The Cardinals announced they’ve placed outfielder Dylan Carlson on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to May 22, due to a left hamstring strain. Starter Steven Matz is headed to the 15-day IL (the minimum length for pitchers) because of a shoulder impingement. St. Louis also optioned righty Angel Rondón to Triple-A Memphis. In corresponding moves, pitching prospect Matthew Liberatore, reliever Junior Fernández and outfielder Lars Nootbaar have been recalled from Memphis.
Carlson exited Saturday’s game against the Pirates early after experiencing some hamstring tightness. He remained on the active roster but didn’t play the following day, and the team has now determined he’ll need at least another week before he’s ready to return to action. St. Louis hasn’t provided a timetable on the return for Carlson, who has served as the club’s primary right fielder during his sophomore season.
The switch-hitting outfielder is off to a slow start, hitting .247/.291/.363 with a pair of home runs through 158 plate appearances. Carlson, a former top prospect, hit a solid .266/.343/.437 last season. He’s gotten more aggressive this year, swinging quite a bit more at pitches both inside and outside the strike zone. That’s allowed Carlson to cut into his strikeouts by putting the ball in play earlier in counts, but he’s also seen a dramatic dip in his walk rate. Paired with a surprisingly low 20.8% hard contact rate and 84.2 MPH average exit velocity, Carlson hasn’t made much of an impact from either an on-base or slugging perspective.
At just 23 years old, Carlson’s certainly capable of righting the ship and building off last year’s promising showing. He’ll first need some time to recover from the weekend injury, leaving manager Oliver Marmol with a handful of options to mix and match in the corners. Veteran Corey Dickerson is on hand, while a younger group of Nootbaar, Juan Yepez and hot-hitting rookie utilityman Brendan Donovan will also see some action. St. Louis placed starting left fielder Tyler O’Neill on the IL last week, so Marmol will have to piece things together for the time being.
Matz left yesterday’s start after just four pitches because of shoulder discomfort. That led to an impromptu extended relief outing for Rondón, who threw 86 pitches over five scoreless innings to get the win. That obviously takes him out of commission for a few days, and the Cards will replace him with Fernández, who hasn’t pitched for Memphis since Friday. The hard-throwing Fernández posted a 5.66 ERA over 20 2/3 MLB frames last season and is up for the first time this year.
The injury that necessitated Rondón’s lengthy outing will cost Matz at least two weeks. The southpaw signed a surprising four-year deal over the winter, and the early results have been mixed. Matz’s 6.03 ERA through 37 1/3 innings is obviously undesirable, but he’s punched out 26.8% of opposing hitters against a minuscule 4.9% walk rate. He’s been tagged for eight home runs and opponents are hitting .350 on balls in play against him, however, contributing to the disappointing results.
With Matz out of action for at least a few starts, Liberatore looks poised to step into the rotation. The top prospect was called up to make his MLB debut on Saturday. He allowed four runs in 4 2/3 innings against the Bucs and was quickly optioned out, but the Cardinals could recall him immediately to replace the IL-bound Matz. The 22-year-old has a 3.83 ERA with a 28.4% strikeout rate over seven starts with Memphis this season. He’s likely to join Adam Wainwright, Miles Mikolas, Dakota Hudson and Jordan Hicks while Matz and Jack Flaherty recover from injury.
better check on carlson’s last 7-15 games before writing the article
I did. He’s batting .304, 1 HR, 3 RBI, .768 OPS in the last two weeks. Not sure what you were getting at, but he’s been a complete non-factor this season.
As you yourself just posted, he’s hit much better in May. Those numbers are far from being a “non-factor.”
From MLB: “[Junior] Fernández, 25, has appeared in 16 games for Memphis this season, going 1-2 with a 6.25 ERA (17.0 IP/12 ER).”
Somebody, please enlighten me as to the logic of promoting Fernandez (to take Matz’s place) vs. just about anyone else on the roster at Memphis.
A mystery to me too. Free Jake Woodford.
Woodford is certainly a victim of a good STL starting staff. This club always has good SP depth, but when you’re down the list a bit it’s tough. He could end up being a curious piece to watch at the deadline though.
