The Cardinals are still waiting for right-hander Sonny Gray to make his regular season debut with the club, after he suffered a right hamstring strain during the spring. His path back to the big leagues got muddied, literally, when this week’s weather prevented his ramp-up from going as planned.
Per John Denton of MLB.com, Gray was going to make a rehab start for Triple-A Memphis at Indianapolis today but the club changed plans due to the heavy rain in the forecast. Instead, the new plan is for a 50-pitch simulated game today in Springfield, Missouri, followed by a Triple-A start on April 9, which was around when he was hoping to be back with the big league club. But he’ll now be looking at a return on April 14, assuming a normal four-day rest period after his outing for the Redbirds.
When Gray is ready to return, he should slot into the rotation next to Miles Mikolas, Lance Lynn, Kyle Gibson and Steven Matz in the rotation. That will likely mean that left-hander Zack Thompson gets nudged out. Thompson started today’s game for the Cards and Denton noted that his velocity is way down, more than three ticks below his previous start. Whether that’s indicative of some kind of undiscovered injury remains to be seen.
If he’s healthy, Thompson has an option and can be sent to the minors when Gray gets back. He could also be moved to the bullpen to take over the long relief role currently held by Matthew Liberatore, as Liberatore also has an option and could be sent down for work in the Triple-A rotation.
Gray was signed to a three-year, $75MM deal in the offseason after posting a 2.79 earned run average with the Twins last year. He combined a 24.3% strikeout rate with a 7.3% walk rate and 47.3% ground ball rate, finishing second to Gerrit Cole in American League Cy Young voting.
Elsewhere in Cardinal news, right-hander Riley O’Brien was placed on the 15-day injured list on the weekend due to a flexor strain. But earlier this week, Denton relayed that an MRI showed no structural damage.
O’Brien will still require a shutdown period before ramping back up, but that’s clearly a better alternative to requiring surgery and missing extended time. Acquired from the Mariners in November, O’Brien has just 3 1/3 innings of major league experience but had a 2.29 ERA in 55 Triple-A innings last year. His 13.6% walk rate was scary but he also struck out 37.7% of batters faced and got grounders on 57.1% of balls in play.
If the Cardinals miss the playoffs again, heads will roll in St. Louis. Mozeliak isn’t invincible, even if he has some questionable photos of Manfred from some random MLB christmas party for years past. That is one vicious, unforgiving fanbase.
It is also possible that the baseball gods are in play as well.
I think Mozeliak is stepping down at the end of the season regardless. The offseason gave a lot of insight on that. But they are already playing the injury card excuse. It will get worse went Matz hit his inevitable IL stint. Mikolis is due for one as well. And Lynn and Gibson start to wear down as the season progresses.
Who gets sent down when Gray is activated? Zach Thompson or Libby? I vote Oli is optioned to Memphis.
High A Peoria Chiefs are more suitable for his skill set.
I think Thompson will go so he can continue as a starter at Memphis. I believe Libby is going to be permanent in the bp.
Option Thompson to AAA before they do any MRI. Don’t want him to accrue a year and a half service time if it is bad.
“Burn out his arm and then demote him to have the surgery in the minors so he can’t collect major league service time”, that’s pretty shady thinking.
I hope Zack’s agent is paying attention and gets Thompson to a third party doctor before his client gets railroaded.
Wow, that’s a cold-hearted suggestion, one the MLBPA would justifiably protest.
I used to think Card fans were overreacting about Marmol’s decision making but after watching a few cards games it’s apparent he’s really overmatched.
He legit doesn’t play any matchups and barely makes any moves at all. It’s a lazy way of managing
Most of his questionable decisions or bad decisions, however you want to look at it, are decisions with the bullpen.
He pulls pitchers when they are not having any problems just to let another reliever come in because he hasn’t pitched in a few days. That’s not what wins ballgames.
If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.
Every manager does that! Most relievers usually don’t pitch more than an inning at a time even when they go 1-2-3 on 5 pitches. Sometimes they’ll pitch up to 2 innings if they’re well rested, the bullpen is short-handed, or they’re really trying to close out a close game, but that’s it aside from long relievers, deep extra-inning games, or when the starter gets knocked out (or injured) really early.
Anyway, that’s the only way to get through a full schedule without wearing out your bullpen.
Exactly what matchups should Marmol be making that he doesn’t? The Cardinals haven’t faced a left-handed starter yet. Meanwhile, the bench has been weakened by injuries, and most of the starters aren’t guys for whom you’d generally want to pinch-hit with whom is available on the bench, not against righties nor lefties.
Marmol has been taking Walker out for defense with late and close leads, he has used a few pinch-hitters, and some of the starters have received a day off. What else should he be doing with regards to the position players at this point?
Oh please I watched the dodgers eat the cards lineup up and he didn’t make a single position player substitution for 2 games. Sometimes you have to look at his results too. He’s had extremely talented teams that are underperforming.
You can keep making excuses but he needs to win or make some moves that have positive results. While you defended his non moves, and the only positive you gave us he substituted Walker late a couple times.
He had his best lineup in there against two righties, and the Cardinals were blown out in both games. There was no need for him to make any substitutions in those first two games.
His non-moves ARE the best positive moves! You don’t want to sub players in just to sub players in. Most of the time, guys like Crawford, Carpenter, and Siani aren’t going to give the team better odds to win.
So you still haven’t provided any specific examples where Marmol has made bad moves with the position players.
Besides, the results speak for themselves. The offense for the most part DOESN’T underperform, except when the position players were hit by a bunch of injuries in August and September last year. The 2022 team was excellent, and the pitching was the problem last year.
Even looking at this season so far, the Cardinals are 4-4, and out of those 4 losses, only 1 of them could they likely have won with better offense, as they were blown out in those first two games like I said, and the bullpen blew the other one.
muddied, literally, like our pitching rn.
King will most likely be sent back to AAA when Gray returns. Thompson to the bullpen where in the past he has been successful. Assuming he isn’t injured that is.