined the dig, “Comedy Central”. Only the Cardinals and Reds have winning records in the NL Central. In the West, the only team without a winning record is the Arizona Diamondbacks, a team that Saint Louis snatched a rather unconvincing 2 out of 3 from just last week.

Game 1 will pit stopgap starter Blake Hawksworth (2-5, 5.02 ERA) against Jeff Francis (2-3, 4.67 ERA). The veteran lefty is coming off his worst start of the season, a three-inning effort against San Diego in which he gave up 8 earned runs and 3 walks.

Conversely, the young Hawksworth looks to continue to build upon serviceable starts against the Royals and Brewers. His most recent outing against Milwaukee, one of the league’s most potent lineups, was his best of the year. The bullpen-to-rotation convert went six strong innings and struck out 7, giving up just 3 earned runs.

In Game 2, Jaime Garcia (8-4, 2.10 ERA) will take the second best ERA in baseball against Aaron Cook (3-5, 4.66 ERA). While Cook’s line should be considered average at best, he’s been effective at home, posting a 2.64 ERA.

If Game 3 turns out to be the rubber match, it has potential to be a good one. All-Star Chris Carpenter (9-2, 3.16) will be tapped to spar with Jhoulys Chacin (5-7, 3.59). The rookie has swing-and-miss stuff, as evident in his 12 K’s against the Angels on June 27^th. While Carp undoubtedly holds the edge in all facets, the rookie will put an often overaggressive Cardinals’ lineup to the test.

These two I-70 anchor points parallel one another as much in their state of affairs as they do longitude. Look for a series that has the feel of October baseball, as both teams try to prove, as much to themselves as to fans, that they belong in the postseason.