Walk It Out Meter

With all of the talk of walks lately (see my post here), it was fitting that the Post-Dispatch came out with this, concerning the newfound patience of the ballclub. Some excerpts:

"We always talked about it, but we also did the work this time," McRae said. "I mean a lot of it, not just one day. It was all spring."

And yet another disappointing quirk about Tony La Russa:

La Russa has never been a proponent of working walks. However, he often criticized last year's team for an inconsistent approach. He noted that the Red Sox and Yankees are two teams famous for taking pitches and wading into deep counts, "but guys go up there ready to tee off. The pitchers know that so they start pitching carefully. That's a product of being aggressive but using good judgment."

It's true, you're not just walking to walk, as McRae says in the article. But when the bottom of your order couldn't hit its way out of a wet paper bag, you need to find ways to get on base, and a walk is the most efficient way to do so. That is, unless you're Fernando Vina and can get hit by pitches like no other. Craig Biggio was the man - he could do both.

It's good to see that the trend might be somewhat intentional after all. That is why I am adding the Rockin' the Red "Walk It Out" meter, which will track the total team walks until we fall back down to reality. Right now we're at 32, but we have had 4 more as of 8:30 Tuesday night. I'll try to update it as often as I can.

For tracking purposes, here is the link to total team walks for the entire MLB in 2008, and here is the link for individual walks on the Cardinals for 2008.

Walk Hard.