Beginning on Memorial Day, the St. Louis Cardinals-Kansas City Royals rivalry will be rekindled in the 2013 season with a four-game home-and-home series. The first two games of the series will be played in Kansas City on Monday and Tuesdaywhile the final two games of the series will be played down the road in St. Louis. This unique four-game set is similar to the Battle of the Beltway, which will feature the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals playing a home-and-home.

Entering the weekend, the St. Louis Cardinals had the best record in Major League Baseball and led the N.L. Central. Their pitching staff, which has allowed the fewest runs in the majors, and a potent offense, which has scored the third most runs in the National League, primarily drives this. One of the most pleasant surprises for the Cards has been the performance of Shelby Miller who boasts a 5-3 record with a 1.74 ERA. Entering this year, Miller had only started one game and pitched thirteen career innings, yet has been able to vex opposing hitters so far in 2013.

In the other dugout, the Kansas City Royals will look to continue on their surprising start and shorten the gap in the A.L. Central behind the division-leading Cleveland Indians. Despite dropping four of the last five series, the Royals remain in third place in the division. For the most part the team has struggled to score runs, but has been led by a strong pitching staff. Alex Gordon has been one of the sole bright spots on offense and leads the team in average, home runs, RBI’s, and runs. Pitchers Jeremy Guthrie, Ervin Santana, and James Shields headline a staff, which has allowed the second-fewest runs in the American League. Despite boasting a 2-5 record, Shields has a minuscule .96 WHIP to go along with a 2.47 ERA on the year and has been primarily hindered by a lack of run support.

 The first two games of the series in Kansas City currently carry an average price well above the average price for Royals tickets this year ($54). Monday’s Memorial Day afternoon start has tickets going for an average of $80 with a get-in price of $16. This $80 average is 48% above the home season average. Game two’s tickets are currently being sold at an average of $70 with the least expensive tickets costing $15. The prices for these two games are 14% less than the games played in Kansas City between these two teams last year, but are 34% more expensive than 2010, and 38% more expensive than in 2011.

The final two games of the series in St. Louis are going for $42 and $45 respectively. This season, the average price for Cardinals tickets is $68 and the prices for these two games between the teams will be 38% and 34% below that average. Tickets are still readily available for the two games and can be acquired for a low price of $6 for Wednesday and $8 for Thursday. These prices reflect a continued downward trend for tickets in St. Louis between the Cardinals and Royals as the prices are 24% less expensive than 2011 and 16% less expensive from just one year ago.

The battle for the Midwest will feature two teams heading in two different directions. The Cardinals will be seeking to stretch out their divisional lead and improve upon the best record in Major League Baseball while the Royals will be trying to turn around a recent slide which put a damper upon one of the most surprising starts in the majors.

The St. Louis Cardinals jumped out to a 28-16 record through roughly the first quarter of the regular season, and while that is the best record in the National League, the team still has noticeable room for improvement.

The roster started to round into form nicely in early May as the hitters such as centerfielder Jon Jay and third baseman David Freese improved their swings, and the bullpen stabilized to provide reinforcements late in the game for a starting rotation that was by far the most dominant in all of Major League Baseball.

But then right-handed starter Jake Westbrook went on the disabled list May 12 with a sore elbow, and left-handed starter Jaime Garcia’s probably ended Friday when he left the game with left shoulder pain and is likely headed for surgery.

The Cardinals called up left-handed pitcher John Gast to fill Westbrook’s spot, and Gast has done well with wins in each of his first two starts. Gast has a 4.76 earned-run average, but that’s largely because he ran into trouble in the sixth inning after pitching five scoreless innings in each game.

Another lefty, Tyler Lyons, will start Wednesday in San Diego against the Padres in place of Garcia. Lyons had a 4.47 ERA through eight starts with the Triple-A Memphis Redbirds, but neither Lyons nor Gast should be the Cardinals’ largest worries.

If Gast continues to pitch well, the Cardinals could keep him in the rotation when Westbrook comes back and send Lyons back to the minors, but the bullpen is still more of a concern.

Mitchell Boggs returned to the Cardinals on Monday in San Diego after a nearly three-week long banishment in Memphis to straighten out his pitching since he racked up an ERA above 12.00 in his first 14 appearances of the season.

