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
When you're trying to learn and establish yourself and be consistent in the major leagues, it's hard to do that with the amount of pressure everybody from the outside is putting on you. But obviously all three of us were able to continue to be successful, move on and do the things everybody expected us to be able to do.
I located my fastball good, and my breaking ball was good. I made some quality pitches and kept the ball down. The fun thing about early on is getting the feel back and competing.
I hate losing, never mind losing that way, not being able to make an adjustment and get the ball down in the strike zone. It's just an angry, disgusting, embarrassing feeling.
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.
A few years ago, I never thought I was going to play again, ... I go from coming back and winning Comeback Player (of the Year in 2004) to winning the Cy Young. It's a crazy feeling.
I was cruising along and I felt like I was throwing the ball well, and got there in the seventh and all of a sudden I started getting some balls up and it got away from me. No matter who you face, you're going to give up hits if you don't execute pitches down in the zone.
My performance (today) was unacceptable and made me want to puke.
I know I got a little careless. I threw him a lot of breaking balls in a row.
I had command of my sinker, command of my cutter, and command of my breaking ball, and I was able to throw it when I wanted to throw it and keep them off balance all night,
I had command of my sinker, command of my cutter, command of my breaking ball, and I was able to throw it where I wanted to throw it, ... I kept them off balance all night. We got some nice defensive plays, a couple nice defensive plays. It was a well-played game all around.
I thought early on I got away with a couple pitches, but we made some nice defensive plays.
I told my wife I didn't want to do it anymore, ... I wanted to come home.
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.
You can't take the results from your last start into your next one. You have to prepare differently and prepare yourself to go out and execute pitches.