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 felt like I kept the ball down in the strike zone, and that's why I was getting those ground balls,
I felt good. I definitely felt better than my last two starts mechanically. My sinker was better. My cutter was better. My command was better. What allowed me to finish the game was taking the ninth like it was the first. If you rush through the ninth trying to get outs, you're not going to complete that game.
I got my work in and I'm ready to go. I kept the ball down.
I'd lie if I don't say that it crosses my mind, ... But those are the things that I might think about for about 30 seconds, and then get rid of them. Because all that is, is stuff in your head that you don't need to think about.
I always had that mentality but I've gotten to a point where I understand how to use it. It's all about controlling it in your head.
I feel like I have the ability to go out there and control myself and control each pitch way more than I've ever done before,
You hope that you win. But when you're talking about the quality of seasons those other guys had, there's nothing you can say about it (if someone else won).
We had that last year, we have that this year.
We've got a great club, ... We've got to continue to play the way we've been playing in this series to continue to move on.
We have five guys who have been here before. At this point in the season, if you don't have a guy on the mound who believes that he can be that No. 1 guy, you're not going to have a whole lot of success. We have five guys who can go out there and win at any time.
Obviously, it's a big number, ... But I've got five (starts) left, I think, the rest of the season. I'll start getting prepared for New York on Wednesday.
Shows consistency. But that's what my goal is: trying to be consistent as often as I can. I've said this (before): If you go out and be consistent and give this team a chance to win with the defense, offense and bullpen we have, we're going to win a lot of games.
I was so locked in the whole season and then we clinched, and there were some other things going on that you start looking ahead, ... By keeping myself fresh and staying healthy to get me through the end of the season you lose that little edge.
Oh yeah. I knew. I got a little careless in the sixth with the catcher there, throwing him a bunch of breaking balls in a row. That's why it's so hard to do it. I wasn't concerned about it. I wanted to win the game, and we did.