The Cardinals placed third baseman Matt Carpenter on the injured list with a right foot contusion on Tuesday, Anne Rogers of MLB.com was among those to report. It’s unclear how much time Carpenter will sit out, but for now, infielder Edmundo Sosa is up from Triple-A Memphis to take his roster spot.
Carpenter’s injury continues a surprisingly dreadful season for the accomplished 33-year-old, who just returned right after the All-Star break from a back strain that forced him to the shelf in late June. When Carpenter has been healthy enough to take the field in 2019, he has slashed an unappealing .215/.321/.372 (86 wRC+) with 10 home runs in 343 plate appearances. That’s a marked drop-off from the production the Cardinals have become accustomed to receiving from Carpenter, a .275/.377/.471 hitter with a 133 wRC+ in 4,298 trips to the plate from 2012-18.
With Carpenter having missed a fair amount of time of late, the Cardinals have gotten somewhat used to deploying Tommy Edman and Yairo Munoz at the hot corner. Those two will man the position again during Carpenter’s latest IL stay, according to Rogers. Neither player has performed much better (if at all) than Carpenter on a per-PA basis, though, and Edman and Munoz have combined for a measly four walks in 161 trips to the plate. They’ll need to do better than that going forward for St. Louis, which entered Tuesday tied for the National League’s second wild-card spot and a manageable two back of the first-place Cubs in the NL Central.
They should replace him with that old pitcher they used to have named Chris Carpenter. That guy used to pitch with Roy Halladay during his Toronto Blue Jays days. Halladay was by far the best pitcher in baseball then and Chris Carpenter was their number 2. I am sure he picked up some pointers from Halladay and he is already familiar with the Cardinals organization. He could help their pitching rotation a lot. The best offense is a good defense.
Whatever you’re smoking, I want some!
This is a smoke screen to keep him from being benched. Stupid extension by Eddie Mozeliak, so this gives him built in excuse to say injuries were reason for bad play. This regression started last year. He had about 8 weeks of good hitting last year and none this year. Long, slow swing catching up with age.
He took a hard foul ball off of his foot and had to leave the game last night. Dudes hurt.
couldn’t be happier about it
Saw it. Keep trying to pull the ball through a 4 man shift and that will keep happening. The guy could be hitting 300 if he would bunt every at bat until teams stop shifting. If not, he will be a bench player to finish his career. Drop the ego or stay on the IL and/or ride pine. As a front office exec or manager, that’s the conversation I have with him.
Now they will start winning again with Edmon and Munoz hitting lead off.
What’s the excuse for this article not even mentioning the extension.. this still a transactions website, right?
Who the hell is Eddie Mozeliak?
Johnny Versace’s brother.
Sandoval? Cuthbert?
At least Edman throws hard enough to break glass. Carp has a noodle and slow feet hence how he got picked off last night.
Didn’t Carp have a miserable first half last year, too? But he caught fire in the 2nd and ended up having a good year. Instead this year he gets hurt.
Maybe his bad first half was foretelling the future. If you’ll remember, Carpenter hit great for only 6 weeks of the second half then went back to his old self. I agree—More waisted money by Mozeliak!
Started with a .558 OPS last September. 684 March/Apri, 762 May, 667 June and now 435 July.
Not really, he had a miserable April and started pulling out of it in May, then fell off the cliff again in September. This has been his 4th consecutive miserable month.
I can’t be happier about this injury. The MVP of last year was Dexter Fowler’s foot, so if it’s Carpenter’s foot this year then we’ll have a theme going.
Hopefully this forces Shildt to play some good players instead of the veterans. I love Bader but he shouldn’t have been playing last night with Wong and Fowler in there too. You need someone the pitchers can be scared of and last night our 5-1 weren’t any good.
Pushing for a 60 day DL, like Brett Cecil and his horrible contract. Mozeliak is the master of offering Bad contracts, for extended years for sore armed or over the hill players!!! Sickening to watch this season!!! I feel sorry for the young players on the Cardinals current team to have to witness the poor play which is acceptable by the Cardinals front office and the owners. This is a totally mismanaged Organization from top to bottom.
the new cardinal way
Cards fans are the new crybabies of baseball.
Plenty of wine & cheese in STL.
Tough crowd in St. Louis.
Yes, Carpenter’s best days are behind him, and I am guessing Mo’s thought process was he could get Carpenter to last until Gorman or Montero is ready for the big league club? That plan isn’t working.
Time to shake up this team without trading Gorman or O’Neil. Hopefully a big bat at 3rd and get Ozuna back healthy or trade him before free agency.
Any thoughts guys?
trade ozuna
According to Nick Stevens and his lap puppy Uncle Mike, if you just eliminated baseball in St. Louis and sent Mozeliak to the electric chair that would fix everything