The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Chicago Cubs yesterday 6-3 in Cactus League play and will wrap up the Spring with one last game today against the Cubs in Arizona. The Cardinals will head straight to Los Angeles where they will open their regular season on the road against the Los Angeles Dodgers who split their first two games in the Seoul series against the San Diego Padres. So here are a few notes from the Spring as we await the first Pitch on Thursday, March 28th against the Dodgers where Mike Mikolas will take on Tyler Glasnow.
Power outage
The Cardinals had one hitting this spring with multiple home runs and that player was Dylan Carlson with two. As a team this spring they hit 13 home runs combined, which might not seem alarming to many because it is spring training, last year they hit 209 as a team which was fifth best in the National League. They have lost 22 home runs from last year’s production with Paul DeJong and Tyler O’Neill no longer with the team. Edman’s set to miss the start of the season won’t help either not that we can expect much more than the 13 bombs he hit last year, but still, Carlson only had five on the year and will be covering for him to start the year. Lars Nootbar who had 14 home runs last year will also miss the start of the year with two displaced ribs but should be back sometime mid-late April. The team will need early season power production for Jordan Walker, Paul Goldschmidt, and Nolan Arenado to not fall behind in their power outputs.
Starting Rotation to Start the Year
Mike Mikolas with start game one of the year against the Dodgers on Thursday. The Cardinals will follow that with Zach Thompson taking the mound for game two. Thompson did pitch well this spring with a 2.81 ERA and a 14/6 K/BB ratio over 16 innings. Thompson is filling the void left by prize free agent Sonny Gray who is starting the year on the IL due to tightness in his hamstring. The Southpaw will look to take full advantage of the early season starts to see if he can pitch his way into this rotation while Gray misses time. Lance Lynn, Steve Matz, and Kyle Gibson will follow in the rotation to start the year. After watching the team this spring and seeing Gray on the IL the team has reason for concern with the rotation if Mikolas, Lynn, and Matz cannot perform well early this year.
Youngster Locks up the Starting Job
Masyn Winn has won the starting job for the time being at short to start the year, with Brandon Crawford waiting in the wings if he fails to get off to a decent start with the bat. This spring Winn played in 12 games with 33 at-bats, five runs scored, three doubles, four walks, 14 strikeouts, three stolen bases, and slashed .212/.316/.303 with a .619 OPS on the spring. Winn should hit near the bottom of the order this year and hopefully show enough with his bat to keep Crawford as a utility role guy off the bench for the Cardinals this year.
The reunion might make sense
It has been mentioned and seems to have cooled off as of late, but adding Jordan Montgomery back into this rotation makes a lot of sense right now. Montgomery has yet to sign this offseason and could come into the rotation and easily slide in behind Mikolas and Gray when healthy. If Thompson comes out strong and Matz struggles, slide Matz to the bullpen, and now the bullpen has added depth which is needed. If Matz does well send Thompson down either way Montgomery would easily be the team’s second or third-best option in the rotation if he returned to St. Louis.
Summary
The Cardinals have a talented team on paper, they just will need to get out of the gates hot this year to return to the top of the NL Central, which should be extremely competitive this year. Adding Montgomery back to the rotation makes too much sense to me right now given the state of the rotation and early season IL stint for Gray, the team needs someone else to lean on. Maysn Winn is going to be a lot of fun to watch this year and Thursday’s game against the Dodgers cannot come soon enough!!
