St. Louis Cardinals Place Brandon Moss on DL; Randal Grichuk Recalled from Triple-A Memphis
Though they’ll be offering a reboot to Randal Grichuk, who was supposed to be one of their key offensive cogs this year, the St. Louis Cardinals lose Brandon Moss, who’s turned into an important middle-of-the-lineup presence.
The St. Louis Cardinals made a transaction before Tuesday night’s game, placing outfielder Brandon Moss on the 15-day disabled list with a left ankle sprain and recalling outfielder Randal Grichuk from Triple-A Memphis.
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Moss suffered the injury while running the bases in Monday afternoon’s loss to the Pirates.
While he still has yet to receive everyday playing time, Moss has quietly become one of the Cardinals’ most productive hitters. While Matt Carpenter and Aledmys Diaz are the heart and soul of the Cards’ lineup at the top of the order, Moss is 13th among National League hitters (min. 200 plate appearances) with a .910 OPS. Moss is also tied for 13th in the league in home runs (17) despite having significantly fewer at-bats than all the hitters ahead of him. Many fans probably still think of him as a bench player, but in reality, Moss is going to be a very difficult player for the Cardinals to replace. The good news is that he’s not expected to be out too long after the All-Star break.
Grichuk, meanwhile, will return to St. Louis for a fresh start after going down to Memphis for just over two weeks and posting mediocre (but unsurprising) results. In 15 games, Grichuk hit .283/.291/.623 with five homers, 13 strikeouts, and one walk in 55 plate appearances. In other words, his pitch recognition was just as atrocious as it’s been all season, but Grichuk continued to do the one thing that he’s done extremely well for the past two years: hit home runs.
At this point, it might be reaching to assume that Grichuk’s going to return to the form he displayed in his rookie season–when he hit .276/.329/.548 with 17 homers in 350 plate appearances–but as long as he can perform capably in the outfield and deliver some clutch homers, he’ll at least be a decent option off the bench. He had a pinch hit single in the ninth inning of Tuesday night’s loss to the Pirates, so the Cardinals will be hoping that that’s a sign of things to come for the 24-year-old.
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It should be interesting to see how playing time is divided among Grichuk, Tommy Pham, Kolten Wong, and Stephen Piscotty in center field. Pham earned the start on Tuesday night, but is hitting just .200 for the season, while Wong is seemingly just beginning to come around at the plate.