Chris Carpenter, who is the only pitcher on the Cardinals staff worthwhile, won’t be toeing the rubber for another three months. The Cardinals announced yesterday that Carpenter, who was expected to come back within a few days, will need arthroscopic surgery to repair his right arm and will be out until potentially August.

In terms of momentum, this is a huge blow to the Cardinals. Just days after Josh Hancock lost his life, news that Carpenter won’t see the field for a while is demoralizing. Here’s a team still trying to put together both on and off the field what happened with Hancock, and now they’ll have to do it without the services of their best pitcher.

Injury problems is something that Carpenter is all too familiar with. Despite his 15-8 record last season, Carpenter was nagged year long with arm problems. Now he faces surgery and a rehabilitation that will render him useless basically until the post season begins.

What does this mean for St Louis? Well, they’re in a heap of trouble right now. The World Champs are 11-17, they are without Carpenter, and Albert Pujols has yet to show up for the 2007 season. Jim Edmonds isn’t getting any younger and Scott Rolen is proving us right about suspected steroid use with nagging injuries and under achievement. It’s the beginning of May, I know, but this team needs to put together a streak of wins soon, or a run at a division title could be far out of their reach.

The tragic death of Cardinals pitcher Josh Hancock brought shock and sadness to the Major League Baseball community. Just five days after his death, it’s already brought change in the St. Louis clubhouse. After news came out of Hancock being drunk at the time of his accident, the Cardinals have decided to ban alcohol from their home clubhouse. They’re also considering a ban on alcohol during road trips and charter flights.

“It’s meaningful,” La Russa said. “But it’s not a significant factor in our clubhouse because our guys don’t stay in the clubhouse to drink.”

No Tony, they usually just drink somewhere else and pass out at stoplights. It’s a decision that I always assumed was mandatory in MLB clubhouses. Unless you work at Dunder Mifflin, drinking during work hours is pretty uncommon. Why should baseball players be any different? I don’t know anybody who can drink casually during work hours so I don’t see why athletes that get millions of dollars should be able to. Surprisingly, only the Cardinals, Pirates, Mets, and Yankees have banned booze in their clubhouse.

It’s not a big deal for road games because all teams will have charter buses to drive their drunk asses back to the hotel. But unless every Cardinal is pulling a Robbie Alomar and living at Busch Stadium, they have to get home somehow. If they’ve tipped a few back after a win, it doesn’t really set the best example. Just because the Cardinals stadium is named after a beer company doesn’t mean their homestands should be one long kegger either. Keep the alcohol out of locker rooms unless it’s champagne and a championship celebration.

It’s thin, that fine line between life and death. I remember it as well as if it was yesterday. Five years ago, this same St Louis Cardinals uniform traveled to the same Wrigley Field for a series versus the same Chicago Cubs. Joe Girardi, who was at the time a catcher for the Cubs, stood at a microphone and announced to the crowd that there would be no game that day, and that a great man, Darryl Kyle, had passed away. Yesterday, the St Louis Cardinals and Major League Baseball lost another great man, pitcher Josh Hancock, when he was killed in a car accident.

It’s terrible to see someone lose their life like this. Hancock, who was just 29 years young, had a bright future in front of him. After being cut by the Reds out of spring training last year, he played his way onto the Cardinals roster. Hancock, who often pitched in middle relief situations, was pivotal for the Cardinals during their World Series quest last season. Now, after a shaky start to the season, the Cardinals are faced with not only a tough task in facing their opponents, but also a tough task in playing through the loss of one of their own.

We here at Sportable recognize the significance of the family atmosphere that surrounds the sports world. Amongst the heat of competition and rivalry, nothing stands between the importance of coming together in a tough time and mourning the loss of a great baseball player and a great human being. Our thoughts and our prayers are with the Hancock family, the Cardinals family, and with the Major League Baseball family. RIP Josh.

Yesterday I cracked back on Barry Zito and the Giants for their poor performance on opening day. Today, the Cardinals will feel my wrath. I guess that’s what happens when you get swept at home to open the season.

