Albert Pujols, no idiot, loves it when Chris Carpenter pitches. He has hit 10 bombs in Carpenter’s last 15 starts.
But Carpenter doesn’t feel unusually blessed by the firepower.
“He has hit a lot of home runs in other games too,” Carpenter said after the Cardinals slugger homered off the Reds’ Carlos Fisher on Wednesday. “He has only had what — a couple of times this season where he just hasn’t awed people every night?”
The combination of Pujols at the plate and Carpenter on the mound was, of course, the key to the Cardinals averaging 96 victories from 2004 to ’06, when they won the National League Central three years in a row.
In the second of those seasons, ’05, they were celebrated as MVP and Cy Young Award winner, respectively, and Carpenter’s return to good health gives the combination a chance again to pull off that impressive double.
But Pujols-Carpenter is not the only 1-2 combination keying the Cardinals, who had moved 4 1/2 games in front of the Cubs entering the weekend. Adam Wainwright, in his third full season as a starter, has joined Carpenter to give the Cardinals the second-most effective duo of starting pitchers in the majors.
As we steam toward the dog days, consider these teams the least likely to swoon, because of their 1-2 starting pitchers:
1Giants: Tim Lincecum, the front-runner in the NL Cy Young Award race, and Matt Cain are a combined 24-7 with a 2.31 ERA over 327 1/3 innings. Only one duo delivers more innings. No duo is more likely to dominate. The Giants should score more runs with Freddy Sanchez and Ryan Garko and won’t be fun to play in October if they outlast the Rockies and everyone else for a wild-card spot.
2Cardinals: Carpenter and Wainwright are 24-8 with a 2.53 ERA, and neither is showing signs of wear. Carpenter is 7-0 in his last eight starts, benefiting from changes in his exercise program. Manager Tony La Russa raved about the stuff he had beating the Reds on Wednesday, saying the ball “was exploding down, exploding up.”
3Red Sox: Josh Beckett and Jon Lester give Boston the best right-left element in the majors. They also consistently deliver the most innings and have done their part to hold together a fraying pitching staff. They’re 23-11 with a 3.04 ERA over 338 innings.
4Tigers: Justin Verlander and Edwin Jackson have logged the third-most innings among top starters, going 21-11 with a 3.05 ERA. The issue is whether manager Jim Leyland will wear them out. They have seven 120-pitch starts between them, including a majors-high five from Verlander. He hardly seemed gassed Thursday, hitting 100 m.p.h. in the eighth inning of a combined shutout at Fenway Park.
5Yankees: CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett should be money, right? They are giving general manager Brian Cashman what he paid for, going 23-12 with a combined 3.79 ERA to help the Yankees pull away from the Red Sox.
Down to business: We’ll know by the end of the night Monday if the Nationals have the nerve to tell Scott Boras no. That’s the deadline to sign picks from the June draft, and it’s still anyone’s guess whether the highly advertised Stephen Strasburg and his agent, Boras, will sign with Washington.
There were 18 unsigned picks entering the weekend, and nobody expects the logjam to resolve itself — or to turn into one huge mess — until the final hours before the deadline.
No one has received a bigger package than the $10.5 million the Cubs gave Mark Prior, and Strasburg is sure to receive almost double that. But Boras has hinted Strasburg is such a “special” prospect that he could be worth closer to $50 million.
The trouble for Boras is the Nationals seem to have the leverage. He would have to challenge the draft rules successfully to keep Strasburg from going back into the pool for 2010, and it’s unclear why he would get a better deal a year away from the monster season he just had for San Diego State.
Strasburg could decline to be re-drafted by the Nats, instead going to the team with the second worst record this season.
That “race” includes the Orioles, Royals, Pirates and his hometown Padres.
Demoted: J.J. Hardy and Chris Young were supposed to be big stars by now.
But the Brewers shortstop and Diamondbacks center fielder were given wake-up calls last week, sent back to Triple A with a combined 999 games of big-league experience.
Hardy’s demotion came amid a flurry of moves the Brewers made Wednesday. It caught him by surprise, although his .229 batting average should have put him on alert.
“I didn’t see that coming at all,” Hardy told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “It didn’t really make sense to me. I told [GM Doug Melvin] all I need was a couple of days off. I know I haven’t been swinging the bat like I want to, but [days off] have worked for me in the past. It’s certainly not anything I’m excited about. I’m very frustrated.”
At least the Brewers hadn’t committed major long-term dollars to Hardy, who has been replaced by Alcides Escobar. The Diamondbacks gave Young a five-year, $28million contract in April 2008 and have seen his career go in reverse since.
“It has been a frustrating year for him on a lot of levels,” Diamondbacks manager A.J. Hinch said of Young, who was hitting .194 with only seven home runs and 28 RBIs in 103 games. “It is time for him to go down and regain his swing and his approach and his swagger, where there is a little less scrutiny and a little less notoriety on a daily basis, and get some regular at-bats.”
The last word: “You get on the mound, you look around and there are Hall of Famers behind you. You just know that each guy is going to push past anything they have to push past to get the job done.” — Well-traveled right-hander Chad Gaudin, who made his Yankees debut Wednesday.
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Whispers
Kudos to Brewers owner Mark Attanasio (right) for biting the bullet and swallowing about $10.5million in releasing Bill Hall. Since hitting 35 home runs as their primary shortstop in 2006 — the season that got him his four-year, $24 million deal — Hall has hit 35 home runs and never played another game at short. … Jordan Zimmermann’s out-of-nowhere Tommy John surgery is a huge setback for the Nationals, adding even more pressure to sign No. 1 pick Stephen Strasburg by Monday’s deadline. … Sandy Alderson’s name continues to pop up with teams facing some transition after the season. He has been mentioned for a possible team president’s role with the Cubs, assuming the sale to the Tom Ricketts group goes through, and also is rumored in an unspecified role in Toronto, where GM J.P. Ricciardi is unlikely to survive. Stan Kasten, the Nats’ president, may resign at season’s end, possibly to move into a job in Toronto. … Cecil Cooper, who long ago lost the faith of the Astros’ players, last week became the first manager ever to walk a hitter intentionally to get to Hanley Ramirez. Declining attendance, not the players’ feelings, could prompt owner Drayton McLane to make a change after the season. … The Yankees will continue to monitor Joba Chamberlain’s workload in the regular season but foresee handling him the same as their other starters in the playoffs. … The Marlins are a threat to steal a playoff spot — which would give low-profile Fredi Gonzalez the NL Manager of the Year Award he deserved to win in 2008. … In a nod to the down economy, MLB will conduct its November GM meetings at O’Hare International Airport hotels, not one of its preferred oceanside resorts. … The Tigers’ Rick Porcello got a raw deal when he was suspended for defending himself against the Red Sox’s Kevin Youkilis. But a five-game suspension for a starting pitcher is a joke; it needs to be at least nine to make a team feel the loss. … The Rangers signed Florida outfielder Riley Cooper only after promising him that he could play another year of football for the Gators. He caught 18 Tim Tebow passes last year.
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