Former Cardinals teammates pay homage to Matt Carpenter’s turnaround

Matt Carpenter’s unbelievable turnaround with the Yankees has his former Cardinals teammates and coaches as excited as anyone.

After 11 years with the Cardinals, Matt Carpenter’s career looked like it was coming to a sad end.

He’d had two terrible seasons in St. Louis, was 36 years old and then even couldn’t make the Rangers opening day roster for 2022.

The Yankees gave him a lifeline in late May and suddenly a switch flipped. In 26 games with New York, he’s hit 10 home runs while batting an impressive .344/.447/.859.

Fans in New York are loving it. So are Carpenter’s former teammates and coaches.

Former Cardinals teammates pay homage to Matt Carpenter’s turnaround

“He goes from not being able to get called up with the Rangers to batting cleanup in the best lineup in baseball,” Adam Wainwright told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “We were following him; everybody in here was following him. We love Matt. You know, he’s always going to be a Cardinal to us. But when he was released, it was that kind of that period of — what’s up? What’s going to happen? Like — is he going to go home? And he got a couple of offers. But then the Yankees called. And that’s, you know, a call you have to answer.”

Wainwright said Carpenter was planning to give it a month before hanging things up in 2022. Clearly that month paid off as he’s now found his stride and revived his career.

In St. Louis, the word “awesome” seems to come up most often when discussing Carpenter landing on his feet.

“It’s awesome — I’m so happy for him,” STL infielder Tommy Edman told the Post-Dispatch.

“I love that dude,” manager Oliver Marmol said. “Finishing well is always the goal. You want to go out on your own. To be able to do what he’s doing over there sure is special, because I know he left here with the thought of — man, I feel like I have more in the tank, I feel like I can put another year together. For him to be able to go out there and perform the way he’s performing right now, it’s awesome.”