A broken bat bloop off of the bat of Colorado Rockies right fielder Eric Young Jr. is the only thing that separated Shelby Miller from a perfect game.
The St. Louis Cardinals No. 5 starter got his fifth win Friday night, but that statement doesn't even touch the gravity of his performance.
Miller dominated from the moment he took the mound. He owned the entire strike zone with ridiculous control and maintained his velocity upwards of 93 mph through all 113 pitches.
He didn't look like a 22-year-old rookie who was still a little rough around the edges. He looked like a seasoned veteran, well-poised and on a mission.
As he stepped back onto the field for the final three outs of a game that many big league pitchers will never experience, you could sense the energy. His team wanted it for him as much as he wanted it himself.
Miller is the real deal, and he's just getting started. Tonight's start showed the baseball world he is the top early contender for NL Rookie of the Year.
On the surface, that may not be a big shock early in the season, but the fact is major league hitters simply aren't hitting him.
Even when they do hit him, they're not stringing together hits. As a result, in 45.2 innings, he's given up only eight earned runs on 29 hits.
In Friday night's game, the frustration in the eyes of the batters said everything you need to know about Miller's start to the season.
While strikeout pitchers haven't been the norm for the Cardinals in recent years, they definitely have one in Miller. That whole lesson on pitching to contact—Miller must have skipped class that day.
While the strikeout numbers are flashy and fun to look at, the walk total says a lot about this young man's control. He keeps the ball over the plate but works the corners well.
On a side note, of his 11 walks, four of them came in his first start of 2013. He has only seven over the remaining six starts.
Never this season has Miller thrown less than 95 pitches in a start. Sure, strikeout pitchers will throw more, but a rookie who is averaging more than 100 pitches per start is the exception and not the rule.
This isn't a trend I would expect him to keep up all season because the Cardinals don't want him to run out of gas too early. However, there has been no talk of an innings limit or of a need to shorten his appearances.
So far in 2013, manager Mike Matheny has shown a strong willingness to let his pitchers go deep into games. Some of that has to do with bullpen concerns early in the season, but I think it has more to do with a strong faith in his pitchers.
He depends on them (and catcher Yadier Molina) to let him know when it's time to sit down. If they tell him they're good to go, he's taking them at their word.
The reputation that arrived in St. Louis ahead of Shelby Miller didn't lend one to expect a humble young man who knows his place, but that's exactly what we've seen from him.
In postgame interviews, Miller doesn't spend much time talking about "his" performance and "his" control. He does, however, love to talk about "his" catcher, Yadier Molina.
The right-handed rookie from Houston knows that there is much more to this game than just what he brings to the table. He always credits Molina, even before himself, with every win.
With that said, Miller deserves the credit for Friday night. A catcher can put down fingers all night, but if the pitcher misses his location, then the team doesn't win.
Don't expect him to keep up this pace all year. Even the great ones have their struggles from time to time, so to expect a rookie to keep this up isn't necessarily realistic. Or is it?
Regardless, after Friday's start, there's simply no way to argue that Shelby Miller is not the clear front-runner in the NL Rookie of the Year race.
So, kudos to Miller for one of the greatest starting pitching performances I've witnessed—ever. Something tells me we'll be seeing a lot of fireworks in St. Louis during this young man's career.
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