With a major league career that consisted entirely of bullpen appearances, 202 over the three years prior to 2011, St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Kyle McClellan had received few opportunities to hit. Coming into this season, the total was exactly ten official at-bats, from which he had collected a lone single for a pitcher-like .100 average.
In his initial start as a major leaguer last week, McClellan added another 0-for-2 result to his total. That all changed Monday night in Arizona, however.
McClellan reached base in all three of his at-bats and drove in the first two runs of his career. The right-handed hitter collected an RBI double on a hit-and-run with slow-footed catcher Yadier Molina at first base in the third inning. McClellan added a run-scoring single in the fourth and reached on a fielding error in the sixth.
His next offensive objective may be to score his first major league run.
Oh yeah, after yielding just one run in six innings, McClellan picked up his first victory as a big-league starter. He helped the Cardinals initiate their first winning streak of the season (all of two games and counting) via the 8-2 victory.
Researcher Tom Orf provided the following table of those who preceded McClellan. He is the 16th pitcher to reach base three times in a game in Tony La Russa’s 16 years as Cardinals manager. While Jason Marquis had the most occurrences, three, not surprisingly then-pitcher Rick Ankiel reached base a high of four times in a game back in 2000.
St. Louis Cardinals pitcher reaching base three-plus times, 1996-2011
| Pitcher/batter | Date | Opp | Rslt | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | TOB | IBB | SO | HBP | SH | SF | ROE | GDP | SB | CS | BOP |
| Adam Wainwright | 6/29/2010 | ARI | W 8-0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 |
| Jaime Garcia | 5/31/2010 | CIN | W 12-4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
| Adam Wainwright | 8/22/2008 | ATL | W 18-3 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 8 |
| Braden Looper | 5/6/2008 | COL | W 6-5 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 8 |
| Mark Mulder | 4/10/2006 | MIL | W 6-4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
| Jason Marquis | 6/4/2005 | HOU | W 11-9 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
| Jason Marquis | 4/22/2005 | HOU | W 8-7 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
| Jason Marquis | 5/31/2004 | PIT | W 8-3 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
| Woody Williams | 5/5/2003 | CIN | L 4-5 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
| Matt Morris | 4/16/2003 | MIL | W 15-2 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
| Rick Ankiel | 7/21/2000 | HOU | W 12-1 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
| Rick Ankiel | 4/20/2000 | SDP | W 14-1 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
| Matt Morris | 1998-08-21 (1) | NYM | W 10-5 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 |
| Alan Benes | 5/27/1997 | COL | W 8-6 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
| Todd Stottlemyre | 6/30/1996 | PIT | W 10-3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
The total number of such games for the Cardinals since 1960 is 76. Bob Gibson had 16. The counts by pitcher follow.
St. Louis Cardinals pitcher reaching base three-plus times, 1960-2011
| Games | ||||
| 16 | Bob Gibson | |||
| 4 | Bob Forsch | Curt Simmons | ||
| 3 | Jason Marquis | Reggie Cleveland | ||
| 2 | Adam Wainwright | Alan Foster | Ernie Broglio | Joe Magrane |
| John Denny | John Tudor | Matt Morris | Mike Torrez | |
| Nelson Briles | Ray Washburn | Rick Ankiel | Scott Terry | |
| Steve Carlton | ||||
| 1 | Kyle McClellan | Al Cicotte | Al Jackson | Alan Benes |
| Braden Looper | Dave LaPoint | Don Durham | Eric Rasmussen | |
| Jaime Garcia | Jim Bibby | Joaquin Andujar | John Curtis | |
| Lynn McGlothen | Mark Mulder | Pete Falcone | Rick Wise | |
| Roger Craig | Silvio Martinez | Todd Stottlemyre | Woody Williams |
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Great job by Kyle with the stick.
Marquis may be a better hitter than pitcher! He should compete with Ankiel for an OF job in DC.
Forsch was a position player in college, 3B IIRC. He was a fine hitting pitcher.
Scott Terry was an OF, before he went to the hill.
Bergman pops his 3rd dinger in Phoenix. Lance seems to be warming up. Great hitting MLB career. He is doing what we wanted when we recruited him.
Long bomb from Freese. If his 100 year old ankles hold up, Freese is strong enough to do some damage.
The Cards just need to get Pujols and Westbrook on the beam, and they will be looking good.
Carp—bad night. Augenstein and Tallet on the DL. What else could go wrong?
3 hits for AP but still looks ifffy at the plate to me. Yadi screwed the pooch tonight. Matt KOs twice in a row. Rest of the offense good.
Probably bring up Salas. Lefties in Memphis? Where is Gast—in Springfield?
Here is a link to a page with lots of info about Cards minor leaguers. http://stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com/mlb/minorleagues/affiliates/index.jsp?c_id=stl
OF Raniel Rosario had two HRs in one inning last night. He has nifty potential.
As for lefties at Memphis, the next in line is Valdes. Gast is starting at Palm Beach and the Cards are not going to call him up this summer. Tallet may be ok.
