Jocketty’s Moves Put Spirit Back in St. Louis

Walt Jocketty did not accompany his St. Louis Cardinals on this trip to two of his favorite cities, San Diego and Los Angeles. The Cardinal general manager is taking it slow after having angioplasty on June 7 for a 90% artery blockage. There is total blockage of another artery, but that would require bypass surgery, and doctors told Jocketty that they expect the angioplasty to be sufficient.

“It’s been a little scary,” Jocketty said from his Busch Stadium office. “There’s a family history, but I didn’t expect it this early. I’m 49, but I kept thinking I was 29.”

Jocketty operated like a younger man last winter with a series of swift and aggressive moves that rehabilitated the Cardinals to the extent that they are now in position to take a little stress off the general manager--or as outfielder Eric Davis, a clubhouse leader, put it:

“We’re a good team with the potential to be a great team. We just haven’t done it over the necessary time yet.

“It’s like, we have all the ingredients to prepare a gourmet meal, but we haven’t completed the recipe yet.”

The pot is simmering, however.

St. Louis swept San Diego and has a 6 1/2-game lead in the National League Central, the division that was expected to produce a three-way donnybrook among the Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds and Houston Astros. The Astros are buried in last place, and the Reds have been unable to restore their 96-victory rhythm of last year despite the addition of Ken Griffey Jr.

The Cardinals insist it’s too early for predictions or comparisons.

Jocketty came from Oakland, as did Manager Tony La Russa and first baseman Mark McGwire, but all resist comparing the power-happy, pitching-deep Cardinals to the championship A’s of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, and Davis refused to compare the Cardinals’ potential to the championship teams he played on in Cincinnati and Baltimore, adding, however, that he has never experienced better “chemistry and camaraderie.”

That environment is the one subject on which an otherwise reluctant Jim Edmonds, the former Angel and one of Jocketty’s key additions, was willing to draw some comparisons.

“There’s a lot less nonsense in this clubhouse than there was in Anaheim,” he said. “With the Cardinals, everything is directed to getting the job done.

“With the Angels, some players always seemed to be favored over others. I had good times and bad times, but in the end they made me look like a bad guy, which is why I just don’t want to talk about comparisons.

“Hell, there aren’t any anyway.”

Edmonds is enjoying a career year batting ahead of McGwire, who is averaging a home run every seven at bats and has 24 in all--”routinely amazing,” La Russa said.

The Cardinals--despite the absence of third baseman Fernando Tatis, who has missed more than 40 games because of a strained groin after hitting 34 homers last year--lead the majors in homers (115) and are on a club-record pace.

Said Davis: “The one comparison I would make is that you probably haven’t seen a team like ours where 10 or 11 guys can hit the ball out of the park at any time.”

The addition of Edmonds in the middle and Fernando Vina at the top created a lineup of players who feed off each other, but it was Jocketty’s ability to rebuild the pitching staff in a pitching-thin market that has provided the foundation for a team that employed 22 pitchers last year, had only one (Kent Bottenfield) win more than nine games and ranked 10th in the league in saves.

Now a rotation that does not include one pitcher who was a regular starter over the full season in 1999 leads the majors in victories (37) while averaging more than six innings a start.

“We knew we needed pitching and a lot of clubs needed pitching and that we had to work fast and aggressively,” Jocketty said.

He first traded for Pat Hentgen. “If Walt had stopped right there he would have done something positive, but he didn’t,” La Russa said. He then acquired Darryl Kile and a reliable closer, Dave Veres, in trade with Colorado before bringing Andy Benes back as a free agent.

Kile, Benes and Hentgen have joined Garrett Stephenson and Rick Ankiel in the St. Louis rotation, and Jocketty would admit that sometimes you have to be a little lucky and patient.

Could he be certain that Kile would shake his Coors Field trauma to go 10-3 or that Stephenson, who had previously experienced only modest success with Baltimore and Philadelphia, would be 9-2? Could he be certain that two young and touted pitchers out of the St. Louis system--Alan Benes, who had missed almost two years because of two shoulder operations, and Matt Morris, who sat out ’99 after elbow reconstruction--would return to strengthen the bullpen as a steppingstone to becoming starters again next year?

A championship club catches lightning. Reserve infielder Placido Polanco is batting .344 and has joined with Craig Paquette (five homers, 26 runs batted in) to ease the loss of Tatis. Catchers Eli Marrero and Mike Matheny have combined for eight homers and 36 RBI. In a crowded outfield, J.D. Drew has 11 homers and Ray Lankford 10 to complement Edmonds’ 20, and Davis has contributed a .303 average in what may be his final season.

La Russa reflected on the depth--pitching and otherwise--and said there’s a night and day difference compared to last year, adding cautiously: “There’s a good feeling. We have a chance to be in contention, and isn’t that what everybody dreams about?”

It’s what Jocketty was dreaming about as he addressed the Cardinal priorities last winter before being reminded recently that there’s always a priority of another kind with which to deal.