The Cardinals are three games into a stretch of 17 games in 17 days, and this busy schedule has presented an opening for Hunter Dobbins to make his Cards debut. Manager Oli Marmol told reporters (including Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat) that Dobbins will be called up from Triple-A, where he is pitching on a rehab assignment, to make a spot start on Thursday when the Cardinals wrap up their four-game series with the Pirates.
Thursday’s game will mark Dobbins’ first appearance in a St. Louis uniform, and his first MLB outing since he tore his right ACL during a fielding play last July 11 when Dobbins was still pitching with the Red Sox. Between that season-ending injury and an elbow strain that kept him on the injured list for three weeks, Dobbins’ first Major League season was limited to 61 innings.
The right-hander had a respectable 4.13 ERA and a solid 6.6% walk rate, though his strikeout and whiff rates were well below average. Between the ACL tear and the fact that the Sox had several other young pitchers ahead of Dobbins on the depth chart, Dobbins was one of three pitchers dealt to St. Louis in December in exchange for Willson Contreras. Prospects Yhoiker Fajardo and Blake Aita were more long-term projects, but in Dobbins, the Cardinals landed a big league-ready starter who was ready to contribute in 2026 once his ACL rehab was complete.
Over five Triple-A starts this season, Dobbins has a 4.37 ERA, 19.8% strikeout rate, and 9.4% walk rate in 22 2/3 innings. The end of his 30-day rehab period lines up well with this extended stretch of games for the Cardinals, so Dobbins can fit right into the rotation for at least one turn.
As expected for a rebuilding team’s pitching staff, the Cardinals haven’t gotten much out of their rotation to date. Michael McGreevy‘s elite walk rate has carried him to strong results despite one of the lowest strikeout rates in baseball, but Matthew Liberatore, Dustin May, Andre Pallante, and Kyle Leahy have all struggled to varying degrees. Dobbins may not be viewed as a front-of-the-rotation type, but a good showing on Thursday would both achieve some peace of mind for the righty after his long rehab, and likely earn him more starts down the road.
Good luck Hunter!
Hope you pitch as well as Harrison did yesterday.
How’re you feeling about the RS now that it’s been a day?
Fan – Best way to describe it, a step in the right direction but the main issues plaguing the franchise are still there and likely won’t go away anytime soon.
Man I completely forgot about Farjado. He’s got electric stuff. Should crack some top 100 lists this year if he is keeping it up for StL
Welcome to the Big Leagues son I’m rooting for ya go Birds
He pitched in the majors last season. He also inexplicably flat out lied about his father playing in the big leagues, on national television. For some reason.
Enjoy – One clarification, it was his father that lied to him about being drafted and playing in the minors.
I can’t fault Hunter for taking his dad’s word, and then simply repeating what his dad told him.
Release Stanek and move Leahy to the bullpen.
There are several relievers in the queue ahead of Stanek
I don’t know about that. Bruihl, sure, but he has more job security as one of their very few lefty relief options. Svanson can just be optioned, Roycroft has already been optioned back to AAA, while Soriano hasn’t been as bad as Stanek has been, relatively speaking.
However, sadly, they don’t currently actually have any (healthy) relievers performing well enough and with enough experience in AAA who could be reasonable replacements for any of these guys at this point.
While they may get to that point eventually, the first thing they can do is simply option Svanson back to AAA, which will likely be the corresponding move to promote Dobbins.
Fernandez seems to be lower on the pecking order than Svanson, not saying that is the correct ranking but they don’t seem to want to use Fernandez at all.
I think the Cards will like this guy. But as a RS fan, I love Contreras.
Contreras is definitely missed by a lot of Cards fans. He’s a gamer and a great clubhouse guy; any team would be lucky to have him, especially with his team-friendly contract.
Hope the trade works out for everyone.
Maybe Leahy should move back to the bullpen. The Cardinals certainly need the help there.
You would think sooner or later Leahy would have to stop starting or at least curtail it due to innings piling up. They will probably need him back in the rotation if they trade May at the deadline.
I’m hoping Dobbins sticks in the rotation and Leary goes to the ‘pen.
Good luck Hunter!
Thank goodness. The only good starter in the Cardinals rotation is Michael McGreevy.