St. Louis Cardinals Place Matt Holliday on 15-Day DL, Recall Miguel Socolovich
The St. Louis Cardinals have placed outfielder Matt Holliday on the disabled list with a strained quad and recalled righthanded reliever Miguel Socolovich from Triple-A Memphis. The move was expected after Holliday suffered a rather serious-looking injury while playing left field on Monday night at Coors Field. The extent of Holliday’s injury is still unknown, though GM John Mozeliak said Tuesday that he believed Holliday’s injury would be less serious than the season-ending quad strain that Matt Adams suffered last month. In the mean time, outfielders Randal Grichuk, Peter Bourjos, and Jon Jay, who had been rotating starts in the outfield, will get more extensive playing time and more frequent starts.
At least numbers-wise, Socolovich was dominant in his previous big-league stint this year, which spanned from May 1 to May 28. Over seven appearances spanning 7.2 innings, Socolovich allowed just one earned run while holding hitters to a .178 average, striking out eight, and walking just one. However, most of Socolovich’s work came in mop-up duty. He did not pitch in many high-leverage situations, as he faced 69 percent of his hitters in low-leverage situations according to Baseball Reference.
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Even though the Cardinals’ bullpen did a good job of crisis management following John Lackey‘s four-inning, 12-hit start last night, with Carlos Villanueva and Mitch Harris soaking up the remaining five innings, Socolovich’s recall gives the Cardinals some extra protection at hitter-friendly Coors Field. It wouldn’t be the most shocking thing in the world if Socolovich stuck around for more than a few days, as Mike Matheny uses his fifth bench player rather infrequently when he has one at his disposal, but it’s still possible that the Cardinals could exchange Socolovich for another position player once the Colorado series concludes.
In that case, several candidates for a promotion could include outfielder Tommy Pham, who is 3-for-9 with two homers since he returned to Memphis’s lineup, utility infielder Jacob Wilson, who is hitting .278 with an OPS of .897, four homers, and 15 RBI in 22 games at Memphis, infielder Greg Garcia, who is hitting .382 over his past 10 games, and top prospect Stephen Piscotty, who is hitting .324 with an OPS of .837 during June.
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