Was Kip Wells Cheated by the Cardinals?

Remember how the Cardinals and Pirates combined to use 18 pitchers? At first I thought it was an interesting piece of trivia, but it turns out it may have been in part a cost-cutting move by the Cardinals. You see, Kip Wells was set to trigger a $500,000 incentive clause if he hit 165 innings. Instead he threw three scoreless innings on Sunday before being pulled, finishing the season at 162 2/3 innings. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

General manager Walt Jocketty fiercely rejected any inference that the Cardinals were counting innings.

"You saw what you saw," said Wells, a pending free agent, after the game. He declined to say anything else, acknowledging the irony in getting the win in the season finale.

"I think it's more than coincidental that I'm not throwing all that much in the last 12 days," Wells said. "But it's one of those you-make-your-bed, you-have-to-lie-in-it situations. You haven't pitched well, so you don't really deserve to throw."

Wells may have sealed his fate by allowing five earned runs in 4 2/3 innings a couple of weeks back -- ever since then he was used very sporadically and without a great deal of success. But still, he was pitching extremely well in the finale which made it a little suspicious that La Russa decided to empty the bullpen as opposed to letting him continue.