But seriously, I don't think Rick Ankiel is a bad guy. The argument of "HGH wasn't illegal when _____ was using it" is a flawed one, because "steroids" in so many words have been illegal for decades. If it looks like a steroid and walks like a steroid, you know? If somebody comes up to you and says "this pill/powder makes you bigger and better at sports" you should probably not take it unless you are okay with doing steroids.
That being said, that guy sure did mess up a great story, didn't he? TALES FROM THE INTERNET, after the jump.
Everyone kind of had a feeling this was coming after today's earlier announcement, but after visiting the doctor today, it's official: Chris Carpenter is going on the 15-day DL with arthritis and an elbow "impingement." I don't know what that is, but this is what the wire report says:
Carpenter, limited to one start this season, will rest for the next 10 days to two weeks and will be re-examined after that. The condition sometimes requires surgery but also can be cured by rest and treatment.
According to a statement issued by the team, there was no evidence of an acute ligament injury -- a problem that would have required surgery and likely would have finished Carpenter's season.
An impingement occurs when a thin layer of membrane that lines the elbow becomes caught in the elbow joint. The problem is relatively common among athletes who have a repetitive elbow motion, such as throwing a pitch or swinging a golf club. Arthroscopic surgery can repair the usually painful injury if initial treatment is not successful.
All in all, it sounds like things could be a lot worse for Carp. If arthroscopic surgery is the worse thing on the menu ahead, he probably won't miss a whole ton of time this year. Then again, things that go like this never seem to end well. "He's going to miss one start. No, wait two. No, wait, he's on the DL but it's not serious. Oh, wait, see you in '08." Or maybe that's just what I'm used to because I'm a Pirate fan. But hey, the Cards still have Braden Looper, right? No, seriously.
So Chris Carpenter's going to miss his next start. Panic time for the Cardinals, right? Wrong. For the second day in a row, a new addition to the Cardinal rotation turned in a gem of a start to lead the Cards to a win.
After Kip Wells' dominant performance last night, Braden Looper rolled in to PNC Park today and ruined the Pirates' home opener (trust me, it was ruined, I was there) with seven scoreless innings in which the Pirates only mustered two hits. Ian Snell was almost as good for the Pirates, allowing only one run in his seven innings. Unfortunately for him, Albert Pujols continued his flat out dominance of Snell with two hits, one of which was a double that put him in position to score on Scott Rolen's single, providing Looper with more than enough run support. Ryan Franklin and Jason Isringhausen closed out the win for the Cards and Izzy looked pretty good in person today, touching 95-96 on the gun a couple of times and putting down Freddy Sanchez, Adam LaRoche, and Jason Bay in order to earn his second save of the young season.
So, if you're counting at home, that's fourteen innings, three hits, and zero runs for Looper and Wells in the Cards last two games. Scott Rolen has driven five runs in during the same span. Not surprisingly, the Cards won both games.
Chris Carpenter, who was scheduled to start Tuesday despite elbow soreness after his last outing, is not going to start after all.
Carpenter woke up on Sunday with swelling and stiffness in that throwing elbow, and the Cardinals canceled his Tuesday go. Instead, he's meeting with a doctor today to determine the extent of the injury. The missed start is the second in a row for Carpenter, who missed the Cardinals' game Friday with similar problems.
"We're always going to be real careful with him, we just got excited [Saturday] because he threw the ball so well in the 'pen," La Russa said. "But he didn't back off, he really wanted to test it and he came in [Sunday] and said he's got some discomfort."
Carpenter also had some discomfort following his Opening Day start against the Mets, which caused the team to skip his next scheduled start. He was supposed to be back in the rotation on Tuesday.
"[There's] just enough [swelling] this time that he's not going to pitch Tuesday," La Russa said. "I don't want to say anything more until we compare notes, but I know he's not pitching Tuesday."
Of course the Cardinals are being extremely careful with Carpenter -- he's their No. 1 pitcher on a rotation that isn't at all deep. If they were to lose him for an extended period of time, well, the Cardinals could be looking at a disastrous follow-up to their miraculous 2006 World Series run.
OK, so Albert Pujols homering probably isn't the biggest story to come from the Cardinals' 10-1 drubbing of the Astros today, but when a guy like Pujols goes almost 20 at-bats to start the season without a homer, people tend to notice. He did finally go yard today against Jason Jennings in the third inning to put the Cards up 3-0 and put them well on their way to their second win of the year.
The big story in this one had to be Kip Wells' start. After a rough first outing for the Cards earlier in the week he was dominant today, tossing seven one-hit innings and striking out seven batters to go with only one walk. He kept his pitch count down (only 90 through seven innings), which is something that is always a problem for Wells. His mound opponent, Jason Jennings, was good but not as good as Wells, giving up three runs in his six innings of work and taking the loss.
The other story in this one was, once again, Brad Lidge. Phil Garner took the 5-0 score in the top of the ninth as a chance to get his closer some work (I mean, he's got to pitch sometime and the Astros aren't winning much) and disaster ensued, as Lidge got lit up for five runs and only managed to record two outs, which brought his ERA on the season to 16.20. The big hit in that inning was Scott Rolen's base clearing bases loaded double, which gave Rolen four RBIs on the day.
With the win, the Cards moved to 2-4 for their upcoming series at PNC Park against the Pirates, where the Cards have been dominant in recent history, while the Astros fell to 1-5 before their series in Chicago against the Cubbies.
And then there was one winless team left in the NL Central. I mean someone had to win the battle between the 0-3 Cardinals and the 0-3 Astros tonight. The Cardinals did just that on the arm of Adam Wainwright, who looked very good in his first career start.
