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St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Steven Matz has been sidelined with a lower back injury he suffered in early May, but he seems to be inching closer to a return.
Matz threw a rehab start at Triple-A Memphis on Thursday, going a couple of innings and throwing 24 pitches, via Daniel Guerrero of the St. Louis Post Dispatch.
It marked Matz's first outing since April 30. He said he thought it went well and he expects to make his second rehab start next Tuesday. However, the location and workload have yet to be decided, notes Guerrero.
Manager Oli Marmol recently provided some positive news on his lefty starter, as well, so Matz is right on schedule.
Matz made six starts before going down with the injury. During that time, he went 1-2 with a 6.18 ERA. Over 27.2 innings, he allowed 37 hits while registering 17 strikeouts, so he wasn't exactly lighting it up on the mound. He also lays claim to a 4.73 FIP, and his strikeout-to-walk ratio (1.55) is rather ugly.
The Cardinals went into Friday's action with a record of 29-32. They sit 6.5 games behind the Milwaukee Brewers for first place in the NL Central. They are, however, right in the thick of the National League Wild Card race.
The Cardinals may be due for a bit of a regression
St. Louis may currently be in contention, but it may be smoke and mirrors. Well, somewhat.
Baseball Reference has the Cardinals' Pythagorean record at 26-35, indicating that they may have benefited from some good luck along the way. That's not hard to believe, considering that St. Louis isn't elite (or all that particularly good) in any one category.
The Cardinals rank 18th in the majors in ERA, thanks much in part to Matz's struggles and the fact that Miles Mikolas owns a 5.32 ERA through 13 starts. Kyle Gibson, Sonny Gray and Lance Lynn have actually all been solid, but Matz and Mikolas have been weak links in the rotation over the first couple of months and change.
St. Louis has also been miserable offensively, ranking 21st in batting average, 22nd in OPS, 21st in home runs and 27th in runs scored.
As you can see, there is really nothing about the Cardinals that screams “contender” this season, so it will be interesting to see how the front office decides to proceed with the July 30 trade deadline quickly approaching.
Matz himself could actually be a trade candidate, although his value is probably fairly low at the moment given how much he had been laboring before the injury. Plus, the 33-year-old has been injury-prone throughout his big-league career, only throwing 100 innings five times in 10 seasons.
Last season, Matz made 25 appearances and 17 starts, going 4-7 with a 3.86 ERA.
When healthy, the Stony Brook, N.Y. native is a decent guy to have in the back of your rotation, as evidenced by his lifetime 4.31 ERA. But that's just the thing: Matz is rarely healthy, and when he is, he is, again, a back-end-of-the-rotation pitcher.
The Cardinals are used to making the playoffs and vying for World Series championships, but they have fallen on hard times these last couple of seasons. They won just 71 games in 2023, ending their streak of four straight postseason appearances and 15 consecutive winning campaigns.
