After going through the first week of Spring Training with no injuries cropping up amongst the St. Louis Cardinals, there was at least a blip on the radar today regarding first baseman Matt Carpenter.
“He’s had a little bit of back tightness,” shared Mike Matheny. “We just want to be careful. It’s something that’s happened before so we just want to stay ahead of it.”
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Asked about his condition later in the day, Carpenter shared he was not concerned.
“Not at all,” he said. “Just a little back tightness.”
So is this just some normal tightness with the muscles getting used to the beginning of Spring Training? Is the team just being over cautious?
“Any time you start having one thing start to bother you, there’s always a danger of that being a domino effect–of compensating, something else is then able to kind of pop up,” said Matheny. “There’s not a huge rush. We know how much he works. Sometimes these things can be a blessing in disguise, too. Especially a guy like him. Sometimes we have to go take his bat away from him. But I know there’s some things he wanted to work on. He got down here really early. He’s been getting after it with all the early work, the groundballs–he’s ahead. Right now, it’s not that much of a concern but I imagine we’ll just have to keep an eye on it.”
“Again, we haven’t even started yet,” said Carpenter. “It’s not really news. I’m not doing anything.”
Last spring, Carpenter was unable to participate in the World Baseball Classic due to back tightness, as it was feared it could aggravate his oblique injury from 2016. He later missed a week of Grapefruit League games as he dealt with the condition.
“We’re hoping this back tightness be a thing that lasts a couple days and I’ll be ready to go and won’t have to worry about it,” said Carpenter.
Tomorrow will be the first full-team workout for the Cardinals of camp. Will Matt Carpenter be full-go for all baseball activity?
“I don’t know what the schedule looks like for me,” replied Carpenter. “I’m just taking it day by day and we’re just being real precautious because it’s the first day of camp.”
photo credit: Brian Stull/STLBaseballWeekly.com
