Winn shaken, not sidelined: Cardinals shortstop recounts details of crash scare

Oli Marmol was nearly home in west St. Louis County when the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals saw his phone light up with a call from his shortstop. Just hours after his first walk-off hit in the majors, Masyn Winn was calling with news that, all in all, would have to be considered good, given the context in which it arrived.

“I could care less about baseball at that point,” said Marmol, reacting to Winn’s revelation that he’d been involved in a single-car accident on Highway 40 just west of Busch Stadium. “He opened up with that being the first thing, that he got in an accident. I was like, gosh.”

What began as immediate concern gave way to extensive relief by Thursday afternoon, as Winn went through a battery of tests before the team departed for Detroit. Those tests went sufficiently well that he was in the lineup in the leadoff spot, as planned, for the Tigers’ home opener with left-hander Framber Valdez on the mound.

“I’m more sore from the game, playing 11 innings, than I was from the crash,” Winn said from his locker at Comerica Park. “Super thankful that I was able to walk away from that.”

From the exit of the players’ parking lot at Busch Stadium, two quick right turns lead to an entrance ramp that joins the highway from the left. Winn, who was headed home, was attempting to cut from the far left lane to the far right lane in anticipation of exiting onto Jefferson Avenue, about a mile away.

Wednesday’s wet weather left standing water on the highway, and Winn’s low-clearance BMW M4 hit a puddle with its rear wheels and began to fishtail. He described bouncing off the concrete barriers on both sides of the highway, and a photo he posted to his Instagram story of the damage to the vehicle showed it came to rest partially blocking the left lane, nearly perpendicular to the left-side concrete barricade.

The accident caused the airbag in Winn’s steering wheel to deploy, which was his most immediate and concerning source of physical pain.

“At first I thought I broke my thumb,” he said. “That’s what I was more upset about. I was like, man, I’m going to have to miss three or four weeks. And then we find out that everything’s all good.”

That discovery also came with the help of teammates. Given the hour, Winn was not the only Cardinal on the road heading west. Starting pitcher Dustin May was ahead of the crash and saw it in his rearview mirror, and Winn said May alerted the team’s medical staff. Coming up slightly behind him and arriving after the wreck was third baseman Nolan Gorman, who contacted team security, figuring another driver had likely already called 911.

“I was trying to do whatever to make sure he was OK,” Gorman said. Given the proximity to the ballpark, his first call was to the team’s security staff, reasoning that “there had to be a way to get someone there faster” than the response time from emergency services.

When Gorman stopped and reached Winn, he was greeted with a concerning sight — the shortstop’s left leg dangling out the side of the open vehicle. Winn, by then, was simply trying to extricate himself, and the moment of terror was thankfully fleeting.

A full complement of fire and rescue crews arrived on the scene, though Winn did not leave in an ambulance. Instead, Gorman drove him to Mercy Hospital in Creve Coeur, where Marmol met them and waited with Winn through a full battery of medical tests. Once the adrenaline wore off and he was left with little more than the standard bumps and bruises from a jolting collision, he was left to mourn the first expensive purchase he made with his draft bonus after signing with the Cardinals in 2020.

“I’m definitely gonna miss my car,” Winn admitted through a sheepish smile. “That was my baby. But I’m just thankful that I can be on the field today.”

His presence in the lineup let the Cardinals maintain the playing-time rotation they already had mapped out for the trip, with Yohel Pozo making his season debut at designated hitter, Jose Fermin receiving his first start in left field, and JJ Wetherholt taking his first scheduled day off. The Cardinals have historically prioritized finding off days for players before the players believe they need them, preferring not to try to play catch-up, and have tended to stack those days with off days where possible.

Those circumstances, as well as the presence of the left-hander Valdez on the mound, made Friday’s day off an understandable fit, if somewhat of a letdown given the presence of Detroit’s own phenomenal rookie, Kevin McGonigle, in the leadoff spot on the home side of the ledger.

“This is going to be a long year for JJ, so let’s just get ahead of it right out of the gate,” Marmol explained.

Left unsaid: It was a relief, all things considered, for Friday’s lineup construction to be the primary concern.