Shelby Miller had Cardinal fans salivating at the mouth during his minor league stint. The 19th overall pick in the 2009 draft won numerous awards and was ranked the Cardinals top prospect for most of his time down there. Nothing has changed since Shelby has been promoted to Saint Louis. He has impressed time and time again this season and it is now seriously time to take a look at this guy being a front of the rotation starter.
Sure, Shelby Miller has always been projected to be a frontend guy in the rotation, but did we honestly expect him to be this good right out of the gate? The guy is still only 22 years old and not even a year of big league experience under his belt, yet he is mowing down lineups left and right. Take a look at his last start; the guy threw a complete game one hitter with 13 strike outs and no walks. Sounds like some “ace” stuff to me. He did it against the Rockies too, which is nothing to sneeze at as they are one of the top ranked offensive teams thus far in the early going. Taking a closer look, Miller has beaten the Giants, Nationals, Rockies, and the Brewers twice.
The two games Shelby lost? They were both against the Pirates. The first game he went 6 innings, 2 earned runs, and 6 strikeouts. The second time around he went 5.2 innings, gave up 3 earned runs with 7 strike outs. Sounds like a couple of very winnable stat lines if you ask me.
Miller sports the best ERA thus far on the team with a 1.58 clip and he is right on Wainwright’s heels for the team lead in strikeouts with 51. Oh and did I mention the kid is eating innings for this team? He has 45.2 innings under his belt through 7 starts. Not too shabby. He is definitely providing more production than your typical 5th starter and before it’s all said and done I expect him to continue to be right there with Wainwright as a workhorse for this team. His ERA will elevate, history tells us that it won’t stay where it is at now. But if he can continue to get the strikeouts and keep the walks down as he has been doing (51:11 ratio) while pitching deep into games he will be more than serviceable. Look for Miller to ascend to the second slot in this rotation much quicker than anticipated.
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It’s a bit early to be calling him an ace. Things could change once coaches start getting more tape on him. Then it will be all about the adjustments. If he can adjust and adapt to the batters and the revised game plan, then we can start using the ace term. Besides, last time I checked we had our ace in waino, who’s been solid start after start.
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