St. Louis Cardinals rookie JJ Wetherholt is still looking for answers as he works through tendinitis in his right wrist, and the next update will come after a 72-hour wait following an anti-inflammatory shot.
Wetherholt is currently on the 10-day Injured List, and because he was placed there on Aug. 30, the earliest he can be activated is Sep. 9 if he’s healthy enough to return. For now, though, the club is waiting to see how the wrist responds.
The young infielder said the pain had been there for about a month, but he was able to keep playing until it worsened in his final few days before the move to the Injured List.
"The diagnosis was that if the pain doesn't increase, we could continue to go about [managing it], and obviously I was on medicine and doing treatment every day and it was manageable, but these past three or four days have been pretty bad," Wetherholt said.
Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Wetherholt met with a specialist in Arizona for a second opinion on Monday, where the diagnosis was confirmed and he was prescribed the shot.
Goold wrote, "Spoke here in LA with JJ Wetherholt, who met with a specialist in Arizona for a second opinion on Monday about his tendinitis. Diagnosis was confirmed and he was prescribed an anti-inflammatory shot.
Will let that settle for 72 hours and then see how hand/wrist feels," Goold wrote.
That waiting period will be up this week, which should give St. Louis a better sense of where things stand. The Cardinals have 23 games left, but Wetherholt still has to clear the minimum IL window before he can return.
If his absence stretches beyond that, the conversation could shift toward whether there’s any point in bringing him back this season at all. With the season winding down and Wetherholt no longer in the mix for the National League Rookie of the Year Award, the Cardinals could decide it’s smarter to protect the wrist than push it.
For now, though, it’s all about the shot and how his wrist feels once the swelling and soreness settle.
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