[BigRedChief]

Francisco Samuel not only has an eye-popping fastball he has some eye-popping numbers to his credit for the Palm Beach Cardinals of the High Class A Florida State League.

The 21-year-old hurler, who compliments his fastball with a nasty slider and who is working on a curve, has notched 49 innings since being called up from Quad Cities of the Midwest League. In that time he has racked up 76 strikeouts.

To put things in perspective, 49 innings means 147 total outs were recorded. So Samuel has struck out more than half of the batters who he has retired. He leads his team in strikeouts --- as a reliever. The guy with the second highest K total at Palm Beach is starter Brad Furnish, who has notched 74 -- in 115 innings pitched.

The bad news is that Samuel has walked 39 batters in that stretch, which is too many, although not an obscene number. But, obviously, control is his biggest concern at this point.

Samuel has a 3.10 ERA and a .193 batting average against.
Down in Class A Quad Cities, Pete Parise took over for Samuel and has been getting outs with pinpoint control. In 48 2/3 innings pitched he has allowed 42 hits while striking out 50. He has walked only seven batters all season.

In Class AA Springfield, Fernando Salas has 23 saves in less spectacular fashion. He's given up 51 hits in 64 2/3 innings pitched and allows 1.02 walks and hits per inning pitched.

In AAA Memphis, Adam Wainwright was supposedly being groomed as the Cardinals makeshift closer for the rest of the season. But, after failing to make it through the first inning in his first rehab appearance, he pitched three innings Monday night. Now the word is that he will get his next game action in Springfield where he is to throw about 70 pitches.
So is he going to pitch the last four innings of every game and cut out the middle relief men? I wish.

But it looks like the Cardinals brass has reconsidered yet again and is now conditioning Wainwright to be a starter again.

I guess that means they're happy with Chris Perez's work.