The Cardinals have activated Miles Mikolas off the 10-day injured list, and the right-hander will start against the Cubs tonight. Righty Seth Elledge was sent to Triple-A to open up a 26-man roster spot for Mikolas.
October 11, 2019 marked the last time Mikolas appeared in a big league game, as he allowed one run over six innings in Game 1 of the 2019 NLCS. Flexor tendon surgery caused Mikolas to miss the entire 2020 season, and then shoulder problems delayed his return until today.
This isn’t the first time Mikolas’ Major League career has been interrupted, as he headed to Japan following the 2014 season and revived his stock with three outstanding seasons with the Yomiuri Giants. After signing a two-year, $15.5MM deal with the Cardinals in the 2017-18 offseason, Mikolas took that new form back into MLB, finishing sixth in NL Cy Young Award voting in 2018.
That success led to another contract with St. Louis, as Mikolas signed a four-year extension worth $68MM. Since that extension started with the 2020 season, however, Mikolas has yet to throw even a single pitch since that new deal kicked in, making it a questionable investment to date for the Cards’ front office. Still, there is plenty of time for Mikolas to still deliver, and his return should further bolster the Cardinals’ pitching staff.
Jack Flaherty, Kwang Hyun Kim, and John Gant have all been very solid for the Cards this season, while Carlos Martinez and Adam Wainwright have been a little more inconsistent. St. Louis plans to use a six-man rotation for the time being, unless plans change due to other injuries.
first
At being an idiot, yes.
Welcome back.
Has Seth elledge been doing good this year?
Not really, but Tyler Webb has been the total disaster. Should have let him go instead, but this is a team where the manager insists on using Matt Carpenter at every opportunity as well. I don;t understand the strategy in using Webb or Carpenter, but then again, the Cards are in first place. Go figure.
Webb is out of options, and they must not be quite ready to risk giving him up yet given his quality track record in previous seasons (which is also why a non-contender would most likely be willing to snatch him up off of waivers) . However, even that won’t save him from a DFA for much longer if he doesn’t start turning it around.
As for Carpenter, he’s unfortunately the best of a bad group of bats off the bench. Sosa has at least shown offensive improvement lately, but that just means he’ll be the primary replacement at SS until DeJong returns from the IL. Meanwhile, the likes Williams, Dean, Thomas, Hurst, and Nogowski haven’t been hitting any better than Carpenter has.
Not particularly no
If you click on a player’s name in the article, it takes you to his Baseball Reference page where you can see, indeed, Elledge has not been good.
Hope he can be old school and now let’s make some trades for bullpen help.
I wonder what his pitch limit will be tonight? If he’s thrown 4 shutout innings and 70 pitches, do you pull him or leave him in?
Hopefully he still can regain his old form.
Remember ‘Ricolah’? I say his name the same way
Nice.
I sort of forgot about him. This certainly could be a nice “pick-up” for the Cards.
St Louis needs him back in 2018 form.
Gant has been ok but walks a few batters.
Hoping that Miles can regain his form again. Can really help our entire staff right now.
And he came out with an injury
Not expecting much from this guy. Sure hope Gant isn’t guy who gets bumped from the rotation when they go back to a five-man. Gant has kept the Cards in every game.
Bullpen help? Not sure why a previous poster brought that up. Cards bullpen is one of the better ones in the league. As has been the case for about a decade, we need outfielders who can hit and stay healthy.
Wonder why Cards don’t give Lane Thomas more of a shot? More upside than Williams and would probably hit better than Bader..
Gant walks way too many hitters, which will probably catch up to him before long. Meanwhile, if this is just a minor setback, then Mikolas is an improvement over everyone except Flaherty and maybe Kim.
The bullpen was supposed to be good, but it’s been having more trouble than expected. Reyes, Gallegos, and Cabrera have been great, but everyone else has had mixed results at best, while Miller and Webb have been terrible. Hopefully, Miller will be better after his blister heals.
Bader has been hitting quite well, tons better than Thomas has. Meanwhile, Thomas needs to earn his playing time by playing better when he does play. He is getting some playing time now with O’Neill out and Carlson now day-to-day, but when they’re healthy again, the 3 of them are by far the Cardinals’ best outfielders and actually make a pretty good overall outfield this year