We study moderate deviations in the exponential corner growth model, both in the bulk setting and the increment-stationary setting. The main results are sharp right-tail bounds on the last-passage time and the exit point of the increment-stationary process. The arguments utilize calculations with the stationary version and a moment generating function identity due to E. Rains, for which we give a short probabilistic proof. As applications of the deviation bounds, we derive upper bounds on the speed of distributional convergence in the Busemann function and competition interface limits.