St. Louis Cardinals' Chris Carpenter throws first practice since June 22 – MLB News
The St. Louis Cardinals' pitcher Chris Carpenter on Friday, August 31, threw his first practice since June 22 as he underwent the supposedly season-ending thoracic outlet surgery. Tossing around 36 pitches, Chris Carpenter struck a note that he might get to the mound before the end of the season.
Cardinals, which are fighting hard to remain part of the Wild Card race have recently struggled a bit. It is here that the club needs the starter, someone who was instrumental in the Redbirds’ winning the 2011 World Series.
"Like I've said all along, I'm not just going to sit around and waste a month and just throw bullpen [sessions]," Carpenter said. "If I have a shot [at pitching this year], why not push it? Today was that step, and I felt good.
A mixture of fastballs and offspeed pitches that featured in his Friday’s throwing session shows the pitcher is regaining his fitness and the ability to go for variation as far as hurling is concerned.
However, despite the apparently encouraging development, the starter remains cautious, not exhibiting any extravagant excitement.
"I'm not going to get too excited," Carpenter said. "I'm not going to get too crazy. I'll hopefully recover well the next few days and do this again early next week and go from there. At some point in time, we know we're going to get to a point where we know we're going to have to make a decision to push it to that next level or not."
The team manager Mika Matheny, having had his observation, said that the ball was jumping out of his hand. But he seemed happy with the progress that Carpenter has made. Facing the hitters on Friday, it goes without saying, is a positive and encouraging news for the team.
The Redbirds, nonetheless, will shun taking any risk at this point in time. For now, the dependence lies on other pitchers whom the club will want to fare well so as to keep the chances of the Redbirds for the playoffs intact as the regular season nears an end and the competition increases in the Division.
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