St. Louis Cardinals’ rotation depth is as uncertain as the health of Mikolas’ elbow
The St. Louis Cardinals found themselves dealing with their first “little something” of spring training on Saturday morning, as starting pitcher Miles Mikolas was taken off the throwing schedule with an issue in the flexor tendon in his right elbow.
Mikolas, who has thrown 384 ⅔ innings across 64 regular season starts in the last two seasons, came into camp heavily penciled into the club’s presumed starting rotation.
That competition now takes on a new dimension with this new layer of uncertainty.
“It’s something that he just continued to have a little bit of discomfort in that area, that tendon that he’s had historically,” Cardinals manager Mike Shildt said. “He pitched through it last year. He’s been able to pitch through it. He would prefer not to have to pitch through it. It got to the point where he said, ‘you know what, let’s just look at it a little deeper, a little closer, make sure.’”
Mikolas received a platelet-rich plasma injection at the end of the 2019 season to promote healing in the area. He was pain-free throughout a “nice, easy” winter throwing program, but noticed irritation upon throwing higher effort sessions after arriving at Cardinals camp.
“Just a little soreness,” Mikolas described. “Better to take care of it in spring and not push it, try not to really hurt myself. If you’re a little sore in spring training it’s pretty normal at this point.”
The little soreness was a big enough concern that Mikolas was sent for magnetic resonance imaging on his right elbow on Saturday morning. Those images showed his ulnar collateral ligament -- the ligament which is repaired by Tommy John surgery -- to be fully intact, along with a lack of any damage in the arm save for the tendon.
“It’s connected to that flexor tendon that we’ve gotten looked at and now we’re going to treat and we’re going to take it the proverbial day by day and evaluate as we go,” Shildt said. “It is gonna set him back a little bit in time and we’ll evaluate how much.”
Neither Mikolas nor Shildt was eager to commit to a period of time in which Mikolas will be unable to throw. He is able to continue the rest of his preparation for the season, as the issue only arises when throwing and doesn’t linger during rest periods.
“I can go in there and lift and do all that stuff,” Mikolas said. “I can throw my kids in the pool and do all that stuff. It’s just when I try to crank a ball loose, it’s a little uncomfortable.”
Mikolas described the end of the 2019 postseason as the time last season at which he was feeling the greatest amount of discomfort in the tendon, and said that his performance in the playoffs should be proof that he was able to handle the issue at the time.
Indeed, Mikolas was perhaps the club’s best pitcher in the playoffs, allowing only two earned runs in 12 innings pitched across three appearances (two starts).
The Cardinals have touted their starting pitching depth as one of the team’s greatest strengths, and it now seems to be on the cusp of facing this season’s first major test.
Lefty Kwang-hyun Kim and righty Carlos Martínez were projected to be competing for the same potential spot in the St. Louis rotation, but if Mikolas’s setback is sufficient to find him on the injured list come opening day, there may be room for both pitchers to start.
Opportunities may also arise for pitchers such as Austin Gomber, Daniel Ponce de Leon, or Alex Reyes.
“We have a lot of depth,” Shildt said. “We know the names. And we don’t want to draw from it but it’s there if we have it.
“The thing about having depth, it’s not only depth. You have the bodies, but you also have the quality of depth, the people with experience that have done this and are more than capable of being there if and when we need them.”
Neither Mikolas nor Shildt were willing on Saturday to broach the possibility of Mikolas being unavailable at the start of the regular season.
“It’s hard to evaluate that at this moment but we’re hopeful for sure,” Shildt said. “I think it’s very possible, yes,” Mikolas added.
The Cardinals were careful in the terminology they used to describe the injury, referring only to “a setback” and the aforementioned “little something.”
Aside from those descriptions - and the denial of any other structural damage -- the organization has been loath to pinpoint the issue. A period of rest will lead to a period of re-evaluation, and from there, a determination of next steps.
“There’s some concern,” Shildt acknowledged. “He’s in a setback. How great the concern is, he’s been able to pitch with it in the past. But again, it’s something we want to be able to get behind him and to look what those steps look like.”
“Whatever’s new and healed in (the arm) hasn’t been throwing a baseball for 30 years. It’s kind of new,” Mikolas said. “So it just needs to adjust. It needs time to, ‘ooh, this is throwing a baseball? This is pretty tough.’ So now it just needs maybe a couple days to strengthen up, get its R&R, some TLC, and then come back strong.”
This story was originally published February 16, 2020 at 12:54 PM.
