For sure. One other thought... when Berkman was throwing home in the 8th, I thought for sure that it would hit the ground or be off target. He's actually a great first baseman but his one weakness is his arm, both in terms of accuracy and velocity. Fortunately, he has a great glove and high IQ to make up for it. Plus, first basemen don't have to throw overhanded that often relative to other infield positions and he's solid with underhanded tosses.
For his career, I believe he is now 4-0 in 4 starts against them with 25 Ks in 26 IP and has only given up 1 ER. That single ER came today after he threw a wild pitch that allowed Pujols to get to 2nd and eventually score on a weak hit by Holliday.
Very good post BrooksBall. I've always thought that about Carpenter too. There's something about him that just screams being a punk b****. Lee had a point. If Carpenter can yell and get mad at himself after Lance's RBI single, why can't Lee be frustrated and yell at himself too after not hitting a hittable pitch? Either way, I dislike Carpenter and then I've never liked LaRussa much despite him being a great manager. He whines too much about anything and everything.
On a side note though, I still hope we trade every possible asset at the deadline. As a few others have said, delusions of grandeur will not be helpful to our team's long term success because we actually win a series every once in a while. We'll improve from where we are now I think and we're not going into the all-star break 24-60 or anything like that, but I hope our philosophy doesn't change just because we win a few series every once in a while.
I would be remembering that if I were the Astros. Can Carpenter's head be gotten into? If so, then I'd ride his whiny you-know-what relentlessly every game. All we need is one meltdown for a few runs, and we have a chance to win.
I think the real key is having good ABs against him early in the game. I think he was already frustrated about walking Bourn and giving up the run-scoring single to Berkman and just took it out on Lee for no good reason. The problem is that it's hard to get to Carpenter early and it's something we almost never do which is why we so rarely see him losing his cool on any level. If somebody tosses their bat to the ground out of frustration and he's owning us like usual, he probably doesn't even look at the guy. It probably even makes him feel good to see it.
