On Monday night Chris Carpenter wasn't all that happy with Brendan Ryan. This particular encounter got a lot of publicity because Carp was obviously irritated at the start of the game and the camera caught him chewing Ryan out in the dugout. Despite what a lot of people are saying, Brendan Ryan deserved it, and all the embarrassment it gave him. Firstly, Chris Carpenter is intense. He is Bob Gibson level intense. He gets dialed up (as most pitchers do) and did not want a delay in him starting the game. Brendan Ryan was in the clubhouse taking swings, and completely missed that he was supposed to be on the field. Then he ran on the field with the wrong glove, just making his situation worse. This isn't the kind of thing you do when you are young, and frankly not contributing much to the team other than using that said glove well, MOST of the time. Ryan deserved a butt chewing for this, and he got it. End of story. The second situation was based on Carp's judging his defensive positioning to be wrong. This may seem minor as it happens all the time, but the problem was this was more the straw that broke the camels back. In the past Ryan has had trouble with positioning and ignoring when people try to position him. I have seen people in the dugout exasperated with it and most importantly I remember Carpenter being exasperated with it in the past. One incident in particular last year had Carp looking in the dugout and motioning Ryan into the hole. So did Skip and second. Ryan ignored both of them and stayed close to the bag. Carp glared at him, pitched, then glared again. The next pitch resulted in a seeing eye single right through where Ryan was SUPPOSED to be playing. Carp visibly rolled his eyes. This was not the only time this has happened, although it was the most overt showing of it. For Carpenter this was not just the reaction to a single incident of Ryan, but the cumulative effort of lots of idiocy by Ryan. Thirdly, if the camera hadn't showed all of this, no one would have noticed this. Yes, Carp motioned for him to follow him in front of other players, but jeez they all knew what was coming anyway and were all probably equally peeved, but he didn't yell at him in plain view, he pulled him into the tunnel and spent about 15 seconds saying what he wanted to be said and that was that. Ryan deserved his buttchewing and maybe this incident will actually get his head in the game. Frankly, the Cardinals would be better off without him. His personality is well known for rubbing players wrong in the clubhouse. His mind is not in the game all the time and it results in lots of situations like this. Sometimes Ryan is so flaky and weird it almost seems like he is doing it on purpose. Regardless, he needs to get his act together.
Brandon Phillips
Brandon Phillips needs to keep his mouth shut. His comments were calculated and idiotic, and called out about 4 of his teammates and his GM. Mostly it seems with his comparing the Cardinals to the Cubs that he was posturing trying to get attention in relation to Joey Votto and his All-Star game comments. This was the same guy who said he was a better player than Chase Utley, which is a laughable delusion. Not only that he has oh, say 4 Ex-Cardinals on his team. Two of which being Scott Rolen and Jim Edmonds. Those two were the face of the Cardinals along with Pujols, and Brandon Phillips comments about the Cardinals includes them. Oh yea, your GM is Walk Jockety, isn't like he put those Cardinals teams together that you are bagging on, oh yea, plus he is good friends with the manager of that team. Also, not like you want to give the Cardinals more bulletin board material in one of the biggest series of the year. I bet that Phillips receives a very frosty reception in his own clubhouse the next few days, not to mention the reception he is going to get from the Cardinals. What an idiot.
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