Injury Notes: Holliday, Odorizzi, Morrow

The Cardinals tonight placed left fielder Matt Holliday on the disabled list with a quadriceps injury, the team announced. It’s not known what type of timeframe Holliday will need to recover, but Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Holliday has a Grade 2 tear of his right quad and will be reevaluated two weeks from now (Twitter links). Losing Holliday would be the second blow to the middle of the Cardinals’ order, as St. Louis has already lost Matt Adams for the remainder of the season to a similar injury, though Adams had a complete tear of his quad that required surgery. Unlike that scenario, however, the Cards do have a plethora of internal replacement candidates for Holliday. Randal Grichuk, Jon Jay, Jason Heyward and Peter Bourjos are all on the big league roster, and well-regarded prospect Stephen Picsotty is waiting in the wings as well.

A couple more injury-related notes…

• Rays right-hander Jake Odorizzi landed on the 15-day disabled list tonight as well, thanks to a left oblique injury. Matt Baker of the Tampa Bay Times writes that Odorizzi feels the injury is less serious than the oblique issue that sidelined teammate Alex Cobb for five-and-a-half weeks last year. However, Odorizzi also isn’t sure how long he’ll be sidelined and doesn’t have a timetable for his return at present. Odorizzi called the strain “mild to moderate” and said he’ll play catch later this week.
• Padres right-hander Brandon Morrow’s return to the mound has been slowed, as a setback in his recovery means he’ll be shut down from throwing entirely for the next two weeks, via the San Diego Union-Tribune (Twitter link). Odrisamer Despaigne has stepped into the rotation in Morrow’s absence, but he’s been incredibly hit-or-miss in his past six outings. Despaigne yielded eight runs in his return to the rotation in early May, and he’s surrendered seven, two, zero, one and four runs, respectively, in five subsequent start. The outcome for Despaigne has been a 5.82 ERA over six starts. San Diego also has Josh Johnson rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, but it seems unlikely that the team would bank on Johnson taking the ball every fifth day through season’s end upon his return; Johnson has long struggled with injuries and has not thrown a pitch in the Majors since Aug. 6, 2013.