After two nights of Braden Looper and Kip Wells not living up to their spring performances, Wainwright turned in seven strong innings of five hit, one run ball. He even helped his own cause at the plate by doubling a run in and scoring on Chris Duncan's two run homer in the third. Jason Isringhausen also nailed down his first save since going on the DL last year, though he did give up a run before nailing it down.
The winless Astros got seven strong innings from Wandy Rodriguez, but that wasn't enough to pull them out of their slump because their offense failed to get going for the fourth straight game. Carlos Lee knocked in a run and scored the other run and each of the Astros three through seven hitters had a hit tonight, it's just that those hits didn't come at the same time. With the 'Stros two runs tonight, they've scored a whopping 10 runs in their first four games. You don't win many games that way.
Roy Oswalt will take the hill again tomorrow against Anthony Reyes hoping to replicate his dominant opening day performance and put a tally in the W column for the Astros.
Chris Carpenter was cleared to begin preparation for his next scheduled start after a meeting with a team doctor late Wednesday night confirmed the swelling had gone down in his right elbow, the Cardinals ace said.
Carpenter will play catch on Friday, and if that goes well he will continue his usual routine with a side session Saturday and be ready for his rescheduled start Tuesday in Pittsburgh.
"The swelling is gone, basically, so now it's just throwing," Carpenter said 90 minutes after the Cardinals' 10-0 loss to the Mets. "If (the swelling) comes back, then obviously we'll have to go back a step. ... I was excited when I got up this morning. I felt good. I felt it was back to normal."
This is certainly a bright spot for a team that gets to play in an unexpected early season battle of the NL Central cellar with the Astros over the next three days. Now that they can be fairly certain Carpenter is healthy, LaRussa and co. would probably like to focus on the struggling Cardinal offense:
"We're capable of much better," La Russa said after his team slipped on a shutout Wednesday to 0-3 this season. "We didn't have a good-hitting series. We didn't play real well. So we had three games that weren't all that competitive."
The Cards only scored two runs against a Met pitching staff projected to be so bad that lots of people have picked them to finish second in the NL East despite having a juggernaught of an offense. Breathe in deep Cards' fans, and repeat it with me, "It's only April. It's only April. It's only April."
You know how every now and then they show a kid on television who can recite every president in history forwards and backwards and alphabetical, and then another kid who can recite pi to the 200th place while drawing a doodling an exact scale replica of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel? Well, those kids have nothing on this little guy.
You want 2005 Yadier or 2006 Yadier? (via FanIQ and Ballhype)
History can wait. The Nationals are a team some people think might be historically bad, but for at least one day, they defied odds by overcoming a 5-0 deficit to earn their first win of the season. Oh, but Nats fans? Before you get too excited, keep in mind that Jorge Julio was pitching.
A fight between a cat and a bird shouldn't be this close. You'd think an eight-run inning in the third would make things easy the rest of the way, right? Guess again: the Tigers almost saw their first win go up in flames after the Blue Jays clawled their way back in the game. Nevertheless, Todd "Rollercoaster" Jones closed out the 10-9 win, but only after allowing two men on -- he just likes to make things interesting, you know?
World Series hangover? With another win on Wednesday, the Mets swept the series by a combined score of 20-2. Carlos Beltran smacked two out of the park, but the second was just showing off -- New York only needed one as the Cardinals were shut out. As for St. Louis' "Braden Looper, starter" experiment, the results are inconclusive: 6 IP, 8 H, 3 ER.
Bring out the brooms. The Twins also swept their opening series, running the Orioles out of town (or would that be walking? O's starter Jaret Wright did have five of them) with a 7-2 win. And Joe Mauer? Still good. He's hit .455 in his first three.
Fifteen members of the St. Louis police department were disciplined Wednesday, after officers seized World Series tickets from scalpers last year and gave them to friends and family.
St. Louis Police Chief Joe Mokwa suspended eight officers without pay for two weeks for giving away the Cardinals tickets, which should have been stored as evidence. He recommended their rank be reduced for at least a year. They could lose up to $20,000 each in pay.
In my estimation, this wasn't the worse offense in the world. Sure, the tickets should have been put into evidence, but it's not like the cops were handing out free blow and guns to their friends. There are far worse things cops could be doing. But, violating policy is violating policy and the suspension is surely warranted.
And dang, they each stand to lose up to $20,000 each? I'm assuming that means they'll be getting less pay because of their demotion in rank, not for missing two weeks without pay. Because if it's the latter, I'm in the wrong profession.
Actually, I'll be a blogging cop when I grow up. That'll be the life.
Leave Rick Ankiel alone!
Everyone kind of had a feeling this was coming after 
So 
Chris Carpenter, who was scheduled to start Tuesday despite elbow soreness after his last outing, 
OK, so Albert Pujols homering probably isn't the biggest story to come from the Cardinals' 10-1 drubbing of the Astros today, but when a guy like Pujols goes almost 20 at-bats to start the season without a homer, people tend to notice. He did finally go yard today against Jason Jennings in the third inning to put the Cards up 3-0 and put them well on their way to their second win of the year. 
And then there was one winless team left in the NL Central. I mean someone had to win the battle between the 0-3 Cardinals and the 0-3 Astros tonight. The Cardinals did just that on the arm of Adam Wainwright, who looked very good in his first career start. 
In an opening week that has not been full of good news for the St. Louis Cardinals, 
Remember a few weeks ago when some cops in St. Louis 
