Cardinals’ midfielder Tyler O’Neill has been on the injured list for 10 days since May 5 with a lower back strain. He is expected to take part in a minor league rehabilitation today but the club announced yesterday that he will be kept on hold because of ongoing aches and pains.
Manager Oli Marmol told reporters today that O’Neill will be seeing the club’s doctors again to try to determine the source of the ongoing discomfort (due to John Denton of MLB.com). It is currently unknown that St. How long would Louis survive without a central conductor on Opening Day? Before the injury, O’Neill had a slow start to the attack. He hit 0.228/.283/.337 with just two home runs and his signature high hit rate of 34.3%. The Cardinals were also quick to push O’Neill back into his standard left-hand role after endorsing the idea of letting him manage the center.
St. Louis doesn’t have either Dylan Carlson after he landed at IL earlier in the week. Cards bring up Oscar Mercados from Triple-A and they have already started receiving Tommy Edman work outside the school. The switcher has started three straight games on the right side of the court after playing only in midfield so far. Edman, who left tonight’s game due to lower abdominal pain (via Derrick Goold of St. Louis Post-Dispatch), hit a high of .274/.331/.467 at the beginning of the year.
Edman is a quality defender in the middle but his versatility allows Cards to get hot shots. Paul DeJong working again. DeJong has been subject to much malice for his offensive struggles in 2020-22, but he has racked up a .290/.355/.594 slash with six hosts in 20 games since when activated from IL on April 23. That was enough for the former All-Star to be forced to return to the roster shortly.
The Cardinals also call left-handed people Matthew Liberatore for the first time in this season yesterday. He went five innings without scoring in the win over Milwaukee, building a strong first few weeks with Triple-A Memphis. The one-time top prospect had an ERA of 3.13 with an excellent strike rate (30.3%) and hit the ground (50%) in eight underage starts before promotion. With the rotation of St. Louis yielded lackluster results, Liberatore looks like one of the organization’s most attractive arms.
Marmol confirmed that Liberatore will get a different start on next week’s trip between Cincinnati and Cleveland (via Jeff Jones of the Belleville News Democratic Party). That comes shortly after baseball executive chairman John Mozeliak suggested in the early afternoon, Cards could use Liberatore out of the cowshed in less time (via Brandon Kiley of 101 ESPN). The Cardinals won’t have a day off until May 31, marking 19 consecutive game days. That number puts a lot of stress on pitching staff.
St. Louis has started using five of the Jordan Montgomery, Miles Mikolas, Adam Wainwright, Jack Flaherty And Steven Matz. None of that group had an ERA below 4.00, with Montgomery’s 4.21 being the only number that didn’t boost or exceed five earned runs above nine. depth launch Jake Woodfordwho had six starts when Wainwright joined IL in April, had an ERA of 5.72 before going to IL with shoulder inflammation two weeks ago.
