FanHouse Dave Duncan

Wednesday night, while John Smoltz was in the middle of his worst start with the Cardinals, he could be seen constantly trading balls with the home plate umpire, clearly unhappy with something. After the game ended, he said it was because he felt the balls were improperly rubbed down, causing them to be more slippery than normal and preventing him from getting a proper grip.

The story could've ended there, but apparently Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan have been reading a little bit too much Raymond Chandler lately, because they got their Phillip Marlowe on and after some investigating, are charging the Reds with a larger conspiracy.

Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action with a quick nod to what is ahead.

You Oughta Know ...
That the Braves are all but done in the NL wild-card race, not that there was anything they could do about it. Atlanta, which had surged into contention over the last few weeks, ran into the Marlins' Ricky Nolasco Wednesday night.

He was on -- very on -- and now the Braves' playoff push is off.

Nolasco struck out 16, a Marlins record, including a stretch where he fanned nine in a row, one shy of the major league record of 10 straight held by Tom Seaver.

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Tony La Russa and his pitching coach Dave Duncan go together, as the saying goes, like peas and carrots. They've been coaching together since 1985, when Duncan joined La Russa's staff with the White Sox. Since then, they've jointly moved to Oakland and then St. Louis, with Duncan's strong pitching staffs anchoring La Russa's perennial contenders.

That's why it's so surprising today to read in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Duncan seems to be growing disillusioned with the Cardinals and may not return to the team, even if La Russa does come back for a 15th year with the Cards in 2010. Duncan's growing disillusionment seems to stem from two places: the trade of his son Chris to Boston -- which he believes the St. Louis media fueled -- and anger over the way the Cardinals are developing their minor league pitchers, which he believes is different from his own pitching philosophies.

With both the Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs adding top of the rotation pitchers this week, it made you wonder what, if any, response the St. Louis Cardinals would have. After all, they're sandwiched between both teams right now in the NL Central and are currently atop the Wild Card standings. Well, even so, Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak has come out and said he doesn't think the Redbirds need to make any additions to their current roster.

Mozeliak is of the opinion that when Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright both return in August, it will have the same effect as adding a pitcher through a trade would on the team. It's too bad that his manager Tony LaRussa is of a completely different opinion.

"The difference is this is July 9 and those guys (Sabathia, Harden and Gaudin) are here now. You're looking at health (for Carpenter and Wainwright) in August," La Russa said. "That's a big edge to have the help now. I don't get comforted by the fact we may have guys coming back later.

"In my mind, if you didn't have expectations and you were (lousy) July 1, it's a wash. But whether you had expectations or you didn't, when you get to July 1 like we have, then I believe since you play the year you're playing and don't take anything for granted, your goal should be to improve your chance to win right now."

I can understand Tony's urgency as he's never been the type of manager who'd be content just playing for third place in his division, but at the same time, I'm not exactly sure what the Cardinals can do. While it would be nice to add another starter to their rotation, the team does have other more pressing needs, like a lefty out of the bullpen.

Instead of making a big splash move, the Cardinals would probably be better off adding a smaller name pitcher to the rotation before the deadline (like an Adam Eaton) and let Dave Duncan work the magic he's used on a bunch of other pitchers to get him straightened out.

I just realized you're probably expecting some sort of punchline with the headline I gave you. Sorry to disappoint, but this is not a joke. The big talk over the weekend in New York -- besides the Yankees offensive outburst that rivaled the scoring by defenses facing Eli Manning -- was Shelley Duncan. The 2001 2nd round pick of the Yanks went 4-for-12 over the weekend, crushing three home runs, including two on Sunday, driving in seven runs. But it's not so much the amazing weekend that concerns me about Shelley Duncan, as it is this nugget I picked up. Just when you thought Mark McGwire was out of the spotlight, his name reappears:

Duncan, 27, is the son of the St. Louis Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan and the brother of Cardinals outfielder Chris Duncan. As a child, he tagged along with his father's teams and became close with the slugger Mark McGwire, spending a week with McGwire in California last October.

"It was funny, I went out there thinking we were going to hit," Duncan said of his visit with McGwire. "It wasn't really. It was all mental stuff. That's how he's always been his whole career. He was so strong mentally, and that's what made him such a great hitter.

"I've talked to a lot of successful people around the game, and that's what they all have in common: they stay focused every single day."

Seems pretty innocent I guess. But here you have Barry Bonds stuck on 753, three home runs away from setting the all-time home run record, and he's the center of attention. Hardly ever thought of these days is Mark McGwire. Probably the last thing he wanted was for his name to be brought back up in the news, but unfortunately for him, it has been. And I'm sure Shelley Duncan is only to happy to be creating headlines.

There are a couple of enduring images of last October's World Series. There's the Cardinals winning, of course. There's tiny little David Eckstein and his lips wrapped around a bottle of Jose Cuervo, and there's Kenny Rogers' tar stained hand. But there's also Chris Duncan butchering his attempt to play right field most of the series and constantly keeping the Tigers in games that should not have been close at all. Because of his prowess with the bat (that's an understatement... the kid's a masher) the Cards have to do something, but this Pujols guy currently has first base locked up until approximately the end of days at first base. Instead, they're just working hard on teaching him how to play the outfield. Joe Strauss provides an unintentionally amusing checklist of things that Duncan needs to do to improve his glovework including:

Catch balls closer to the head rather than reach stiffly.

and

Alter running technique to more of a "glide" path.

I have funny pictures in my head right now but am not sure how appropriate they are. Plus it's probably funnier if you just try and guess what I'm thinking. The alternate plan is to have Chris' father and Cardinals' pitching coach Dave Duncan attempt to murder people that make fun of Chris' fielding by shooting them with laser beams from his eyeballs.