Boggs gave up a homerun to the first hitter he faced Monday, which was Padres centerfielder Will Veneble, but then settled in to retire the next six hitters in a row.

Before Boggs, Fernando Salas entered Monday’s game in the sixth inning to relieve right-handed rookie starter Shelby Miller, who held a 2-1 lead at the time but left with two runners on base. Salas promptly gave up a single to center by outfielder Chris Denorfia, walked catcher John Baker and hit pinch hitter Jesus Guzman to allow the Padres to take their game-winning 4-2 lead.

The bullpen doesn’t have to be perfect every game. That’s an unrealistic expectation, but the inconsistency is frightening now that the starting rotation is down to three of its original five members.

The relievers’ workload could quickly skyrocket if Gast and Lyons can’t make it past the sixth inning. Right-handed starter Lance Lynn tends to run up a high pitch count fairly regularly, and Miller hasn’t made it past the sixth inning in his two starts after the complete-game shutout he threw May 10 at Busch Stadium against the Colorado Rockies.

That, in turn, puts more pressure on right-handed ace Adam Wainwright to pitch deep into every game he pitches because the bullpen will likely be either overworked or on the verge of being overworked until Westbrook returns and Chris Carpenter completes another surprising comeback.

Wainwright will also have to pitch very well in his starts because the offense has yet to consistently put up large run totals this season. The lineup has produced more than four runs in a game three times in the last 13 games.

However, the Cardinals’ lineup is packed with five hitters who have combined for more than 3,000 RBIs in their careers, so any scoring droughts likely won’t last very long.

Given their start, the 2013 Cardinals have the potential to put together one of the best records in franchise history, but they currently still have a few too many questions on their roster to make that prediction become reality.

For several years now the Royals have had one of the better farm systems in Major League Baseball.  Most teams should be so lucky.  The Royals however haven’t been able to translate this advantage into success on the field and there would seem to be one very good reason for this.

You can’t win the World Series with the AAA Storm Chasers.  It takes time to scout and develop major league talent.  While developing young talent can be exciting, it usually comes with long periods of growing pains while the fans wait for the team to assemble all of the necessary pieces to win consistently.  And if you’re a mid-market team like the Royals then you hope that you have enough players developed each year to keep costs down.

In a weak division, the offensive core might be enough to keep the Royals out of the basement for the foreseeable future but to be yearly contenders they are still missing something.  Pitching, pitching and maybe a little pitching.  This is where general manager Dayton Moore earned his paycheck this offseason.

Moore started his offseason by acquiring Ervin Santana (and cash) from the Angles in exchange for LHP Brandon Sisk.  The Angles are of course currently attempting to outspend every other team in baseball and thought they could do better than Santana.  Forced to exercise his buyout option, the move seems more about dumping Santana to try and buy up more expensive pitching arms than it was about picking up prospects.  Santana isn’t exactly anyone’s idea of a team ace but he can definitely eat up innings and has the potential to strike out a ton of guys.  Unfortunately he also has the potential to give up a lot of runs.

Santana is coming off of a pretty bad year where he gave up a league leading 39 of said home runs as well as one of the more undesirable ERAs (5.16).  The Royals are hoping that the Santana they get is the Santana that can strike out 200 plus batters while posting a 3.49 ERA like he did in 2008 and so far so good.  In 7 starts, Santana has a 2.79 ERA.  What probably scares the Royals is that fact that almost half of his earned runs have come off of the long ball.  Still, it seems like a smart move, especially since Sisk, the minor league pitcher they gave up to acquire Santana, now needs Tommy John surgery.

Sisk, who has been a career minor league pitcher, seemed ready to come up and take on a bullpen position.  He posted a 2.54 ERA at the AAA level in 2012 but elbow surgery puts his future into question.  The Angles did place Sisk on their 40 man roster which means they still see potential, but for now the Royals seem to have come out on top of this trade.

But by far the biggest move for the Royals this offseason was the 6 man trade with Tampa Bay.  The trade sent starting pitchers James Shields and Wade Davis to Kansas City in exchange for minor leaguers Patrick Leonard, Jake Odorizzi, Mike Montgomery and Wil Myers.

