Chris Carpenter
Chris Carpenter
Christopher John "Chris" Carpenteris an American retired professional baseball starting pitcher. He played 15 seasons in Major League Baseballfor the Toronto Blue Jays and St. Louis Cardinals from 1997 to 2012. A Cy Young Award winner and two-time World Series champion, he was also a three-time All-Star selection. In addition, he was twice named the Sporting News National League Pitcher of the Year, and voted for a number of Comeback Player of the Year awards for surmounting injury...
ProfessionBaseball Player
Date of Birth27 April 1975
CityExeter, NH
I had no idea. They were asking for the ball and I didn't know why. I didn't know until I came into the dugout.
We won't know what everything is like until we play in it. If the ball is going to carry, if it's not. No matter what the stadium is, you deal with it. It's going to be there for a long time.
I'll never forget the night we sat here until about 3 o'clock in the morning crying and talking about my career, ... I was ready to be done. And she didn't think I was, that I would regret it if I didn't take that one more step and try to come back again. And the next thing you know, I got my second surgery and here we are today. And I know that if it wasn't for her I wouldn't be here.
Each start is a new start, a new game, ... I can't take anything from the last game into this next one except to continue to try to throw strikes down in the strike zone. I feel like my stuff is pretty good and I feel like I was able to control counts and I'm going to try to do that again.
Everybody is going to be pumped up a little bit, ... I think that you've got to go out and relax and execute pitches the way I've done all year, and I'll be OK.
Everybody was excited for me. Like I said, 20's a big number, ... But I've got five (starts) left. I think about the rest of the season, and get prepared for New York on Thursday.
The addition of Andy is big for them. They've always had a great bullpen. They have a team that knows how to play the game, they take quality at-bats and play the game the right way. It's fun competing against a team like that, knowing that they're a lot like us. They go out and do the little things to win. They're going to pitch, bunt, play defense and do everything it takes to win.
I made a good, quality pitch down and away and he hit it into the seats. I was confident in the pitch, I was confident in the location and the result wasn't what I wanted.
I made a bad pitch. I threw a sloppy cutter up there and he hit it.
I made some bad pitches and even the good ones got hit. No matter what you say about it, it's unacceptable.
It was a goal coming into Spring Training to battle all year and get a chance to play in the playoffs like we did last year, ... My only goal was to stay healthy and try to be consistent all year, and have a chance to be here with this team, and it's worked out.
It's a new game. That's the way I looked at it all year,
It's huge. We need Jimmy in the lineup every day to come out there and compete every day and be a big part of that offense, never mind his defensive play. It was nice to see him back in there and doing what he did today. Hopefully we can get him on track and he can start feeling better.
That's all right, come back and get the next guy.