The Cardinals have placed righty Carlos Martinez on the 10-day DL with a right lat strain, per a club announcement. He’ll be replaced on the active roster for the time being by reliever Mike Mayers.
At this point, it’s not clear how long Martinez will be down. Clearly, though, the Cards can ill afford to go without a pitcher who has been a steadily excellent presence in the rotation. He’s off to a great start, leading National League starters with a 1.62 ERA on the season.
As Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch points out (Twitter links), with an off-day coming, the Cards can juggle their rotation to accommodate the addition of Jack Flaherty. Though the top prospect just made a start in Triple-A yesterday, the time off will allow the Cards to move the rest of their starters up a day and slide Flaherty into the back end of that mix. In that sense, Mayers’ promotion to the big leagues could be relatively short-lived.
The injury to Martinez also puts increased importance on the recovery of both Adam Wainwright and Alex Reyes, the latter of whom, Goold notes, is preparing to return as a starter for the time being. While the Cards have said in the past that they don’t expect him to expose Reyes to the rigors of an every-fifth-day schedule in the rotation, stretching him out as a starter and then scaling back his workload in a transition to the ’pen would be easier than easing him back in via the bullpen and stretching him out in the Majors. Wainwright, meanwhile, could return this weekend.
[Related: St. Louis Cardinals depth chart]
With Martinez out for an undetermined period of time, the Cards will rely on Miles Mikolas, Luke Weaver and Michael Wacha in addition to Flaherty, once he is presumably called up next week. If Wainwright is indeed activated over the weekend, he’ll be added to that group and round out the rotation. If it’s deemed that the veteran needs additional time to rehab, then perhaps John Gant would receive a second spot start at some point next week.
Need Flaherty back
Mayers is the short-term answer until Martinez’ turn comes up in the rotation, likely.
That’s what it looks like. Need to see where he is on his own rotation turn in AAA.
Where did this come from?!?
he got roughed up by the Twins so something must be wrong, right? Man the Twins don’t get any respect.
Lol was thinking the same thing. He looked fine in the game even if he didn’t have a great outing and certainly didn’t seem to be hurting or favoring anything.
Noticed his velocity seemed down.
Since when is 5 innings 2 ER is “roughed up”?
Standards in STL are higher than in Milwaukee.
Kaboom!!!
BAM
His outing wasn’t that bad, but the defense behind him stunk it up, and once again, no run support
I have him, bundy and darvish on my fantasy team
My year is done:(
They are just abusing the 10 day DL as a rest for Martinez
Why in the hell would they do that? They don’t want him missing starts. You’re an idiot
Actually, they do. They would rather get 29 or 30 good starts out of him, rather than 32-33 mediocre starts. They want to rest him so he’s fresh all year.
They are going to periodically be putting different starters on the 10 day DL throughout the year. Weaver and Wacha will be next.
But calling people names is certainly a great way to endure yourself to others.
Also, I understand that he is dealing with a little legal issue at this time, locally.
Speaking of run support…? This team is very Jeckyl and Hyde like. We are not hitting with runners in scoring position and the same 3-4 guys are carrying this team on offense and it’s not great offensively. The same guys Wong, Fowler, Carpenter, and our new acquisition Ozuna are just not hitting and the guys who are hitting have Mabry written all over this because we are getting shut out a lot and we are not hitting with runners in scoring position either. I hope other fans out there realize we need Gyorko at 2nd base everyday and truly need a power hitting 3rd baseman. I guess we have to accept JMartz defense ineptitude at 1 stbase so we can keep his offense in the lineup.
Gyorko needs to be the starter at 3B
and Wong should stay at 2B. Makes the defense better
and gets Gyorkos bat in the lineup everyday ! Carpenter should be the utility guy!
I agree!!!