No Major League team has as focused of a pitching program as the St. Louis Cardinals do with sinking fastballs.

"That's just the philosophy here," Adam Wainwright said.

It all started with former pitching coach Dave Duncan, who was with the team from 1996 through 2011, and has continued.

"It has a two-pronged approach to it," Tim Leveque, the organization's minor-league pitching coordinator, said. "It has a result point to it, where you're trying to limit extra-base hits and generate weak contact and keep the ball inside the ballpark, but it also the psychological benefit to it where you're going to attack the strike zone and be aggressive, which hopefully will lead to either, one, more quick outs or, two, being able to control counts in your favor. [Those] are things we do emphasize in the minor leagues."

St. Louis has ranked first in ground ball percentage in four of the past five full seasons.

"It's almost impossible to hit a ground ball for a home run," Wainwright said. "It can be done, but you've got to be fast, and something crazy's got to happen."