For the second time this season, Kyle Lohse did not miss many bats, watched a couple of balls get drilled, but showed good control, made some tough pitches and the Cardinals were rewarded with another victory.

Against Miami last Wednesday, Lohse perhaps pitched to the ballpark, as a certain broadcaster might imply. He couldn't get away with that in Cincinnati, not even on a 51 degree night.

Let's revisit the two biggest keys to Lohse being successful against Cincinnati:

The Ground Game

Lohse should have one single focus when he's on the mound: ground balls. When he gets ground balls, he's almost Chris Carpenter. When he doesn't, he's very mediocre. Ground balls, ground balls, ground balls.

He got away with some fly balls against the Marlins, but in GABP, he's not going to be as lucky.

The Reds are going to start four players tonight (Rolen, Stubbs, Harris and Votto) who hit 40 percent of their balls into the ground. Lohse needs to summon whatever ground ball juju Joel Pineiro left in the dugout and use it.

Willie Harris: Ground out, ground out, pop out

Scott Rolen: Fly out, line out, ground out

Joey Votto: Single (grounder up the middle), fly out, fly out

Drew Stubbs: Ground out, strike out

Mission accomplished with that bunch.

For the game, Lohse had eight grounders to eight fly ball outs. That isn't ideal, especially on a night when he gets just four swinging strikes and threw 53 fastball/sinkers. Someone at Fangraphs will probably write "BEWARE FIP" tomorrow regarding Lohse, but it doesn't matter.

Show 'Em the Slider

One thing that stands out is that Lohse did well in getting those precious ground ball outs with his slider. In the third inning against Miami, he got Infante and Buck grounding out on sliders, then induced a double play in the fourth inning with a slider against Hanley Ramirez. He went back to the slider against Buck in the sixth and got another ground ball out.

Lohse threw closer to the Lohse of last season than he did last week against Miami, pumping more fastballs/sinkers and fewer off-speed pitches. Not to say this is a bad thing, but last week his slider resulted in good things. In the first inning he retired Cozart on a slider, then did the same to Stubbs in the second inning and Mesoraco in the fifth inning.

It's possible Lohse just didn't have a feel for the slider tonight.

Changeups to Jay Bruce?

The Cardinals must feel that Jay Bruce is susceptible to changeups because of the 14 Lohse threw, seven of them were against the Reds' right fielder. Bruce doubled in the second, struck out in the fourth and singled home Cincinnati's only run in the sixth. Both of his hits were on changeups. Here's the pitch sequence in the second inning:

Pitch 1: Fastball

Pitch 2: Changeup

Pitch 3: Fastball

Pitch 4: Changeup

Pitch 5: Changeup

With Bruce up in the fourth, Lohse went back to alternating between fastballs and changeups, trying to jam Bruce on the inside:

Pitch 1: Fastball (inside)

Pitch 2: Changeup (outside)

Pitch 3: Fastball (inside)

Pitch 4: Fastball (inside)

Pitch 5: Changeup (inside)

Bruce swung right through that second changeup, likely because Lohse had him so far off balance.

In the sixth, Lohse started Bruce out with a curveball:

Pitch 1: Curveball (inside)

Pitch 2: Fastball (inside)

Pitch 3: Fastball (inside)

Pitch 4: Fastball (inside)

Pitch 5: Changeup (outside)

Pitch 6: Changeup (outside)

No issues here with Lohse going outside, but he probably should've shown him something else.

Avoiding Danger

The third inning could have been disastrous for Lohse. After retiring Harris on a ground ball (left a sinker up), he hit Cozart, then left a sinker that didn't exactly sink against Votto, but it died in left field:

via i539.photobucket.com

Against Rolen, he left up another non-sinking sinker that was roped to shortstop:

via i539.photobucket.com

Luck was on Lohse's side tonight, as those balls did not end up where they should have.

Summary

Cold weather probably played a factor on both ends tonight, but Lohse gritted it out and made some very good pitches when he had to. Against ground ball hitters, he got ground balls. He turned away rallies and Lord knows what Lohse does isn't sexy, but tonight it was damn effective.

I had some time so I put together a "path to victory" for Kyle Lohse against the Reds tonight. Thanks to the seven of you who recommended my Study Hall on Jake Westbrook last night. I don't know why the formatting is like that, but hopefully it wasn't too big of a pain.

The Kyle Lohse Path to Victory

The Ground Game

Kyle Lohse is not really a ground ball pitcher, even though he should be, and you'll see why in a second. Only once in his career has he had a ground ball rate of 45 percent. Last year, while successful, only 41 percent of the balls put in play against Lohse were grounders.

Yet, when Lohse evened up that ratio, he had terrific success. In starts where he had more ground balls to fly balls or an even number, here were his totals:

77.1 IP
2.45 ERA
50 K/14 BB

Lohse should have one single focus when he's on the mound: ground balls. When he gets ground balls, he's almost Chris Carpenter. When he doesn't, he's very mediocre. Ground balls, ground balls, ground balls.

He got away with some fly balls against the Marlins, but in GABP, he's not going to be as lucky.

