Carpenter says removing himself from St. Louis Cardinals’ lineup was the veteran move
Cardinals third baseman Matt Carpenter was scratched from his scheduled start in Wednesday’s spring training game against the Miami Marlins with back tightness, but called the day “productive” as a result of recognizing warning signs which may otherwise have evolved into a serious problem.
“Super precautionary,” said Carpenter, describing the circumstances of his removal from the lineup. “I’m moving pretty good. I was not as mobile as I would want to be going into a game.”
“Based off of where we are in spring and with how I feel and how I feel my camp has gone and the way everything has been — which I thought has been really good to this point — I didn’t want to have a setback of any kind.”
“He said he just wanted to stay ahead of it,” said Oliver Marmol, Cardinals bench coach, who acted as the team’s manager in Jupiter as Mike Shildt traveled to West Palm Beach for a split squad game. “He’s felt this in the past so he just said, let’s stay ahead of it, not worth taking a chance this early on in camp.
“Especially knowing that he wasn’t gonna travel tomorrow, it gives him two days to kind of feel it out. He felt pretty good as far as where he was at. More preventative than anything.”
Marmol said Carpenter spent time on Wednesday morning before being scratched doing extra defensive work with coaches Stubby Clapp and José Oquendo. He felt slight discomfort toward the end of that session, kicking off the series of conversations which led to his removal from the lineup.
Carpenter, 34, has battled a series of ailments in his back and obliques throughout his career. He spent two weeks on the injured list last July with a lower back strain that originated with soreness and spring training. Seeking to rebound from the worst offensive season of his career, Carpenter opted on Wednesday for conservatism.
“I’m not concerned with it at all and it was super minor,” Carpenter emphasized. “If this was middle of the season or even opening day, I would’ve played. But it’s February 26th and I just, you know, didn’t want to do something stupid.”
Carpenter also revealed for the first time that he’s altered his spring routine to include a stop in the training room every morning. That, he said, is a divergence from his early career habits, in which he was more likely to cover up minor injuries and find himself later suffering from the consequences of those decisions.
“I’ve always been an old school kind of mentality,” Carpenter said. “I spend very little time in the training room. I start every day this entire spring in the training room, which is a new thing for me. And I’m very open in dialogue, which is also a new thing for me.”
“Today would’ve been a great example of not saying anything, going out and played, and something happening. Today I told them, ‘hey, I just don’t feel as good as I normally do,’ and we made this decision.”
“I think that is gonna be big for me going forward, just being open to not push through stuff that can set me back for a month, and just say hey, today I don’t feel as good, and two days instead of two months.”
The Cardinals travel across the state to face the Atlanta Braves on Thursday at their new spring training home in North Port, Fla. The veteran Carpenter said he was already scheduled to skip that trip, and that he would meet with trainers on Friday morning for approval before seeking to return to the field on Saturday, at Roger Dean Stadium, against the Washington Nationals. Marmol said that timeline “sounds about right” to him as well.
“All of us here have an idea of his springs as far as how they’ve gone,” Marmol said. “He’s been super preventative as far as going in there every morning and just staying ahead of his body. He’s super in tune with it.”
Part of the Cardinals’ attempts to return Carpenter to form was an off-season training plan which was focused on adding weight and strength to assist him in holding up to the rigors of a full season in the majors. Carpenter said that that program also provided him with more awareness of his body, which may have contributed to his ability to avoid a serious injury on Wednesday.
“I felt like this off-season more than ever we had a really good program put together,” Carpenter said.
“In years past, if I hadn’t maybe trained the way I trained, it might’ve just happened on its own without any precursor of like, hey, this isn’t what feels good. I think we had a really good plan going into this offseason, and I think it’s gonna show up this year.”