There's no doubt that the St. Louis Cardinals and their fans had their fingers crossed this season that Chris Carpenter would be able to get through an entire season healthy after missing most of the last two seasons. After seeing the way he pitched in his first start of the season, they probably broke those fingers for them being crossed so hard. Of course their hopes came to an end when Carpenter was placed on the disabled list on Wednesday.Now the question becomes how much time is Carpenter going to miss because of his strained rib cage. Well, if you ask Carpenter's manager Tony La Russa, he'll tell you that you shouldn't hold your breath. La Russa thinks Carpenter may not be back on the mound until this summer.
The right-hander and former Cy Young Award winner remained sore Wednesday, a day after leaving his second start of the season because of pain at the start of the fourth inning. Manager Tony La Russa said the club should expect to be without their ace for at least a month and possibly two.Obviously this is not very good news for the Cardinals. Their pitching was already thin to begin with, and now that they face the prospect of being without Carpenter for two months, it's only going to get thinner. As Ed Price told us earlier, P.J. Walters will be called up on Friday to take Carpenter's spot in the rotation and start Friday's game against the Cubs.
"How we handle it will be something that we can look at over the next couple weeks," general manager John Mozeliak said. "As far as changing the course now, that's not something we're going to do. ... Obviously, we hedged a lot of our bets to have him in our rotation. This is a scenario where it's not his elbow or shoulder, so once we determine how long he'll be out we'll react accordingly."
It's hard to believe that Walters will bring the same stuff to the table that a healthy Chris Carpenter does, but this is what happens when you pin a lot of your hopes on a pitcher that hasn't been healthy in two years.