Wade Davis probably isn’t going to win over the hearts and minds of the ever patient Royals fans.  Just another arm for an under achieving starting rotation.  James Shields is another matter as he’s the closest thing to an ace the Royals have had since the departure of Zack Greinke.  He’s had a strikeouts per 9 innings rate of over 8 since 2010 and pitches deep into games.  But even if he’s everything the Royals hope he will be, he is only signed through this year with a $12 million dollar option for 2014.

The Royals gave up the 2012 minor league player of the year for what seems to be a 2 year shot at winning a weak division.  The Rays, who can’t draw a crowd and can’t ever hope to spend the kind of money that other teams in their division do have to rely on smart moves in order to compete and this is one of them.  The Royals have an incredibly deep farm system but giving up what some people consider to be baseball’s best prospect for an outside chance at a championship is risky but it does send a message.  The Royals want to win and they want to win now.  They haven’t been to the post season since they won the World Series in 1985 and they want that to change.

Early in the season they hold a winning record but their hopes of making the playoffs are probably tied to beating the Tigers.  Their offensive core will remain in Kansas City for the time being but the pitching that they have literally bet the farm for will not.  The silver lining here is that the Royals fans finally have something to be excited about, that is unless Wil Myers turns out to be an annual MVP candidate.  If that turns out to be the case, nothing short of a World Series will be worth the cost.

For several years now the Kansas City Royals have had one of the better farm systems in Major League Baseball.  Most teams should be so lucky.  The Royals haven’t been able to translate this advantage into success on the field and there would seem to be one very good reason for this.

You can’t win the World Series with the AAA Storm Chasers.  It takes time to scout and develop major league talent.  While developing young talent can be exciting, it usually comes with long periods of growing pains while the fans wait for the team to assemble all of the necessary pieces to win consistently.  And if you’re a mid-market team like the Royals, then you hope that you have enough players developed each year to keep costs down.

But the patience may be paying off for Royals fans as they are now getting a glimpse at what a winning, home-grown baseball team looks like in Kansas City.  Mike Moustakas, who was a 1^st round draft pick in 2007, had 20 home runs and 73 RBIs last year in 560+ at bats.  Despite having a slow start in April, Moustakas has shown signs that his bat is coming alive hitting 3 home runs in the last week.  Moustakas isn’t available for arbitration until 2015 and doesn’t become a free agent until 2018.  Moustakas is still far from the player the Royals want him to be though.  He drew only 39 walks and struck out 124 times last year.  However, if Moustakas can learn some discipline at the plate he is sure to be the guy holding down the hot corner for years to come at Kauffman stadium.

There is cause for optimism for Moustakas as his first year stats are not all that dissimilar to the numbers that outfielder Alex Gordon put up in his debut year.  Gordon, another 1^st round pick from 2005 also struck out in excess of 130 times with only 41 walks.  You won’t hear anyone complaining about Alex Gordon though as the Royals have developed him into a player that turns in a 300 plus batting average every year.  Now hitting in the 3^rd spot in the lineup, he is currently batting over .320 this year and already has 6 home runs to go with that average.  Gordon is signed through 2015 with a club option for the 2016 season.

Gordon’s breakout is exactly what the Royal’s front office is hoping will happen for Eric Hosmer this year.  Hosmer, yet another first round pick from 2008 broke into the league in 2011 with 19 home runs and a .293 average.  As with other rookies, the walk rate could have been better but this was certainly a better rookie season than most expected.  Unfortunately it was followed up by a lack luster year in 2012 as his average dipped 60 points.  His average on balls in play (BABIP) for 2012 was a head hanging 255.  Hosmer is still incredibly young and should be able to correct his issues from last year.  Balls in play for 2013 are already up to 326.  Hosmer is available for arbitration next year so this season he is the player to watch as the Royals have been pretty open about how much they expect from him.  In fact, they probably expect him to be Billy Butler…at least by the numbers.

Billy Butler, if you’re keeping track, is also a 1^st round draft pick, consistently hits for average and power.  In his 7^th year playing for the Royals he has racked up 107 home runs and over 500 RBIs and will probably get his 1,000^th career hit before you finish reading this page.  This is the type of production the Royals want from Hosmer and it’s also why Butler’s 2015 option is starting to look like either the window for a home grown championship team or the year the Royals break out the check book and pay up.

