St. Louis Cardinals: Jose Oquendo taking Medical Leave

The injury bug his bitten the St. Louis Cardinals in a most obscure way as Jose Oquendo takes medical leave following knee surgery

Even when the St. Louis Cardinals players have a decent stretch of good health (of course after the Jhonny Peralta thing), it doesn’t appear that anybody in the organization is safe in the injury department.

According to a press release from the Cardinals earlier this afternoon, “The Secret Weapon”, Jose Oquendo will be “taking a medical leave of absence from the team for the foreseeable future.”

Oquendo underwent a second procedure of the offseason on his right knee earlier this spring. He was originally able to return to the club with the help of crutches about a week ago.

The hope was that Oquendo would be able to shed the crutches by Opening Day, and to be back coaching third base for the Cardinals as he has for the past 16 seasons.

Unfortunately, things haven’t progressed as hoped by Oquendo and the club, and Oquendo will go on the DL of third base coaches.

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In his absence, Chris Maloney will move from first base to third base coaching duties, with Bill Mueller taking over first base duties.

The Cardinals haven’t released any sort of timetable for Oquendo’s return, only saying that he would be out for the foreseeable future.

Third base coaching duties can (and often do) weigh heavily on wins and losses, and Jose has been as good as there has been in baseball at that job. It can be a relatively thankless job, and one that is always subject to second-guessing and after-the-fact scrutiny.

If a third base coach makes the right call, it was the obvious and easy choice. If he gets a man thrown out at the plate, especially in a late-game situation, you can guarantee that he will be second guessed for days to come.

Outside of some spring training work, Maloney has very little experience coaching at first base, and he certainly has never faced that challenge at the big league level.

That isn’t to say that he can’t handle the job, just that it is a pretty high pressure situation to be thrust into.

Every decision he makes will be subject to scrutiny over there, with any bad result being met with comments like, “well that wouldn’t of happened with Jose over there.”

Ideally, this isn’t more than a one or two week thing. I’m sure Jose will be out there the second he can walk on his own. There just isn’t any definite answer to when that might be.

The fact of the matter is that Jose Oquendo has been central to everything the Cardinals have done this millennium, and his absence will have an impact on the club.

Next: Worries for Kolten Wong

Even when it seems like the Cardinals are managing to keep themselves afloat in the injury department, they still can’t catch a break.