Steven Matz’s time on the injured checklist has been prolonged after the left-hander hit a setback in his rehab work. As Cardinals supervisor Oliver Marmol instructed The Athletic’s Katie Woo and different reporters, Matz got here out his Double-A rehab begin final Sunday with extra tightness in his again, and the starter has now been shut down for 2 weeks. Marmol gave a four-to-six-week timeline as a projected best-case situation for Matz to return to the lively roster, as Matz’s throwing program must kind of be began from scratch after his shutdown interval.
It’s a tricky break for Matz, who had banked three rehab begins already and was seemingly on observe to be activated from the injured checklist across the begin of July. As a substitute, he’ll now be sidelined for one more month on the very least, and extra realistically most likely received’t be again till a while in August.
Matz made six begins and posted a 6.18 ERA over 27 2/3 innings earlier than happening the IL in early Could with a lower-back pressure, so it has been a tough season throughout for the 33-year-old. All instructed, not a lot has gone proper for Matz since signing his four-year, $44M free-agent take care of St. Louis in November 2021, as numerous accidents have restricted the southpaw to 180 2/3 innings since Opening Day 2022. He seemed to be turning issues round with a stable 3.86 ERA over 105 innings final 12 months, however neither the manufacturing nor the great well being has been there for Matz this 12 months.
Because it doesn’t look like Matz will make it again previous to the July 30 commerce deadline, it solely exacerbates the Cardinals’ want for rotation assist. The membership’s high 4 of Sonny Grey, Lance Lynn, Kyle Gibson and Miles Mikolas has been extra stable than excellent, however the quartet has no less than been reliably capable of take the ball and eat innings. Discovering a fifth starter has been a problem for the Playing cards, as none of Matz, Matthew Liberatore, Andre Pallante or Zack Thompson have offered a lot assist in what has change into a little bit of a revolving door of a rotation spot.
Like just about your entire Nationwide League, the Cardinals are in one thing of a holding sample with greater than a month to go earlier than the commerce deadline. St. Louis is a fair 37-37 on the season, however the Playing cards are out of the final wild-card spot on share factors alone because of a whole lot of parity within the Senior Circuit — solely 4 NL groups entered Saturday’s motion with information of .500 or above.
If this uncertainty continues over the following month, it is going to go away St. Louis and lots of different groups unclear about how aggressive they need to be with their deadline procuring, and it wouldn’t be a shock to see the Cardinals discover promoting in the event that they hit a droop and fall out of the race. Given how the Playing cards are coming off a uncommon dropping season, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak might presumably really feel extra strain to “go for it” with a purpose to get the crew again to its customary dose of October baseball, however Mozeliak has historically made extra mid-level deadline strikes fairly than true blockbusters throughout his tenure within the St. Louis entrance workplace.