While Butler is the type of player that all teams hope to develop, possibly the most important and likely the most overlooked piece to this young organization is Salvador Perez.  At 23 years old, Perez already holds the Royals franchise pick-off record for a single season.  The Royals believe that he will become one of the game’s best defensive catchers in years to come, something that no championship team can be without.  And the kid can hit as well.  In over 140 career games, Perez is hanging onto a 300 plus average.  The Royals feel so good about Perez that despite his apparent lack of experience, they have him signed through 2016 with options all the way through 2019.

In a weak division, this offensive core might be enough to keep the Royals out of the basement for the foreseeable future but to be yearly contenders we’re still missing something.

Check back tomorrow for a look at the pitching staff.

The St. Louis Cardinals suffered the first crack in their best-in-baseball starting rotation Sunday when they placed Jake Westbrook on the 15-day disabled list with elbow inflammation. The team decided to give Westrbook’s start to rookie John Gast, but they might have been better off to let a more experienced pitcher fill that role.

Joe Kelly made his Major League Baseball debut in similar circumstances last season after Jaime Garcia suffered a shoulder injury in June. Kelly went on to make 16 starts and post a 4-6 record with a 3.53 earned-run average, overall.

Although he didn’t have a winning record, Kelly did an admirable job filling a hole in the rotation last summer. He pitched six or more innings in all but three of his starts, and the Cardinals offense scored two or fewer runs in five of his six losses, and they scored just three in the other.

Kelly moved to the bullpen when Garcia returned in September and pitched well. He allowed just two runs in six appearances, but he also had a consistent workload by pitching about every third day. Manager Mike Matheny has significantly dropped his workload this season, and it’s shown in his results.

Kelly pitched twice in the Cardinals’ season-opening series in Arizona against the Diamondbacks, but he pitched only six more times the rest of April and had the fewest outings for any Cardinals reliever.

And then he imploded when the Cardinals did bring him into ballgames. He has allowed 10 runs in 11.2 innings pitched, but he’s also appeared in just three games in May. Perhaps a bigger role would help him get comfortable again and start to pitch better.

That’s also why a move to the rotation might help. Kelly would be guaranteed to pitch every fifth day, and he would be able to extend his pitch total well beyond what he gets as a member of the bullpen. He hasn’t thrown more than 27 pitches in an appearance this season, and that could quadruple if he moved to the rotation.

Plus, the Cardinals management wouldn’t have to hold its breath with another rookie on the mound to start a game.

Gast has been good for the Triple-A Memphis Redbirds. He’s 3-1 with a 1.16 ERA in seven starts this season in the minors, but there is always an unknown factor that comes into play when a rookie makes a start, and they often don’t pitch very deep into a ballgame.

The Cardinals might have left Kelly in the bullpen because they don’t want to force him to shift between starting and relieving if Westbrook comes back soon, but that shouldn’t be much of a problem since Kelly bounced between the rotation and bullpen last season and worked as a starter in spring training because he was in contention for the fifth spot in the rotation with Shelby Miller.

The Cardinals have even set a precedent for bringing up young pitchers this season when they brought Seth Maness and Carlos Martinez up from the minors. Both of those pitchers went straight into the bullpen and have done well.

Martinez gave up three runs Sunday to the Colorado Rockies in his third appearance, but he had not allowed a run and given up just one hit in his previous two outings. Meanwhile, Maness already has two wins, has allowed just one hit hasn’t walked a hitter in 3.1 innings through three outings.

Martinez and Maness could certainly become starters at some point in their career, yet the Cardinals will still send Gast to the mound while Martinez, Maness and Kelly sit in the bullpen.

Maybe Gast will be great and pitch the way Kelly and Lance Lynn did last season as fill-in rookie starters when they went a combined 23-14 with a combined 3.66 ERA.

But if he’s not, the Cardinals will have wasted games by hoping yet another rookie will do well in the rotation while Kelly sits in the bullpen.

