The St. Louis Cardinals had an uncharacteristically down 2023 season, finishing in the cellar of the National League Central with a 71-91 record.

Cardinals Manager Oliver Marmol's team is preparing for better days in 2024. Twenty-seven-year-old second baseman Brendan Donovan is expected to be a big part of the Cards' 2024 campaign despite nagging injury concerns that have sidelined him for months.

The Cardinals recently got another injury update from a promising young shortstop. The team's projected starting center fielder also got an update on the injury bug that could plague him this spring.

With the season inching closer each day, the Cardinals' infielder sounded off on his injury progress.

Brendan Donovan's Injury Update 

Donovan played in his first game in eight months in Port Saint Lucie, Florida on Saturday before giving an update on his progress. Donovan turned his first double play in the infielder in nearly 250 days according to a report from St. Louis Live. 

“Right back in the fire, and that’s a good thing,” he said. “It’s the little things like looking it in that extra 10th of a second. It was good to get back out there. It’s been a while because even when I was playing last year I was banged up, I was DH’ing a lot. It was good to have your feet in the dirt and compete.”

Donovan's elbow surgery return garnered the attention of just one reporter after the second baseman safely reached base twice and scored twice.

“That’s good,” Donovan said to STLToday.com.

“The goal is that we rehabbed and intentionally went about our work to where nobody noticed. That’s the goal. Make it look like never missed a beat.”

Cardinals Spring Continues

The Cardinals were scheduled to take on the Houston Astros on Sunday followed by the Miami Marlins on Monday, prior to two home games against the Red Sox and the Nationals with a road tilt against the Mets sandwiched in-between.

For Donovan, it's a golden opportunity to ease back into the flow of the game, honing skills that have no doubt atrophied since his last regular season game many moons ago.