What does Molina’s pending return mean for the St. Louis Cardinals the rest of 2022?

The day before Yadier Molina turned 40, the St. Louis Cardinals got themselves a present.

They got their catcher back. Or, at least, they firmed up a plan to do so, and provided clarity to an uncomfortable question that had lingered like an intensely competitive, overly tattooed cloud over Busch Stadium in recent weeks.

Manager Oliver Marmol shared Molina would be dispatched on a rehab assignment to an as-yet-undetermined minor league affiliate by the end of this month with eyes on rejoining the Cardinals in the first week of August. A three-city, 10-day road trip out of the All-Star break leads into a home date against the Cubs on Aug. 2, providing Molina a prime stage on which he’ll be expected to do more than take a bow.

Expectations, though, are tricky. Molina’s placement on the injured list was identified as having been due to inflammation in his right knee, and while he’s certainly spent this season more visibly under the care of trainers than in years past, pain and stiffness are nothing knew to a player who, the day before being placed on the IL, said, “everything’s good” when asked about how he felt.

This is the downside of the reputation Molina has earned through two decades of pushing behind any normal human limits of stamina and stretching his body well past its breaking. If he’s not on the field, and the explanations seem lacking, what’s to be believed?

“People have no idea, they really don’t,” Marmol said in his office Monday, speaking broadly about the expectations for his club. “I’d love for everyone that has a voice or fingers on Twitter to spend a day — I’m talking about the fan base — to spend a day in the life of one of these guys, because they have no idea the pressures and anxieties that go on for the simple fact of performing for the city because of the expectations of what they want to be able to accomplish for the city.

“People don’t talk about it nearly enough. That’s a big deal.”

Marmol talks more about Yadi’s absence

Molina, for his part, has removed himself from the city as he’s recuperated at home in Puerto Rico. That arrangement, brokered between the catcher and the club, was accepted out of deference to his years of service and born of a belief Molina, more than anyone, is in the best position to identify the ways in which he needs to heal.

“Yadi has dedicated his life to this organization and winning here. If he’s not here, he has a reason, and I have to respect the hell out of that,” Marmol said.

“Do I want him here? Yes. Yes, 100% yes. If there’s a word stronger than yes, I’ll use it.”

That push from the manager, made a day before the public explanation of Molina’s plotted return, comes at a time of visible drift. A week of offensive malaise seems to have been remedied, but a stretch of head-to-head matchups against the Phillies, Braves and Dodgers has revealed some cracks in a foundation that was laid in part against some of the league’s worst teams.

The post-Molina era, so long a theoretical concept of the far-off future for the Cardinals, is arriving for good in 2023, and the present glimpses of that future have shown the club is still reliant on its leader, perhaps more strongly than even they realized.

More about Molina

That reliance, though, can do more harm than good. For a legendary player whose body is betraying him in ways he could previously handle — and who has seen his stats slip accordingly — the pressures of the season would seem to inevitably multiply, and it can hardly come as a surprise that stepping away for more than a month would seem like the best course of action.

“When you’re a veteran, and you’ve made all the money and have everything you need, you’re set,” Marmol mused, speaking, again, not specifically about Molina. “There’s that pressure of, I’ve shown what I’m capable of doing. And now, how do we handle success? Once you show what you’re capable of doing, people expect you to repeat it. Not once in a while. They expect you to repeat it every night.

“You can sit there and go, well, that’s what you make all that money for. Correct. But there’s also the responsibility of just the human side. You want to put out. You want to be able to do it well. That’s sport. Like, that is sport. That’s the highest level. That’s what we do. So it is part of the gig, but it’s not talked about nearly enough.”

‘Means nothing’

The expectations in St. Louis, as Marmol sees them, are “different.” A season that ends in merely a winning record, by his calculation, “means nothing.”

“You either win [the World Series] or you don’t. There’s 29 losers. There’s one winner,” he said, adding, “that’s what makes this place fun.”

To find the fun again for Molina will be the trick. The club hopes that the party’s only started now that he’s blown out his birthday candles.

This story was originally published July 14, 2022 at 11:27 AM.