Duncan said he "doesn't give a damn about what people say about pitch counts because I know the individual pitcher. [Chris] Carpenter threw 114 pitches the other night. It was his first time over 110, but we're aware of his history with his surgeries. What we've done with him and Adam [Wainwright] is to take their bullpen sessions and warm-up sessions and cut them in half. Where they might have thrown 75 pitches before a game, now they throw 40. They're not wasting pitches. That's why we're not reluctant to go 120." -- "I'd like to know the average age of the rotations in baseball before 2000," said Cardinals manager Tony La Russa. "It seems to me, back then, we had one guy in his 30s, a couple of guys in their prime at 29 to 31, and only one of the five in his early 20s. And those guys could all throw more than 100 pitches in a game. But now, it seems, we have three of the five in the rotation who are in their young 20s. [Former manager] Paul Richards once explained this to me, and it makes a ton of sense: As a young pitcher, the arm is growing. It is developing strength. It doesn't have the musculature that it's going to have in a few years. That's how you develop arm and elbow strains, even core injuries, because a young body isn't like a mature body, and it is just not as strong as it's going to be."