The Pressure? Carter Puts it on Pitchers

Let’s see now, baseball’s best hitters are successful an average of maybe three times in 10 at-bats, and baseball’s best pitchers are successful maybe eight times for every 10 batters faced.

Carry that reality forward into a situation in which a runner or runners are on base.

Obviously, the pressure has to be on the hitter.

Right?

Wrong.

That is the opinion of one Joseph Chris Carter, who may be the best the Padres have had at clearing runners off the base paths and sending them back to the dugout, to high-fives and smiling faces.

“The pressure’s on the pitchers,” he insisted, “not on the hitters.”

This is a theory that flies in the face of common sense. It’s almost as radical as saying the caddy is under more pressure than the golfer at the U.S. Open.

Regardless, Carter believes this . . . and that just might be a key to his success.

When runners are on base, he is in his element. A pitcher facing Carter with men on base is like a guy going into the water after a shark or into the jungle after a leopard. In those situations, Carter is as comfortable as Johnny Carson with a microphone or William Perry with a fork.

“Look,” he said, “pitchers pitch totally different with men on base. For one thing, you get a lot more fastballs. For another thing, they’re always trying to make the perfect pitch. And they make mistakes because they’re trying so hard not to. You take a situation with runners on first and third, and the pitcher doesn’t want to concede the one run, so he makes a mistake and gives up two or three. There’s a lot more pressure on them.”

With Joe Carter at bat, maybe the pressure is on the pitcher. During the Padres’ last home stand, he collected his 50th run batted in earlier in the season than anyone in the club’s history, in Game 58. Four more over the weekend boosted him to 54 in his battle with Matt Williams and Will Clark for the National League lead.

“I’ve never had this good a start,” said Carter, who had 121 RBI with Cleveland in 1986. “I think that year I had in the mid 60s around the All-Star break.”

At the rate Carter has been going, he will drive in 143 runs over the full season. The old Padre record, 118 by Dave Winfield in 1979, would rate only small type next to a number such as that. No one has driven in so many runs in the National League since George Foster had 149 in 1977.

And the notion is not exactly far-fetched.

“The job’s a lot easier when the three guys ahead of you are hitting .300,” Carter said. “That’s any four-hole hitter’s dream.”

Leadoff man Bip Roberts has been around .300 much of the year, and Roberto Alomar and Tony Gwynn are both above .300. They set the table, and Carter dines.

However, Carter realizes a batting average in the neighborhood of .240, about 30 points under his career average, has kept him from getting off to an even faster start in terms of driving in runs.

“I should have a lot more RBIs,” he said. “I get paid a lot of money to drive in runs, and I feel I should be doing a lot better.”

Carter’s thought that he could or should be doing more goes hand in hand with the reality that this team should be doing more. This is unsettling to a man who might otherwise be celebrating his early-season success rather than worrying about improving.

“The main thing,” he said, “is that we’ve gotta win some ballgames. I’m at the point in my career where I don’t have to put up stats for financial reasons. I don’t have to put up numbers for a good contract. I’ve played through that part of my career, and I don’t have any financial worries now. I have to elevate my game, and we have to elevate our game to a different level now and win ballgames.”

Joe Carter, in essence, wants to do what the Padres acquired him to do, which is to lift the offense to a different level. And the Padres paid quite a price for him, giving up catcher Sandy Alomar Jr., infielder Carlos Baerga and outfielder Chris James to the Cleveland Indians. A few years ago, you could have bought Mission Valley for less.

In truth, he has done what he came to do. He has also played a rather elegant center field, filling another position of need. With his long legs and speed, the man could probably cover Kern County in six strides. Color defense another plus.

However, offense is his forte . . . and driving in runs is his specialty.

Just wake him up when there are runners on base. Never mind. Don’t bother awakening him. Those are the situations in which he is the most relaxed.