The St. Louis Cardinals have now won Chris Carpenter's last two starts—a brilliant shutout, one of the best performances of his career, and an ugly game in which he allowed a home run to 35-year-old reserve outfielder Mark Kotsay and struggled, as he did early in the season, with brief losses of command and weird runs of base hits.
And I'm not sure which win was more reassuring.
It was good, of course, to see Chris Carpenter be Chris Carpenter. All season—due mostly to things like hits allowed that even out things like age that color our perceptions without, apparently, diminishing his fastball—I've been looking at Carpenter, almost against my will, as a past-tense kind of player. A guy who was great, who had done great things. The shutout reminded me that this ostensible relic of a pitcher managed a 3.47 strikeout to walk ratio in the season that inspired all the eulogizing—that, after getting burned by bad defense and run support in the first half of that season, he'd finished it 10-2.
That win was reassuring because Chris Carpenter never stopped being Chris Carpenter, and if he reminds me frequently enough I might someday be able to believe it.
Wednesday's win was reassuring because I'm still not able to believe it. Even when Carpenter struggles, which is not frequently—and even when Kyle Lohse or Jaime Garcia struggles, which is a little more frequently—this offense has at least one weapon firing every day. Lately, with Matt Holliday and Lance Berkman struggling, it's been Albert Pujols and David Freese; with a left-hander pitching Thursday night it might be Allen Craig who's left to play a central role in the run scoring.
The Cardinals have run a string of brilliant hitters through their roster behind Albert Pujols, and Holliday and Berkman are top second-bananas. But the really great offenses—your 2004s, for instance—combine those dangerous names with a bunch of players who just don't make a lot of outs and hit for more power than you have any right to expect.
This win was reassuring because I was reminded of that. And if, someday, I learn to trust Chris Carpenter and his twice-bitten shoulder, I might still find it a relief to know that the Cardinals can win whether he's great or just pretty decent.