The St. Louis Cardinals knew rookie right-handed starting pitcher Shelby Miller had talent since they drafted him No. 19 overall in the 2009 draft, but others in baseball questioned if the Houston-native’s maturity level would allow him to succeed at the sport’s highest level.

Miller projected he would be the in big leagues within two years of being drafted. Well, it took an extra year, but Miller has made the most of his first opportunity with the Cardinals and has set a pace that could earn him the highest honor a rookie can receive.

Miller gave up just one hit and struck out 13 Colorado Rockies in a complete game Friday to move his record to 5-2 and drop his earned-run average to a rotation-best 1.58.

His five wins are tied for second-most among Major League Baseball pitchers, and his ERA is four among all starters who have pitched more than two games so far in 2013.

Those are the sort of numbers that made the Cardinals draft Miller so high and made fans yearn for the team to call him up nearly anytime another starting pitcher had a couple of bad games. However, Miller didn’t look much like a Rookie of the Year-caliber pitcher when the Cardinals had holes to fill in their starting rotation at this point last season.

Projected starters Chris Carpenter and Kyle McClellan suffered long-term injuries in spring training last year. That left a potential spot for Miller to make good on his two-years-to-the-show claim, but Lance Lynn and Joe Kelly filled those positions instead.

Meanwhile, Miller was in the midst of a season with the Triple-A Memphis Redbirds that produced an 11-10 record with a 4.74 ERA, not nearly numbers that would inspire a call-up to the major leagues.

However, Miller won six of his seven final starts in 2012 with the Redbirds and pitched six games in relief with a 1.32 ERA as the Cardinals made their late-season run toward the playoffs.

He’s been even better in 2013 as part of starting rotation that has had one of the best starts to a season in franchise history, posting a 2.15 ERA in April. In fact, the entire Cardinals starting rotation would likely receive an invite to the All-Star Game if it was played in May instead of July.

Granted, the season is still young, and Miller will eventually have to face teams for a second time as the season progresses, but he has set a foundation for what could be one of the best rookie seasons for a Cardinals starting pitcher in more than a decade.

Remember, Adam Wainwright pitched too many games as a reliever in 2006 to be considered a rookie although he went 14-12 with a 3.70 ERA in 2007 as a full-time starter.

Before Wainwright, the Cardinals hadn’t had a dominant rookie pitcher since Rick Ankiel burst into the big leagues to be Rookie of the Year runner-up in 2000 with 194 strikeouts and a 3.50 ERA in 30 starts. Unfortunately, his dominance didn’t last very long as he lost control of his pitches with five wild pitches in a playoff game against the Atlanta Braves later that season and eventually switched positions to become an outfielder.

Matt Morris finished second in Rookie of the Year voting in 1997, going 12-9 with a 3.19 ERA in 33 starts, but he suffered a major elbow injury midway through the next season and didn’t make a full return to the starting rotation until 2001.

Miller probably won’t maintain his sub-2.00 ERA throughout the season, but his first seven starts have set him up for a chance to go down as one of the best rookie pitchers in the history of the St. Louis Cardinals.

That could also be the first trophy on what could be a very full mantel by the end of his career.

If that’s the case, the Cardinals could be in the beginning stages of another decade full of good pitching, and that usually means many seasons with winning records.

St. Louis Cardinal fans are seemingly obsessed over former players.  Brendan Ryan, Rick Ankiel and Lance Berkman have all been on fans’ minds throughout the season.

Tyler Greene?  Not so much.

The middle infielder, who many believe cracked under the pressure that Tony LaRussa placed on him while they were both in uniform for the Cardinals, found himself on the outside looking in after a weak spring training with the Houston Astros.  He was released from his contract prior to opening day and he drifted off into oblivion.  Or Chicago.  Same thing in most people’s minds.

Tyler Greene is a Chicago White Sox infielder.  That news was a surprise to me as I read a recent article over at the St. Louis Sports Page about former Cardinals and how they are performing.  I had not heard anyone talking about him.  No fans rumbling about his arrival in the big leagues when Gordon Beckham went down hurt.  No sudden jubilation when he signed a contract with the pale hose on April 1st.

Surprisingly, not even a blurb on the internet when Greene went yard on April 26.

