Official Get Up, Baby! position statement regarding the imminent “Ankiel-bought-HGH-in-2004″ kerfuffle: barring further, actually damning evidence, this is going to be a sad and unnecessary derailment of what is–remains–the best baseball story in years.

The gist: he bought HGH legally when he was rehabbing. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but HGH would probably be a good thing to have when one was rehabbing. It was MLB kosher at the time he’s supposed to have used it, and he acquired it via prescription, however shady said prescribers are.

Interesting Thought Experiment:

Ankiel stopped receiving the shipments before HGH was banned. See how many times you see a talking head make each of the following assumptions, based on that fact:

1. Ankiel took these supplements, obtained legally, three years ago, therefore he is now taking illegal supplements.

2. Ankiel stopped taking these supplements before they were banned, therefore he does not take banned supplements.

And then frown about the sad shape of sports journalists–the ones in the public eye–who seem to be fast becoming the pro wrestling referees of journalism: They answer to the same job description, and they wear the same clothes, but they aren’t really doing the same job.

We got to the stadium just before game time, and there was a weird buzz in the air. I am, of course, referring to the excitement over Joel Piñeiro’s second Cardinals start. On the way down to our seats it seemed like everyone was facing the same direction and having the same conversation.

He was a pitcher, I gather, and then he wasn’t a pitcher. Here’s the last moment he had before all eyes were glued on him for the duration:

Eckstein got on base, and up came the number two hitter:

And I’m sure there were… one or two people there who didn’t know the full scouting report and thought: What kind of hitter is this guy?

CROWD [unison]: Well, he doesn’t get cheated out there.

Second at-bat: more cheers. More swings. A strikeout.

Back in the outfield, a good play momentarily masks the nervous realization that a good story doesn’t have to keep being good all the time.

At-bat three: more cheering, then a strikeout, then deathly silence, then more cheering.

In the meantime, the Cardinals have knocked Chris Young The Terrible out of the game. Piñeiro has dominated an admittedly mediocre Padres lineup with a wide variety of breaking pitches and a better fastball than he’s had in sometime, and the bats have scraped together two runs for Izzy. But for some reason, people still seem ill at ease. And Rick Ankiel is back here, listening to nervous applause.

Foul ball. Ball. Ball. (Crowd: hey, he can take pitches! That’s good, right? Maybe this is a learning experience.) Curveball:

Never any doubt.

No matter what happens after this, the movie finally has an ending.

The Rick Ankiel Photo Stalkstravaganza will be up later tonight. That might have been the best sports-related moment of my life; I still have goosebumps. Strike up another chorus for The Natural, Mr. Newman.

As you’ve probably already read, toolsy outfield prospect Rick Ankiel hit three home runs yesterday, giving himself a share of the PCL home run lead with nineteen. It is, admittedly, not the most glorious of home run crowns; he shares it with former Expos prospect/Japanese gaijin Val Pascucci and AAAA corner guy Mitch Jones. And he’s still not a finished product: although he’s hit almost .300 since May 1, and shown the ability to club both righties and lefties, his walk rate is still pretty low.

But he’s on top, and who could’ve predicted that? Even if he doesn’t develop into a solid big league outfielder, he’s gone from the top pitching prospect of his generation to a laughing stock to a guy who hits tape-measure home runs on a relatively regular basis.

After he hit the third home run, but before he walked up to the plate with a chance to hit his fourth, I was thinking about his place in the Cardinals’ plans when I realized that it was the first time I’d ever thought about Rick Ankiel, Outfielder, completely outside the context of his 20-year-old self and that jaw-dropping curveball. So let’s take this opportunity, as we’re in between Rick Ankiel, major league pitcher and Rick Ankiel, major league hitter of long home runs, to think: holy crap, how did this happen?

