OAKLAND, Calif. — When Matt Carpenter headed to Class AAA Memphis to find his wayward swing, he did so with a plan for how much time he could spend in the batting cage and an idea for how long he would need to get at-bats in games. Each win he saw his teammates get in the majors made him more comfortable spending that next day in the minors.
“The fact that we were playing so well gave me some leeway,” Carpenter said Sunday morning. “I felt like, one, it gave me the opportunity to stay down there and, two, I wasn’t going crazy knowing that we were drifting further away from our goal.