Steven Matz’s time on the injured listing has been prolonged after the left-hander hit a setback in his rehab work. As Cardinals supervisor Oliver Marmol advised 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 monitor to be activated from the injured listing across the begin of July. As an alternative, he’ll now be sidelined for an additional month on the very least, and extra realistically most likely gained’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 advised, 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 varied accidents have restricted the southpaw to 180 2/3 innings since Opening Day 2022. He appeared to be turning issues round with a strong 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 strong than excellent, however the quartet has no less than been reliably in a position to 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 complete 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 an excellent 37-37 on the season, however the Playing cards are out of the final wild-card spot on share factors alone as a result of plenty 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 subsequent month, it is going to depart St. Louis and plenty of different groups unclear about how aggressive they need to be with their deadline purchasing, 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 shedding season, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak might probably really feel extra stress to “go for it” as a way to get the staff again to its customary dose of October baseball, however Mozeliak has historically made extra mid-level deadline strikes quite than true blockbusters throughout his tenure within the St. Louis entrance workplace.