Fill in all the events yourself: the wild pitches, then the near-comeback followed by arm injuries, then the other near-comeback foiled by an apparent lack of desire… it all seems so distant, now, so much so that I can’t believe there was a time in 2004 when I and the rest of Busch Stadium gave him a standing O on the field before the NLDS–the conquering hero, back from who-knows-what and throwing The Curveball again. All that’ll fade away, though, leaving these numbers to flummox people:

Year LVL AGE   G   AB   H  2B  3B  HR  BB   K  AVG  OBP  SLG  K%  ISO
2000 MLB  21  33   68  17   1   1   2   4  20 .250 .292 .382  29  132
2001   R  22  41  105  30   7   0  10  11  26 .286 .364 .638  25  352
2005   A  26  51  185  50  10   1  11  27  37 .270 .368 .514  20  244
      AA  26  34  136  33   7   0  10  10  29 .243 .295 .515  21  272

That was it. There was his surprising hitting as a member of the Cardinals–during which, no doubt, several people made jokes about putting him in the outfield that they would later regret. There was the half-season he spent DHing in Johnson City for fun, in between starts. Then there was his intermittently successful first year as an outfielder. But all the while he was developing, I guess; his AA line should actually be two separate ones, a 1-20 stint prior to his low-A ball debut and a return trip in which he hit .276 with much the same power he’s showing this year

That said, after a truly depressing 2006, when he missed the whole season with an injury that initially seemed like it would be only a minor setback, I can’t believe anybody expected this.

But here he is, doing, well, this:

Year LVL AGE   G   AB   H  2B  3B  HR  BB   K  AVG  OBP  SLG  K%  ISO
2007 AAA  27  57  213  60   8   2  19  11  54 .282 .317 .606  25  324
       APRIL  24   85  21   4   1   7   3  18 .247 .280 .565  22  318
         MAY  20   77  24   3   1   5   5  18 .312 .349 .571  23  259
        JUNE  13   51  15   1   0   7   3  18 .294 .333 .725  35  431

Say what you will about Ankiel, but the guy knows how to develop in a hurry. Before I get caught up, as we all no doubt will, in whether he’s completely ready for the big leagues, or what role he would fill on the roster, think about it: how great is it that we’re even in a position to ask these questions?

Today is moving day, so no regular post, but I was doing some reading during my habitual Rick Ankiel Google News search and this struck me as the cruelest joke that has ever been played, in the history of jokes.

If the reputedly difficult Ankiel has been perturbed by all the attention, he hasn’t let it show. In fact, the 27-year-old centerfielder has been in an upbeat mood since returning to Memphis, where he first played in 1999 during his days as a hard-throwing lefthander.

He played an April Fools’ Day joke on pitching coach Dyar Miller, declaring himself ready to return to the mound.

“I got him,” Ankiel said later with a mischievous smile.

Oh no, he didn’t. Oh no he didn’t.

I love The Natch, but if he played this joke on me I’m relatively sure I would stab him in the throat with Mike Matheny’s hunting knife. I would feel less emotionally drained if somebody April Fooled me into believing my house was on fire.

Great game all around, and a reminder of how quickly a sloppy, mediocre game can turn into a great one for a particular team. Wainwright had no stuff–his fastball was in the 87-90 range for most of the game, and he was hanging curveballs on a fairly regular basis–but he managed to stave off the relief cries for another few games, and tomorrow I won’t remember how terrible his fastball looked at times. I’ll remember that he kept the team in the game, and for once the hitters took advantage of that opportunity.

Isringhausen’s stuff, on the other hand, looked outstanding. I’m sold on his return, at least for this year, and I think the exact moment that did it was when he threw two consecutive Curveballs of Death in the eighth inning, something I rarely remember him doing even at his peak. Not only that, but his fastball looks a lot stronger than it did throughout last year. In hindsight, I have no idea how Izzy was even as effective as he was last year, seeing as he had no control and one pitch–a fringy fastball–for the vast majority of it.