Greene is playing well in Chicago in very limited duty.  He has produced a .276/.323/.483 slashline in 29 at bats, producing a single home run and two runs batted in while scoring four times.  He has entered the game as a pinch runner or pinch hitter almost as many times (5) as he has on the field as a second baseman (6).  He has yet to attempt to steal a base and has committed one error in 29 chances.

Tyler Greene is a bench player in major league baseball, continuing to patrol the middle infield and run the base paths.  Leaving St. Louis has not injected his career with a sudden level of success.  The absence of Tony LaRussa has not allowed Greene to improve to the level that everyone thought.

Even so, it appears that no one cares.

Bill Ivie is the editor here at i70baseball.
You can follow him on Twitter by clicking here.

The St. Louis Cardinals notched their Major League Baseball-leading 14^th road victory Wednesday with a 5-4 win over the Chicago Cubs and continued a trend that could pay off later in the season.

The Cardinals are 14-7 away from Busch Stadium and have won more games on the road than eight teams have won at all this season. That’s partially because the Cardinals have also played the most road games in baseball, but it is also the type of record that could set the Cardinals up for a great summer stretch.

The team is just 7-5 at home this season, but they have also played just one team in those 12 games that is under .500 for the season, and that’s the Milwaukee Brewers, who are 15-16.

Coming up, the Kansas City Royals will be the only team above .500 the Cardinals will face at home in May before the San Francisco Giants and Arizona Diamondbacks visit during the first week of June.

So expectations have to be increasingly high for a team that has jumped to the best record in the National League while playing 21 of 33 games on the road and many of them being against quality opponents.

Their 21-12 record is also surprising, given the bullpen struggles throughout April, but the bullpen has improved significantly of late and hasn’t blown a lead since Joe Kelly imploded by giving up four runs April 27 to the Pittsburgh Pirates in the seventh inning of a 5-3 loss.

Since then, the team has won seven of its next 10 games and pulled out to a three-game lead over the Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates heading into play Thursday.

Not many people expected the Cardinals to be this good, especially this early in the season. If anything, the Reds were supposed to run away with the division, but they are 19-16, including a 6-10 record on the road.

In fact, the Cardinals are one of just seven teams to have a winning road record so far this season, but it is a large determining factor in success because all but two of those teams, the Diamondbacks and Cleveland Indians, are first or second in their division.

Now, however, the Cardinals will have to maintain their pace in upcoming games at Busch Stadium against the Colorado Rockies, New York Mets and the Brewers because this is a wonderful opportunity to bank wins while the team has a generally healthy roster, a starting rotation that is putting up historic numbers and a bullpen that looks as though it can hold a lead in the late innings.

Four relievers combined to give up no runs and just two hits in the final 3.2 innings Wednesday against the Cubs after Jake Westbrook allowed four runs and nine hits in his 5.1 innings.

That kind of relief performance is what it is going to take for the Cardinals to maintain their success. The starting rotation has combined for a historically low 2.25 earned-run average so far this season, but it is not going to be able to keep that pace throughout the season.

But, it saved the Cardinals through the first month and perhaps the bullpen is coming around at the perfect time.

That could make for a lot of fun summer nights this season at Busch Stadium.

“Better get there quick, Big Boy.”

That quote has circled the blogosphere this week after St. Louis Cardinal General Manager John Mozeliak responded with those words after Josh Gilliam, of the great site Pitchers Hit Eighth, asked about seeing Carlos Martinez in Springfield.  Less than a week later, Martinez is on his way to Milwaukee to join the major league squad as struggling reliever Mitchell Boggs heads to Triple-A to join Memphis.

Boggs was in line to be the Cardinals’ eighth inning man going into the season when closer Jason Motte revealed an injury.  The easiest resolution to that, in manager Mike Matheny‘s mind, was to move everyone in the bullpen up a role and Boggs was thrust into the closer position.  His reaction was less than satisfactory and suddenly the bullpen, once thought to be a strength of the team, was in turmoil.  It seemed everyone was struggling and Boggs was, quite possibly, at the head of it all.

Mozeliak moved quickly in response, sending Marc Rzepczynski to the minor leagues and adding Seth Maness both to the major league and the 40-man roster.  The bullpen needed to be settled and Mozeliak aimed to do so quickly.  Edward Mujica found patience and settled the ninth inning going forward.  Trevor Rosenthal, while still not being perfect, has seemed to find a bit of a foothold.

