The St. Louis Cardinals are still waiting on Ramon Urias, and the latest checkpoint for his return is a fairly specific one.
According to MLB.com, the club wants Urias to complete nine-inning rehab games on back-to-back days before they take another look at whether he’s ready to rejoin the big league roster. Urias has been working back from right/left elbow lateral epicondylitis, the injury that has limited him to just 25 games this season.
It’s been a rough year at the plate for the infielder. Urias is hitting .158 with two home runs, five RBIs and nine runs in those 25 games, a sharp step back from what he gave St.
Louis last season, when he hit .248 with eight home runs, 34 RBIs and 27 runs. That wasn’t the production the Cardinals had in mind when they signed him to a two-year deal.
Offense has never really been Urias’ calling card anyway. His strongest season came in 2021, when he hit .279 with seven home runs, 38 RBIs and 33 runs in 85 games. What the Cardinals have valued more is his defense, and that could still matter a lot as the season tightens up.
St. Louis is trying to stay in the race while Urias works his way back.
The Cardinals are 66-63 and sit 2 1/2 games behind the San Diego Padres for the final wild card spot in the NL, with 33 games left. If Urias gets through this rehab step and clears the next evaluation, he could be back in the lineup in time for the stretch run.
In Other News...
Cardinals Suddenly Have An Outfield Opening After Pereira Setback
The Cardinals had barely gotten a look at Everson Pereira before the latest interruption hit. St. Louis claimed the outfielder off waivers from the White Sox in early August, and he gave them a useful early glimpse in 11 games with a strong on-base presence before a pitch left him dealing with a left hand contusion. His absence created a fresh roster shuffle for a club that has been trying to sort out the edges of its outfield mix as the season moves into its late stages.
Pereira went on the 10-day injured list retroactive to Aug. 22, and in a corresponding move the Cardinals activated infielder Ramn Uras from the 60-day IL. For a team that needed Pereira to keep building momentum after arriving in St. Louis, the setback leaves another opening for playing time and another question about how long the Cardinals will have to wait before they can really evaluate what he might bring. [Read more 🡒]
Cardinals May Need An Intriguing Young Arm Sooner Than Expected
Elbow and forearm issues have left the Cardinals scrambling for rotation help, with Andre Pallante on the Injured List and Hunter Dobbins joining him there as the club tries to keep the staff afloat. Quinn Mathews has already been moved into the rotation, and that is only part of the picture as St. Louis looks for enough healthy arms to bridge the gap.
One name that keeps coming up is Cooper Hjerpe, the 2022 first-round pick who is working in Triple-A and posting a 3.08 ERA across 14 starts this season. He is being viewed as a possible answer if the Cardinals need another starter soon, and with the current injuries piling up, the question is less about whether he belongs on the radar than how quickly the team may need him. [Read more 🡒]
Cardinals Fans May Revisit The Randal Grichuk Trade After This Surge
Randal Grichuk is back in the conversation for Cardinals fans, only now it is because of what he is doing at 35 with the White Sox. Mostly used as a designated hitter and as a pinch-hitter against left-handed pitching, Grichuk has been turning those matchups into real production, hitting .299 with a .937 OPS. It is the kind of late-career surge that naturally sends St. Louis back to a familiar question about the player it once developed, then moved on from after the 2017 season.
Grichuks Cardinals tenure always came with a split opinion: the power was real, but the plate discipline never fully caught up, and the reverse-split profile made him a tricky everyday fit. St. Louis sent him to Toronto after 2017, hoping the return would help elsewhere, but that deal never really delivered much for the Cardinals. So as Grichuk keeps carving out value in a narrower role, it is hard not to revisit how different things might have looked if the original investment had been handled another way. [Read more 🡒]