St. Louis Cardinals: Poncedeleon called up, Wong’s knee sends him to DL

The St. Louis Cardinals announced Monday that Kolten Wong would be headed to the 10-day disabled list, and pitcher Daniel Poncedeleon was called up in a separate move. Poncedeleon gets the start Monday night in Cincinnati, just over a year removed from a horrific head injury.

Kolten Wong had been beginning to rebound from his dreadful start to the season at the plate for the St. Louis Cardinals, slashing .288/.354/.479 over his past 23 games, bringing his season average up from .188 to .216. There were no injury reported when Wong sat out Sunday, so people assumed it was a day off.

Despite his struggles at the plate, he has still been valuable to the Cardinals based on what he has done on the field. He leads second baseman in most defensive metrics, including Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), Range Runs (rngR), which measures the runs saved based on a player’s ability to get to balls in his vicinity. Simply put, Wong has demonstrated the largest fielding range among second basemen this season.

He also leads second basemen in dWAR, and is sixth in the MLB in dWAR overall. At just 27 years old, Wong has proven to be one of the best defensive infielders in the league, but his inability to hit the ball over the first 75 games has somewhat overshadowed that.

This stint should not be alarming for St. Louis Cardinal fans, as interim manager Mike Shildt doesn’t think the injury will be a long term problem.

For knee inflammation with no previous reports of injury, it is safe to believe Shildt here. With the way Wong was rebounding, St. Louis Cardinals fans should hope that he is back soon.

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Daniel Poncedeleon’s story is at a much more uplifting point. This start will be a culmination of an arduous, 14 month long recovery process from taking a hard line drive to the skull that resulted in an epidural hematoma: a brain bleed. After staying in the ICU for several weeks following the emergency surgery, Poncedeleon had to stay sentient for months to allow his brain to properly heal.

Now just 26, Poncedeleon is showing that he  is ready to move forward, and still has his whole career ahead of him. He has put up a 9-3 record with an impressive 2.15 ERA and 103 K’s in 92 innings this season with Memphis. Those numbers show that he doesn’t have much more to prove at the Triple-A level.

Poncedeleon was called up for three games in June, but was sent back down before appearing in a single game. There is no doubt that he’ll play now, as the Cardinals are short a starter following Carlos Martinez‘s trip to the disabled list.

Poncedeleon’s start will mark the third debut for a Cardinal pitcher this year following Jack Flaherty and Austin Gomber, who are also slated to start in this series. The St. Louis Cardinals are sitting at just 50-49, and have gone 3-3 with Schildt. The team is hoping these rookies can light a fire back under this squad to make a run for the postseason.

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Are you excited to see this comeback story come to fruition? Do you think Poncedeleon will be able to hang in the big leagues? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.