He’s already on the 40 man roster
Honestly Fernandez is at the end of his leash. Maybe they see if he does well to trade him(even though he has very little value) or if he does terrible, they designate him. He looked great a couple years ago but has been horrible since. Also I think Woodford just pitched multiple innings 2 days ago and I think it hasn’t been the required 10 days or whatever the rule is to call Walsh back up.
The 10 day rule doesn’t apply if it’s due to an IL placement, that’s why Liberatore can come right back after being optioned
Agreed Higgy. I’m glad they are keeping Oviedo at triple A and giving him a chance to develop. He wasn’t ready the last two seasons. I hope Nootbar gets a chance to play now that he’s back up. I suspect that this will turn into the Corey Dickerson showcase instead.
I hope not lol. Noot just hit 3 homers yesterday. He’s going to give you at the bare minimum what Dickerson does. Honestly dickersons defense hasn’t been great either. Would like to see them dump Dickerson and give Burleson a taste, he’s red hot right now and could be the next offensive callup after Donovan, yepez and gorman. But the cards brass hates to admit they are wrong and cut a player making an above minimum salary. Honestly Dickerson gas been pretty awful and not sure how much longer they can justify giving him at bats if doesn’t make a quick turn around
Total complete agreement.
There’s no point in DFAing Fernandez while he can still be optioned. If he can’t turn it around by the end of Spring Training next year, *then* he’ll get the DFA, and even then he might pass through waivers safely..
The only reason I would say dfa is he’s taking up a valuable 40 man spot. The only reason. They are going to need plenty more 40 spots before the end of the year and he’s probably at the top of closest to getting booted. Could go unclaimed but doubt it because of past success, age and he’s a hard thrower.
Cardinals basically wasted a Minor League option on Liberatore
Hopefully liberatore has some good games and it doesn’t matter and he sticks. Flaherty is a question mark and now who knows about matz. Could piggyback hicks and liberatore which could be a good thing since both don’t go super deep or have great results after 4 innings
What question mark? Flaherty’s recovery is going well, and he’ll be back in less than a month.
Meanwhile, Hicks has finally gotten stretched out to 82 pitches in his last start, so he should be good for 90+ going forward.
He’s been hurt twice in less than a season. To expect him to come back and pitch 20 starts with no setbacks would be foolish. Recent multiple injury history makes him a question mark
Do I hope he comes back strong, of course. Do I expect it, no. It’s going to take him probably almost a month just to build back up. So he may step back into the rotation immediately but how deep will he go to start, probably not very deep. So for now I would say he’s the biggest question mark. You getting 8 and 0 flaherty or 2020 flaherty?
Unfortunately, it was necessary. There was no point in keeping him on the active roster beyond that spot start until a rotation spot suddenly opened up with the Matz injury.
I don’t think he’s in much danger of pushing up against the new 5-time maximum this season, anyway.
Libertore has had one major league start. Seems a little early to pigeonhole him as someone who gets hit after 4 innings, don’t ya think?!
I’ve watched most of his minor league starts, this year and last.after the 5th and into the 6th he hits a wall in triple A. Major league hitters are way better than triple A so it’s not like he’s going to magically do better in the majors in his rookie season. The guy has good stuff but expecting 7 innings from him is pipe dreams. Piggy backing him and hicks would save them exposure from seeing a lineup 3 times and also both guys throw harder in shorter outings. Both genuinely throw alot of pitches in their 4 to 5 innings. I’m not pigeonholeing anybody. If you’ve actually watched him in the minors you would know what I’m saying
The rumor is Woodford is being stretched out in AAA as a starting option.
I know Dickerson has been frustrating but they aren’t going to cut him and eat the rest of his $5 mil Salary until it can’t be helped.
…which could be as soon as shortly after O’Neill and Carlson both return from the IL. Dickerson would likely be close to reaching the point of a DFA by now if the outfield was still healthy.
I don’t know what happened to Dickerson. He is a 10 year major leaguer, he has a history of hitting RH pitching pretty well and is a career 280 hitter. He has also posted double digits in HR’s 6 times, 3 times 24+ HR’s….But he gets to STL and suddenly looks like he can’t hit at all….not only are his numbers bad but he rarely has had even solid contact. Overall his swing doesn’t look particularly good. I mean he was never a great player but he was never this bad.