St. Louis Cardinals: Memphis News Including Luke Weaver to DL

While the St. Louis Cardinals won on Saturday to improve their record to 2-3, their AAA counterparts in Memphis have gone 2-1 in their young season but also released an update on young arm Luke Weaver.

The St. Louis Cardinals, after dropping two games to the media-darling Cubs and the first game to should-have-been-beaten Reds, won their contest on Saturday in loud (read: home run) fashion. This improved the young season record to 2-3. A win on Sunday could improve the season to .500-ball early.

While the Big Birds were working hard to improve their abilities and find their winning ways, the Memphis Redbirds showed they had winning ways right out of the gate. The Redbirds smashed through their opening night game (see my earlier post on this) and then went undefeated through their second game behind an impressive three-run first inning.

What looked to be an early effort toward a true undefeated season behind two home runs by Tommy Pham, the baby birds dropped their third contest of the season. Let’s take a look at their second and third contest.

In the second game of the young season, the Redbirds showed that they own the game book on offense. Todd Cunningham got the offense started with a double which was followed by Pham reaching base on an error. Patrick Wisdom sent Cunningham to the plate with a sacrifice fly which was then followed by a double from Paul DeJong plating the two ducks on the pond.

Tyler Lyons, on his rehab start, secured 3.1 innings of scoreless baseball before giving way to Arturo Reyes.

In the eighth inning, the Redbirds plated two when Wilfredo Tovar blasted a double. On the night, Tovar went 2-for-4. These two ducks-brought-in were Bader and Wisdom.

Moving to the third game of the campaign, the Redbirds showed that they too are fallible. Similarly to the St. Louis Cardinals, the Redbirds offense simply went stagnant on Saturday. Having said this, it is important to note that Pham did manage to blast two homers but these weren’t enough.

Pham’s homers were the only points of scoring on the evening. In the sixth inning, facing a 2-0 deficit, Pham mustered a two-run home run to tie the game; the Redbirds looked to be coming back but that was short-lived. Later, in the eighth inning, Pham belted a solo homer.

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Chris Ellis, who came to the St. Louis Cardinals organization as part of the Jaime Garcia trade to the Braves, made his organizational debut in this third contest. Ellis was taken off the hook by Pham’s two-run home run. To his credit, Ellis allowed only the two runs up to that point across his five total innings.

Another bright spot of the night came from Luke Voit who went 2-for-3 with a double. Despite the bright spots of Voit and Pham, the remainder of the offense simply could not bring in the runners against the Baby Cakes. Unfortunately, the Redbirds pen surrendered seven runs on the night allowing New Orleans to win by the score of 9-3.

The other big news out of Memphis is the placement of Luke Weaver, the number-three prospect in the St. Louis Cardinals organization, on the 7-day DL. This placement is retroactive to Friday, April 7.

In his start on Friday, Weaver was removed early in the contest with some hand/finger concern. As I noted in my earlier piece, the worry here is that these pains could indicate Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. The DL placement announcement came early this morning and no further news has been released. The reason for DL: finger or hand injury. Way to go, Cardinals medical staff.

I’ll keep an eye on this for us and keep you posted as we learn more.

Next: Learning from Opening Series

What do you think of the young Memphis season? Can the St. Louis Cardinals learn more from the baby birds? Will the baby birds apply needed pressure on the big birds this year? Thanks for reading and Go Cardinals!