What if Chris Carpenter had been healthy?

There are some players who play in the majors that you just wish they had been able to stay healthy. You know they have the talent, you know they have the smarts, but their bodies just won't cooperate with them.

For me Chris Carpenter is one of those players. When he is healthy he is one of the best pitchers in baseball. Before the start of this season he had won 100 games and lost 70. In the last 7 seasons he has only been able to pitch for three and a hlaf of those seasons. In 2003 he had 0 starts, in 2007 he had 1 start and last year he had just 4 starts before his seasons ended. What a shame.

He missed a good portion of this season too. Yet since he has come back he continues to be impressive. In just 20 starts this season he has a 13-3 record and a microscopic 2.27 ERA. He reminds me so much of Roy Halladay. If he could pitch another 5 seasons and win 17 games he would move his win total to over 200. Then add in the three seasons he lost due to injury and we would potentially be looking at a 250 game winner. That will never happen, but oh what could have been.

Carpenter picked up win #113 of his career and for the fifth consecutive start he picked up the "W". If he can stay healthy and the Cards make the playoffs, incidentally I think that they will, I like the Cards chances to win it all. They certainly have the best offensive talent in the game with Albert Pujols.

Albert and Mark Reynolds continue their torrid homerun pace. Reynolds temporarily caught Albert in the HR column with a HR earlier in the day and Albert took the lead back with one of his own later in the evening. Pujols now is sitting on 358 dingers, so only 342 more to get to 700. He has amassed these numbers in just 8 seasons. On top of that Albert has driven in 100 RBI's each season and has 1082 on his career. He can hit for average too and now has 1666 career hits. He is still only 29 years old. WOW!!

Vlad Guerrero continues to climb towards 500 on his career with another 2 HR and 5 RBI last night. That is 402 on his career.

Look out for both the Crads and the Angels as we head down the home stretch. It is gonna be fun.