The year of the no-hit bid continues, and when Michael Wacha got through a 1-2-3 eighth inning on 12 pitches on Sunday, I thought he was going to finish it off. He was at 107 pitches, five more than his season high, but he was mixing his pitches well, keeping the Pirates off-balance, and then dialing up a fastball when needed.
It was the 26th no-hit bid of at least six innings in 2018 -- already more than the 24 such bids all of 2017 -- but only Sean Manaea and James Paxton had completed one (the Dodgers had a combined no-hitter). Wacha had just missed a no-hitter in his rookie season with the Cardinals back in 2013, losing it with two outs in the ninth inning against the Nationals on an infield single. Given the shoulder issues he has battled in his career, this was an easy no-hitter to root for.
Alas, pinch-hitter Colin Moran led off the ninth, fouled off two cutters, fouled off a 94 mph fastball on the outside corner, and then lined a base hit on a changeup over the head of second baseman Kolten Wong. The last no-hitter for the Cardinals remains the one Bud Smith threw in 2001, and the last one thrown for them at home is still Bob Forsch's no-no in 1983.
Wacha will probably question the pitch selection -- maybe going up in the zone with another fastball considering Moran was late on the first heater -- but it was a great effort by a pitcher quietly having an excellent under-the-radar season. With the 5-0 win, Wacha improved to 7-1 with a 2.41 ERA, certainly putting himself in the running for the National League All-Star team.
It's been a fascinating season for the Cardinals. They're 32-25, which is good for a 91-win pace, but they're in third place and there have been many frustrating aspects to the first two-plus months. Marcell Ozuna hit a grand slam on Sunday, but that was just his fifth home run and his .272/.323/.374 line is well below the .312/.376/.548 line with 37 home runs he had in 2017 for the Marlins. Dexter Fowler has struggled with a sub-.200 batting average and lost playing time, Wong is hitting .181 and the back of the bullpen had some hiccups in April.
The one constant has been the starting rotation, even with injuries to Carlos Martinez and Adam Wainwright, and then Alex Reyes returning from last year's Tommy John surgery for a few days and immediately landing back on the DL with a lat strain. Without Wacha and free agent Miles Mikolas -- he's 6-1 with a 2.49 ERA -- the Cardinals would be a lot further back. The rotation is third in the majors with a 2.94 ERA and has become the heart of the team.
Few teams draft and develop pitchers as well the Cardinals. Consider:
• Wacha was a first-round pick in 2012 (19th pick), a pick acquired from the Angels for signing Albert Pujols.
• Rookie Jack Flaherty, with a 2.62 ERA in six starts, was the 34th pick in 2014, from Harvard-Westlake High School in Los Angeles (the same school that produced Lucas Giolito).
• Luke Weaver, 3-5 with a 4.41 ERA, was the 27th pick in 2014 out of Florida State.
• Martinez, who is scheduled to return Tuesday (along with Yadier Molina), was signed out of the Dominican in 2010.
On top of that, the Cardinals made one of the most astute signings of the winter in Mikolas, who had dominated in Japan after previously lackluster results in the majors. His two-year, $15.5 million contract looks like a bargain so far (as opposed to the one-year, $14 million contract given to Greg Holland in late March).
At the center of the rotation, however, has been Wacha. The Cardinals have a history of leadership from a veteran pitcher: Chris Carpenter taught Wainwright and Wainwright taught Wacha. Maybe Martinez is the ace, or at least the guy with the most dominating stuff, but as Wainwright has receded in the background in recent seasons, Wacha has become more of the leader.
"I take a lot of pride into that," he recently told Jose de Jesus Ortiz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "I want to be the guy that guys can come up and talk to about anything. I'm hopefully approachable in that sense to where if they have questions about anything, I can try to help them as best as I can or help them with whichever situation they're in."
He's not the same pitcher who burst on the scene back in 2013 and had several memorable outings in the postseason. The shoulder issues have cut a little zap from his fastball, which he throws far less often than he used to. As a rookie he threw it 64.9 percent of the time, when he was basically just a fastball/changeup pitcher with a rarely used curveball. In 2018, he's thrown his fastball just 42.3 percent of the time and on Sunday against the Pirates he threw just 28 fastballs out of 111 pitches.
With a healthy Wacha throwing well, the imminent return of Martinez, Mikolas as a strike-throwing machine and then Flaherty and Weaver, this is the rotation of a first-place club. The Cards just need the bats to get going.