and the punishing workload facing Cardinals catchers amid a summer full of doubleheaders
It’s tough being a catcher.
After rebounding from a knee bruise earlier this season to become one of the St. Louis Cardinals’ most quietly valuable hitters, Iván Herrera is headed for another stint on the Injured List after leaving the game during the doubleheader against the Chicago White Sox. An MRI revealed Herrera suffered a Grade 2 strain in his left hamstring, which is expected to sideline him for two to six weeks (probably closer to six).
It’s another setback for Herrera. After hitting .320 with a .925 OPS and 160 wRC+, he seemed to be locking down everyday duties behind the plate. His absence now leaves the Cardinals without one of their steadiest bats—and a backstop pitchers had grown increasingly comfortable throwing to.
It will be a test of the Cardinals’ depth at the position, which, not so long ago, was being dissected as a good problem to have. “How will they ever find plate appearances for two catchers?” We were fools. All of us.
And while Herrera has been a standout this season—when healthy—the catchers as a whole have quietly held their own. The club has navigated the early goings without Willson Contreras in the mix behind the plate, sticking to the plan of moving him to first base to preserve his health and bat. It’s worked, in part because Pedro Pagés has been steady defensively, and Yohel Pozo delivered a signature moment with his walk-off against the Reds on Saturday.
Here is where I insert my obligatory complaint about the doubleheaders. With six doubleheaders already in the books, the innings that needed to be covered have piled up quickly. Catchers squatting through 18 innings in a day is not ideal, which makes it almost mandatory to play a different catcher in each game. It might be the same number of innings played, but they are distributed in a way the players are not accustomed to. And now as we head into the dog days of summer, while the rainouts might be less frequent, the fatigue might start to truly set in as temperatures soar and St. Louis humidity is cranked to “walking through soup.”
If there’s a silver lining, it’s that the Cardinals have proven scrappy in the face of attrition—and you know how much this David Eckstein jersey-owner loves scrappy. They’ve tread water without players like Gorman, who strained his hamstring back in April, and Donovan, who injured his toe on June 10 (though that came in game three of what became a six-game losing streak). They’ve mixed and matched the bullpen through short rests. And now, once again, they’re trying to patch the spine of the defense.
Injuries are part of the game, sure—but I can’t help suspecting these doubleheaders are grinding players down. I don’t know what the league could’ve done differently when rescheduling, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that the Cardinals got the short end of the stick and their roster might be paying for it.
How long they can keep doing this remains to be seen. Hopefully the bulk of these rainouts are behind us, but I truly am worried about the deadly heat wave tearing through the country this week. If we’ve learned anything from this team, it’s that adversity doesn’t always mean collapse—sometimes it just means your new backup catcher gets a postgame Gatorade bath. They are “youngry”, after all.
Happy Sunday!