St. Louis Cardinals infielder/outfielder Brendan Donovan will be out for a long time, as he will be going under the knife this Wednesday to repair an upper-body injury, thus effectively ending his 2023 MLB season, per Katie Woo of The Athletic.

Donovan has a flexor tendon injury in his throwing arm and will need surgery to fix it. There is no definite timetable of return for Donovan, but the expectation is that he will be ready to see action again by the 2024 Spring Training, according to Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat.

This is another punch to the gut for the Cardinals in an already disappointing campaign. They are currently in the cellar of the National League Central division with just a 47-60 record — over 10 games out of first place in the division's standings. Before suffering his season-ending injury, Donovan was among the top performing Cardinals hitters, batting .281 with a .362 on-base percentage, and a .419 slugging percentage. He also hit 11 home runs with 34 RBIs across 371 plate appearances and 95 games played.

The hope for the Cardinals is that Donovan will be able to beat initial estimates of his return, but in any case, they will take a careful approach to the 26-year-old. St. Louis has Donovan under team control for years to come as he is still in the pre-arbitration years.

With Donovan — taken by the Cardinals in the seventh round of the 2018 draft — out of the lineup for the remainder of the season, Nolan Gorman can be expected to cover the void in the designated hitter spot.