If Pujols got some hits, thats what he needed to get untracked. Carpenter will have a few games like that one. We gain by losing Augenstein.
How pray tell do we gain by losing Augenstein? And I hear Sanchez is more likely than Valdes
.
1. Augenstein has an ERA of 9. He stunk last season at AAA, the Diamondbacks cut him loose. We would be better off if he spends 2011 at Memphis. Both Salas and Sanchez would be better for the Cards.
2. You asked about lefties at Memphis. Sanchez is not a lefty. You can look at the roster and Memphis stats at the link provided. Save the page for future convenient reference.
1. Augenstein has an ERA of 9. He stunk last season at AAA, the Diamondbacks cut him loose. We would be better off if he spends 2011 at Memphis. Both Salas and Sanchez would be better for the Cards.
——Says you.
2. You asked about lefties at Memphis. Sanchez is not a lefty. You can look at the roster and Memphis stats at the link provided. Save the page for future convenient reference.
—I know what I asked. I was repeating what I heard on Twitter. Maybe they think they can do with Miller. I don’t need to save the page when I have you to correct my every mistake.
“Lefties in Memphis?”
“I know what I asked.”
If you say so, Marilyn.
I’m very much okay with Salas and Sanchez on the roster. I’m not happy to see Tallet and Augenstein hurt, but I don’t think that the team loses anything on the swap. They’ll live with one lefty out of the ‘pen for now.
Both teams scored 5 runs not driven in by homers, and both teams hit 3 homers, so what happened?
Pitching stunk.
check this out Crdswmn.
http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20110412&content_id=17705844&vkey=news_milb&fext=.jsp&tcid=fb_share
I’m telling you the dudes gonna have a big year. It had been 10 days since he threw last so he ran out of gas but he’s coming on.
A future Cy Young winner in the making. I look forward to watching.
Cory could have used some run support.
Yea its obvious Carp will never be as good as Bob Gibson. Gibby would have never given up all those jacks. Oh well we’ll just keep having to run his sorry ass out there even though he’ll never be as good as Bob.
Carp has a bad night and it’s about Bob Gibson? Okay RC, I’ll bite.
I’m just staying with the theme of many a cardinal fan in that no current cardinal can ever be as great as a former cardinal. And every former cardinals would have done much better than every current cardinal in every game played in todays game.
Really? So how many of these Cardinal fans do you know?
Every former Cardinal was once a current Cardinal. But then again, I am not that old.
Bling, Brian, Jumbo, WC, and you. So 3 out of 5 would qualify.
Oh. Which 3?
I gather Colby has been unfavorably compared to some former Cardinal? Curt Flood maybe?
No two players are alike, so comparisons are irrelevant. Those who make them show their ignorance.
I dunno about former Cardinals, but younger Carpenter certainly had a leg up on modern day Carpenter. He’s still pretty darned good right now, though. Everyone has a bad game now and then.
I don’t think every past Cardinal was better than today’s version. And I think van Slyke and Jack Clark, for two, do not have the light turned on upstairs.
Lineup:
Theriot SS, Rasmus CF, Pujols 1B, Holliday LF, Berkman RF, Freese 3B, Schumaker 2B, Laird C, Westbrook P
I wonder if Molina is on TLR’s black list after last night. I’m a little peeved at him myself.
Turn out the lights, the party’s over, Berkman with another Phoenix dinger. Some fans doubted Lance, but lets face, they whine about a lot of our guys.
I read that Albert had an even slower start in 2007. So his blah beginnning this year is nothing new. Before long, Albert will be inflicting his vengeance on NL pitchers.
So now Colby can do it all. Homers, RBIs, bunts for a hit ahead of Albert, diving plays in the OF. He must not have liked that guy talking about him on the radio.
Ha Ha. He met Andy a few times and they don’t like each other. As a matter of fact I think the first cuss word Colby ever uttered in my presence was about what a sorry M effer Andy Van Slyke was. It seems that Andy could only speak of his greatness when he was visiting his son in the minors. The other players seem to have made fun of him quite a bit. The younger Van Slyke didn’t like the making fun part of it.
Break in Sanchez tonight. Low pressure.
Could we get 25 runs tonight?
Love to see all the laughter………..and the emotion of Sanchez……..lucky him to come out on a good night…………. Augenstein won’t return…….. Bautista is throwing well too………Why do we need Mott’s 96 when these guys have good motion at 95………. with breaking stuff?
Colby started it all with that bunt……. Smart……………….. caught a glance of Carp on the Golf course today……..with Mulder and couple of other guys……… he can’t be hurting as bad as I thought….. well its off to Pasadena/LA…………………Salas and this new kid need to be here……… lets hope we are bold with our exploration of “chemistry”.
Sanchez seems good at missing bats, an attribute the pen could use.
A year or so back there was discussion here about the prospects of Motte developing secondary pitches with that pronounced short arm motion. Examples were given of short armers who had breaking stuff, so its not physically impossible.