This Cardinal's Way
JUST AS RANDAL Grichuk was finally developing an identity as someone other than the Dude Who Was Drafted Right Before Mike Trout, he acquired a new claim to fame as the Outfielder Who Couldn't Throw.
Grichuk's misadventure in centerfield occurred last Sept. 9, just more than three weeks after he had partially torn the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. Although Grichuk had only progressed to throwing 60 feet in his rehab program, Cardinals manager Mike Matheny concluded that his first-place club needed its breakout rookie in the lineup against the fast-closing Cubs. "We took that risk of me not being able to throw somebody out," says Grichuk. "It so happened that the ball found me early in the game." With two outs and a runner on first in the top of the first, Chicago's Anthony Rizzo hit a liner to right center. Grichuk fielded the ball but had to shovel it to rightfielder Jason Heyward, who threw back to the infield. The run scored, and the play made all the highlights.
Still, the Cardinals won both the game and the NL Central, and it was hard to blame Matheny for wanting Grichuk in the lineup. After a half-decade lost in the shadow of Trout, his friend and fellow Angels 2009 first-round draft pick, Grichuk emerged as a slugger in his own right in '15, batting .276 with 17 homers and an OPS, .877, that was higher than that of the eventual NL Rookie of the Year, the Cubs' Kris Bryant. Though Grichuk is listed at just 6'1" and 195 pounds, he generates ferocious bat speed. According to StatCast, balls exited his bat at an average velocity of 94.5 miles an hour last season, the majors' fifth fastest—eight spots ahead of Trout himself.
Grichuk might have finished higher on both that leader board and in the Rookie of the Year balloting—he received no votes—if not for his health, which limited him to 103 games. Aside from the UCL, he also missed a month due to a back strain he sustained last April and was hampered from July on due to an initially undiagnosed sports hernia, on which he had off-season surgery. "I play the game hard, and if there's a play to be made I'm going to try to make it," he says.
Now healthy, Grichuk, 24, has one pressing personal goal: to cut down on his strikeouts. He whiffed 31.4% of the time last year, the league's fifth-highest rate among players with at least 350 plate appearances. "This year I've implemented a little more of a leg kick to start my load earlier and see if my pitch recognition can benefit," he says.
In 2015 the Cardinals won 100 games despite, at times, playing half a Grichuk. This season, with Heyward having departed to the Cubs, they'll need all of him.
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PHOTO
DILIP VISHWANAT/GETTY IMAGES
Speed Demon Grichuk had MLB's fifth-fastest exit velocity on batted balls last season.