Boggs, however, continued to struggle.  He would show moments of steadiness followed by loss of command and concentration.  He has shown improvement, but not enough to warrant a continued spot on the roster.  Memphis will provide a place to step away from the focus and the bright lights of major league baseball while Boggs tries to discover his former command and potential.

Martinez, meanwhile, has shown progress throughout a season that started a little late this season.  Due to some visa issues early on, Martinez was very late arriving to a spring training that might have led to his arrival in St. Louis on opening day.  Due to the late start, Martinez found himself in Springfield to start the season.  In three starts, the most recent of which was on April 29, Martinez has increasingly gone further and been more effective.  Over the course of just over 11 innings this season, he has surrendered 11 hits and one walk.  Conversely, he has struck out nine hitters and held opponents to just three runs.  He is not the most impressive of Cardinal minor league hurlers, but he shows enough promise to deserve the promotion.

To make room for Martinez on the 40-man roster, as founder of the United Cardinal Bloggers Daniel Shoptaw speculated, shortstop Rafael Furcal was moved to the 60-day disabled list.

The hard throwing right-hander arrives in St. Louis as a part of the bullpen solution.  His next challenges will surface as he is used more frequently and in higher pressure situations.  How he responds to that challenge will reveal his longevity at this level.

The future has arrived in St. Louis.  How bright it shines is about to become apparent.

Bill Ivie is the editor here at i70baseball.
You can follow him on Twitter by clicking here.

The last few days have seen something dramatic in the world of sports: for the first time, an active player on a professional team in either the NBA, MLB, NFL or NHL has announced publicly that he is homosexual.  This ground-breaking event has led many to compare the player, Jason Collins of the Washington Wizards, with baseball’s Jackie Robinson.  That compassion, in my opinion, is absurd.

Now I am not launching into any political or religious debates in this space.  Jason Collins is gay.  We are not here to discuss his legal right to marry someone or whether or not he should be supported by some church body.  That is not the issue at hand here and if you wish to discuss those issues, I invite you to take to social media and discuss with your social circles in whatever means you feel necessary.

The discussion here revolves around sports and the breaking down of barriers.  What Collins has done is monumental and over the course of the next NBA season or two, we will discover what impact it truly has on his teammates, opponents, and the league as a whole.  He is the first person to openly proclaim a sexual preference towards the same sex in this type of setting and that decision, most likely, will influence others to do the same.  The day will dawn soon enough that players in the other major sports will follow Collins lead and announce that they too are gay.

Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball.  He found his way on to a Major League Baseball team in an era where players openly stated that they would not play with a man of color.  Owners had banned the thought of a black man on a roster.  He was not a player on a team that suddenly decided that the world should know something about him that they did not.  He was not a player that was concerned with how he would be received.

Therein lies the largest difference in the situation.  The world will tune in to see how Collins is received and analysts will break down every incident to see if it is fueled by some degree of hate.  There was very little doubt when it came to Robinson.  The world was at a turning point and he was at the center of it.  Robinson would deal with hate and ridicule at every turn.

The idea that Jason Collins is Jackie Robinson is a stretch based on the idea that all civil rights issues, of which the rights of gay people are classified, are the same.

Jason Collins is free to eat anywhere he wants.  There are no hotels that restrict a gay person from renting a room.  I have yet to see a sign in a window proclaiming “Straight Only”.  He will not have to use a different entrance to an establishment or a different bathroom or have to sit in designated seating because he is gay.  He did not enter a league that previously had told people like him that they could not be here.

The world is a much different place in many ways and very similar in others.  Hate crimes run rampant and extremists exist in all areas of the world.  Collins will face adversity and challenges that are very different from what Robinson was challenged by.  They will be on a different level and, more than likely, be far less extreme.

Collins, I will admit courageously, stepped forward to announce that he was different.  He may have inspired others to do the same or helped others realize that it is okay.  It is a moment in sports that will leave his name etched into history.

But there is only one Jackie Robinson.

Bill Ivie is the editor here at i70baseball.
You can follow him on Twitter by clicking here.