SAN DIEGO — The offseason plan Matt Carpenter and the Cardinals put together for him to rebuild strength, to regain his bat speed, and to reset after the most disappointing season of his career started by dropping a weight before he began lifting them.
“Another side of this is just me,” Carpenter said in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon. “I could go out and make excuses and search for them, but I have to chalk this up as not having a good season, and just not putting it together at all. I started to struggle and didn’t get it back.