As if getting off the schneid weren’t enough, Rick Ankiel (official mancrush of Get Up, Baby!?) continues to heat up at AAA. Having missed all of last season–his second as a hitter–his three hit, one homer night brings him up to .283/.327/.586 on the year. He’s 14-34 in his last ten games, with four walks and seven strikeouts. Is there any reason at all to think he couldn’t earn those at-bats he needs with the big club, at this point?

Limited time for a post today–the last Russian exam of the year demands my attention. But I thought I’d give a shout out to the Official Roy Hobbs Candidate of Get Up, Baby!, Rick Ankiel. He went 3-4 today–three singles!–to bring his average up to .264.

He’s hitting .264/.304/.597 now, and say what you will about his plate discipline but the man’s got an isolated power of .333. He’s got hits in his last five games, during which he’s hitting .444 and slugging .778, and if you just remove his 2-16 start (as we often did to justify Colby Rasmus’s promotions) he’s hitting .303 with a slugging percentage of .732. I realize this is cherry picking, and I realize he needs consistent at-bats, but he’s 27 and the Cardinals are getting an aggregate line of .189/.241/.284 from right field. Forget about Ankiel, the Cardinals could afford to have Braden Looper learn to hit major league pitching on the job at this point. Three teams in the NL are getting better hitting from their pitchers; the Cardinals might as well bring one up who can hit a little.

This team has certainly picked up where they left off in the regular season, hasn’t it? Carried offensively by fluke events (compare Kip Wells going off to the Gary Bennett Cubs Rampage), looking “flat” (see also: not hitting), and making bad, inexplicable mistakes on a regular basis.

It’s weird to look on all of this with the knowledge that it happened last year, and then this happened. That they did rally around a manager who had been around a long time, and hit when it mattered, and get the lucky breaks they had been on the wrong side of for the last half of the regular season.

The benefit of hindsight doesn’t much matter when I have to watch this team play, though, and much like last August I find myself without a lot to say; this is a deeply flawed team, and they’d better realize it before they immolate themselves on the altar of scrappiness and team players. This is a winnable division–an easily winnable division–but not when the back of your lineup against left-handers looks like this:

4. Spiezio
5. Wilson
6. Molina
7. Taguchi
8. Miles

So it’s kind of fitting that they were outslugged by a pitcher.

Speaking of slugging pitchers: a 2-4 night has put Rick Ankiel over the Mendoza Line. In his last ten games he’s hit .257/.315/.714, with five home runs, a double, and three singles. I… don’t know what to say about that. (I’m glad you asked: in his last ten games, Skip Schumaker has hit .176/.211/.235. I realize the horse is dead, but it’s not my fault Tony La Russa keeps putting it out in right field.)

Incidentally, habitual Colby Rasmus Slow Start watchers should start counting from yesterday, when it comes time to hash out the benefits of his eventual Memphis promotion; he went 3-5 with his first home run, climbing over the Ankiel Line and hopefully beginning one of his ridiculous month-long rampages.

It’s not quite the way I would use their individual talents, but Rick Ankiel and Braden Looper having success in their, ah, chosen occupations made for a good baseball Monday. With Looper coming up on a starter’s workload and continuing to succeed, we’re one step closer to what would be Dave Duncan’s Most Ridiculous Achievement Ever.

It wouldn’t be his best, but turning a righty specialist with a low strikeout rate and a definite southpaw problem into a serviceable starter is the equivalent of Dwight Howard slamming that sticker against the top of the backboard in the dunk contest. It might not be as useful as pulling down ten rebounds a game, or keeping Jeff Suppan finely tuned, but just showing he can do something so ridiculous has to give him untoppable pitching coach cred, if such a thing exists. He might as well have walked into a bar, kissed Leo Mazzone’s wife on the mouth, and walked out. It defies explanation, and at this point I’m rooting for it to happen just so the world has one more larger than life figure to worship: our dear, mulleted pitching coach.

