An old Cardinals pitcher, Adam Wainwright, walked into the Busch Stadium clubhouse on Saturday afternoon.
Sorry to break up the feel-good reunion, but isn't it time for a new pitcher to do the same?
For those keeping tabs, it’s been nearly a month since injured starter Steven Matz last pitched in a game.
A combination of off days and late-spring showers have helped the Cardinals minimize the damage since Matz's back injury happened.
Praying for rain isn’t much of a strategy.
After their annual tease of a six-man rotation this spring training, the Cardinals are barreling toward June with a four-man one.
They don’t currently have a fifth starter, as evidenced by manager Oli Marmol’s continued shuffling of Cards to avoid using that spot in the rotation whenever possible.
People are also reading…
After the team yanked Matthew Liberatore out of his performing role in the bullpen back into the rotation only to have him struggle there again, Marmol can’t even be pinned down to name who he would start if he had to pick someone. Hard to rip him too much for that. Who would you start?
Matz isn’t days away, either.
He’s just started playing catch again this week.
Thank goodness The Four Horsemen of the Cardinals rotation are draft animals. They answer the bell and like the work. They have, so far, stopped the fifth-starter pothole from derailing what has become some forward traction in the NL Central standings.
Avoiding a problem isn’t answering it.
Liberatore needs to stick in the bullpen, clearly. Forget what the pitch metrics say about what his stuff should do. He looks and sounds comfortable and confident as a reliever. The opposite is the case when he starts.
I wouldn’t mind seeing Zack Thompson get another shot after he earned the next-man-up role out of spring training. He only got two starts while Sonny Gray was out earlier this season. One went poorly against the Dodgers. Another was fine against the Padres. But Thompson’s Class-AAA ERA of 2.29, I’ll admit, hides a velocity that is down and a walk total that is too high.
Andre Pallante’s in-season switch from reliever back to starter has made some progress, but he’s made only three Class-AAA starts. It would seem rushed.
Sem Robberse is on the 40-man roster. So is Adam Kloffenstein. Gordon Graceffo isn't, but he would thrill the prospect hounds. Michael McGreevy, unfortunately, has a 5.13 ERA in Memphis.
Someone from this group, or a combination of them, will have to be thrown into the fire if this continues. You can tell the Cardinals don’t feel great about the internal options right now because they continue to let the spot be a question mark, this time until at least Wednesday in Cincinnati.
There’s another route to consider.
Turn the question mark into an answer. Better yet, straighten it out into an exclamation point. A front office that has talked a lot lately about needing to be where accountability is directed if this season doesn't become a successful one has a great opportunity to do something that increases this season's chances of becoming a successful one. It's been largely forgotten around here, but rosters can be improved from the outside before the final horn of the trade deadline. Now would be a great time to remember.
Matz providing rotation reliability once he's back with a healthy back is no guarantee. The Cardinals expect him to pitch again this season, but he has an unfortunate history of leaving the team short on workload and results. Plus, Matz has been effective as a Cardinals reliever. The four-year, $44 million contract the front office has tried to defend actually would look just fine if he shifted gears into an effective relief role. The team did at least consider the notion of making him a reliever this past offseason. Looking back, it probably wishes it did. There's still time. This division is not decided. Not close.
Early trades can be made, despite the widely accepted narrative that they are close to impossible.
Hard? Sure. Unusual? Indeed. But let’s not pretend like every team out there is interested in competing or even pretending to try. On Saturday, seven teams were more than 10 games back in their respective divisions. The Rockies, Marlins and White Sox, especially, are going nowhere.
Mets owner Steve Cohen has already hinted on social media his team will sell.
Skip Schumaker's floundering Marlins already are selling, trading two-time batting champ Luis Arraez to Mike Shildt's Padres with more surely to come.
The Cardinals don’t need an ace. They just need a reliable starter who can hold the last rotation spot and give them a shot to win. It would not take the world as a return. It's a little disappointing it hasn’t happened yet.
There would be a cost, sure. But doing nothing also creates a cost. Right now, the Cardinals are allowing 25% of their games to be tied to the question mark on the mound. And just a heads-up here, but the rotation entered this weekend ranked 25th in ERA (4.56) and 21st in quality starts (15). Let's not pretend there isn't room for improvement here.
Remember in 2021, when the Brewers’ early season acquisition of shortstop Willy Adames sparked a first-place finish? Adames played great after the trade, but the addition also served another purpose. Every player in that Brewers clubhouse got a jolt from a front office that saw an opening to win the division and took it.
Wainwright’s clubhouse visit Saturday was a fun moment before he made his trip to the broadcast booth. An arrival of a new starter to hold down the fifth spot could be a sustained gift.
No more praying for rain. It's time for an overdue jolt of lightning from the front office.