The Reds are going to start four players tonight (Rolen, Stubbs, Harris and Votto) who hit 40 percent of their balls into the ground. Lohse needs to summon whatever ground ball juju Joel Pineiro left in the dugout and use it.

Show 'Em the Slider

Obviously, it's too early to find a discernible pattern since Lohse has had just one game, but against the Marlins almost a quarter of his pitches were sliders, 50 percent were fastballs/sinkers and the other half was divvied up between changeups and curveballs.

One thing that stands out is that Lohse did well in getting those precious ground ball outs with his slider. In the third inning against Miami, he got Infante and Buck grounding out on sliders, then induced a double play in the fourth inning with a slider against Hanley Ramirez. He went back to the slider against Buck in the sixth and got another ground ball out.

It's important for a guy like Lohse to have a few more options to get (say it with me!) those ground outs.

On the other hand, it is a little concerning that Lohse got no swinging strikes on his "heat" which averaged just 89 mph. Of the two hits he allowed, only one came off his fastball/sinker, but one of the two pitches that Giancarlo Stanton hit to the moon were fastballs. He was also able to dig deep enough and get a big strikeout on Gaby Sanchez in the eighth inning with a fastball/sinker.

I'll be back after the game tonight or tomorrow morning with a write-up. Thanks for reading!

I am a fan of Rock M Nation where Bill C. puts together a study hall on Mizzou games. Well, I like the idea so much that I've put together my first "study hall" where I will, as time allows, break down the starting pitching performance, since I find it more fascinating than explaining how Holliday is not the clutch. If the formatting is screwed up, I apologize. I cannot figure how to separate the paragraphs, which makes this harder to read.

On with it.

Jake Westbrook's importance to the 2012 Cardinals cannot possibly be overstated. A ground ball pitcher, Westbrook actually pitched decently in 2011, but his numbers were skewered by a pretty terrible middle infield defense. Despite having most of his peripherals in line with career norms, Westbrook saw his ERA inflate to 4.66 despite having an xFIP around 4.

With Carpenter down, Wainwright in the process of returning to his groove, Garcia being a bit fragile and Kyle Lohse being Kyle Lohse, Westbrook has to be better for the Cardinals this season if he wants to contend and keep pitching past 2012.

Monday night's start against the Reds started out grimly. After getting a quick out against Brandon Phillips, walked Zack Cozart (only his second base on ball) and Votto. He walked Chris Heisey and Drew Stubbs (also hard to do) in the second inning.

Westbrook struggled to find a consistent release point. He was throwing sinkers, but they were all over the map.

Al Hrabosky is fond of saying that sinker ball pitchers need "tired arms" to be effective. Hrabosky says a lot of things, most of which I don't believe, but Westbrook started finding his groove as the pitches added up.

Using PitchFX, I charted what pitches Westbrook went to when he had two strikes.

Bottom 2nd, Heisey on first, Stubbs down 0-2:

Pitch 3: Sinker (ball)

Pitch 4: Slider (ball)

Pitch 5: Sinker (ball)

Pitch 6: Sinker (foul)

Pitch 7: Sinker (foul)

Pitch 8: Sinker (ball)

Westbrook simply couldn't put Stubbs away; a bad sign because Stubbs strikes out a lot. But, he retired Hanigan and Bailey to bring up Phillips. Westbrook quickly got ahead 0-2.

Pitch 3: Slider (foul)

Pitch 4: curve (strikeout)

The curve was seldom used by Westbrook, throwing just eight, but getting seven strikes.

By the third inning, Westbrook got himself straight. He fell behind five of the first six batters he faced, but then got ahead of the next six. And when Westbrook got ahead, he was hard to hit.

Next for Westbrook was getting the ball down. In the first three innings, he had just two ground ball outs. In the fourth, the Reds put two balls in play, both grounders. One was a Furcal error, one was a ground out to Freese.

In the fifth inning, Westbrook got up 0-2 on Hanigan and finished him with a ground out. With two outs, Phillips finally got a hit for the Reds. He fell behind 0-2.

Pitch 3: Sinker (foul)

Pitch 4: Slider (ball)

Pitch 5: Curve (Single)

The pitch Phillips hit was a curve placed perfectly on the outside corner. It was a good piece of hitting:

After the debacle that saw Phillips score from first on an error, Westbrook found himself facing Votto with two outs and a 1-1 count:

Pitch 3: Slider (ball)

Pitch 4: Slider (strike)

Pitch 5: Sinker (strike looking)

Westbrook left the pitch up, but Votto got crossed up and failed to deliver:

With two strikes against the Reds, Westbrook threw 10 sinkers, 8 sliders and 5 curves.

-He retired three batters on sinkers

-He retired two batters on curves and two batters on sliders

Obviously the key for Westbrook next time out will be to get himself right early on. He avoided a lot of damage, but the overall results were good. Look how efficient he was after those two nerve-wracking innings:

Innings 1-2

35 pitches (16 strikes)

Innings 3-7

53 pitches (39 strikes)

He had four nine-pitch innings and had he not made a foolish error in the fifth inning would have saved himself some pitches.

Pitching Statistics (per PitchFX)