That aside, Looper’s sterling spring puts him one step further away from the ever-frightening Danny Graves comparisons. Spring statistics during their forays into starting:

        G    IP   H  ER  HR  BB  K   ERA
Graves  5  19.1  33  11   2   2  6  5.12
Looper  3  11.0  10   1   0   1  5  0.82

I’m the last person who can safely suggest we take spring stats as being predictive of future performance, having ridden the ill-fated Junior Spivey bandwagon to the bitter end, but in this case Graves performed pretty much the same way he did in the regular season: he allowed a ton of hits, didn’t strike anybody out, and gave up a ton of home runs. He pitched like you’d predict a middle-of-the-road reliever would pitch in a starting role. A middle-of-the-road reliever like Braden Looper.

The Cardinals have bet that Looper will buck what seems like a very sound trend. What’s in his favor, in a comparison with Graves? A few barely-tangibles, basically. Looper has Graves by six inches, which has always meant a lot to scouts, and considering the Cardinals are banking on Looper’s hypothetical endurance that means a lot. It’s a stupid thing to consider when a scout is, say, trying to keep Pedro Martinez in the bullpen, but Danny Graves–or Juan Cruz, or BK Kim–is not Pedro Martinez. Losing part of what was already pretty mediocre stuff led to a lot of souvenirs, instead of continuing Pedro-ish domination or even Graves-ish adequacy. Looper also has a narrow but very real advantage when it comes to keeping the ball in the park, which arguably drove the most nails into Graves’s multi-inning coffin, and a wider assortment of good-but-not-great pitches from which to choose.

But most of all, he has Dave Duncan, America’s baddest anti-hero. He does what he wants, when he wants, because he can make Kent Bottenfield into an all-star (and later a Stephen Curtis Chapmanian recording artist) and transform Woody Williams into a Cy Young candidate. For his next trick, he should turn the guy who hit the Cardinals’ first Grapefruit League homer into a pitcher.

I knew it! If I get entranced by a pitcher’s breaking ball, he’s done. I don’t know how much longer Tyler Johnson has, but so far the Rick Ankiel Rule has struck down Mike Lincoln, Al Reyes, and Josh Kinney, not to mention taken five miles an hour off of Matt Morris’s fastball. Truly a terrible, terrible situation to be in, but I’ll try to get excited exclusively by four-seamers from now on.

Speaking of that rule, Cardinals prospect guru erik writes in re: my Schumaker/Ankiel comparison the other day:

hey! i actually consider ankiel a prospect, thank you very much!

Oh, I’m pretty sure that Ankiel is a better player than Schumaker right now. Especially if he inadvertantly throws a curveball to the cut-out man and comes to a startling realization. Even if (the best thing ever) doesn’t happen, he can play center field and he can hit. And… well, I don’t think I’m going far out on a limb in assuming that he neutralizes Skip’s considerable throwing arm. I was just mentioning that they share the same age because Skip is, well, named Skip, and as a result people are constitutionally obliged to assume he’s 22. (The list of things to do to get your undeserving children into the big leagues swells once more: name those scrappy, lefty-hitting catchers Skip, or Chip, or Buddy.)

But back to Kinney: I’m not all that worried about his spot getting filled by a scrub, because the guy most likely to benefit from his absence is Brad Thompson. Any time you lose one of your best relievers you’re going to take a hit, but Thompson is solid, and unless La Russa decides to buck tradition once more and go with a thirteen-man pitching staff there’s no space for any scrub not named Russ Springer.

The main questions at this point involve just how safe Tyler Johnson and Randy Flores are as the lefty relievers. Flores wasn’t all that impressive last year, but a hypothetical Johnson/Rincon relief corps would be a truly awful thing to witness. Both of them, even when effective, walk more than four batters per nine innings. As a fan, someone who will have to watch this team on TV on a regular basis, I beg of you, Tony: don’t do it. Flores isn’t exactly Greg Maddux out there, but he at least appears to have some clue as to where the ball is going during a given at-bat.