Before I crack down on their performance egg laying against the Mets, I’d like to point out a few major flaws with this team. The first red flag that is raised is the pitching staff. Last year, the Cardinals staff had Mark Mulder, Jeff Suppan, Jason Marquis, and at the deadline they added Jeff Weaver. This year, all of those guys are gone. I don’t stake a claim that any of these pitchers is particularly excellent, in fact none of them are, but they all are better than what the Cardinals have now. Braden Looper started last night for this team, his first major league start ever after being in the bullpen for his entire career. Braden Looper can’t close a game when he has to pitch one inning, so what should make me believe he can go 6 or 7? Manager Tony LaRussa has moved Adam Wainwright to the starting rotation as well, taking him away from the bullpen, a place that he dominated during the post season. Moving Wainwright to the rotation means the train wreck of a closer that is Jason Isringhausen will once again be counted on to blow at least 15 saves and float around with an ERA that is around the same as this country’s minimum wage, 7.25.

Their outfield is bad. Jim Edmonds is getting old quickly, and even though he brings his glove to the yard every day, his bat is declining. Did anyone else see what outfield LaRussa trotted out there opening night? I mean, are you for real Tony? I’ve never been sold on So Taguchi, and I’m not really sure what gets him as many starts per year as he gets. And lets face it, Preston Wilson is a piece of crap. He looked flat out awful last night, botching two fly balls and costing the Cardinals runs. Wilson still can’t hit an off speed pitch, and he may very well play his way off this roster by June.

Going from a World Series title to 0-3 against the team that they knocked out of the playoffs. Rough start for the Cardinals. Then again, when you get outscored 20-2 at home by a Mets team that is far and away the best in the National League, you have some work to do.

Usually, defending champions try to get all their festivities out of the way on Opening Day. But the St. Louis Cardinals are so pumped, they’ve spread the ceremonies over their first two games. The only problem? All of this ceremony is really pissing the New York Mets off. They’ve beat St. Louis in the first two games this year. But when you have bling like the Cardinals have, it’s hard to care.

The ring may not be as large as some Super Bowl monstrosities. But the Cardinals weren’t screwed either. There’s two carats of rubies, two carats of diamonds, and the entire ring is made of 14-carat gold. The ring weights 71.5 grams, which is nearly twice the weight of World Series MVP David Eckstein.

“Rings were half as big 30 years ago, 50 years ago, and we wanted to, from that standpoint, keep the look classic,” said Bill DeWitt III, the Cardinals’ senior vice president, who spearheaded the design. “At the same time, we wanted to fit the modern player and still have that bling factor.”

When this guy is calling the ring “bling”, you know it’s something special. The sides of the ring add a personal touch to St. Louis’ triumph. One side of the ring is an etching of the World Series trophy, with the words “Tenth World Series Title.” The other side of the ring features a player’s name, number, and a engraving of the New Busch Stadium, which took over one million laser etchings to complete.

If you’d like to see the ring from a bunch of angles, STLToday created a PDF file for the bling. But if you hate PDF’s like I do, you can get the main gist of the ring by clicking here.

In light of tonight’s opening game that pits the Cardinals against the Mets, I’ve taken the game to Major League Baseball 2k7 in hopes of getting a glimpse and preview of what will happen tonight. Without further ado, the results.

Cardinals 0, Mets 4.

Winning Pitcher: Tom Glavine

Losing Pitcher: Chris Carpenter

In a match up of two great pitchers, the Cardinals and Mets played a low scoring start to the year. It was Tom Glavine, not Chris Carpenter, who looked like a Cy Young award winner, showing off shades of his 1998 award winning year. Glavine kept the potent Cardinals offense at bay, going the distance for a complete game seven hit shut out. Albert Pujols, who refuses to be silenced at the plate regardless of the score, still knocked out two hits to lead the team. World Series MVP David Eckstein, who during the Series was so clutch in getting rallies started, struggled at the plate going 0-4 with a strike out.

The Mets started the scoring in the second inning when second baseman Jose Valentin took Carpenter deep for a two run home run. Mets catcher Paul LoDuca followed Valentin’s lead, slugging a home run of his own in a three run second inning. That was all Carpenter would allow, as he settled down and struck out four in five innings. The Mets struck again in the top of the ninth as Carlos Delgado, who had a monster game with 3 hits including a double, smacked a home run off reliever Braden Looper. For the sake of my fantasy team, Carlos Beltran better not hang an 0-4 like he did in this game.

Now, I don’t claim that MLB 2k7 will produce the exact results of tonights game. If this game is any indication, however, it should be a good one tonight in St Louis.