St. Louis Cardinals: September 1st brings reinforcements

Rosters have finally expanded for the St. Louis Cardinals and reinforcements have arrived. Who is up and where are they going to help the team?

The St. Louis Cardinals fell into a little bit of bad luck this weekend with their series with the Cincinnati Reds as bad weather on Friday night added that game to Sunday and a rainout earlier in the year already made for a doubleheader on Saturday so now the team has two doubleheaders in a row followed by a day game Monday.

The series has clearly gone well so far as the team swept the first doubleheader Saturday and look to do the same Sunday. With five games in around 50 hours, the team is in need of reinforcements and thankfully, Sunday is September 1st meaning rosters are expanded.

The usual 25-man roster goes to 40 possible and taxed bullpens can take a breath. Teams rarely go to the full 40 players as there would be way too many players to have playing time but manager Mike Shildt has said that his magic number to expand to is 33.

Sunday morning it came out that journeyman catcher Joe Hudson would also be joining the big club as Matt Wieters seems to need a couple of days off to recover. This move coincided with Lane Thomas moving to the 60-day IL, sadly ending his season with a fractured right wrist.

This tweet clearly went out on Saturday but the names included are about what any fan should expect. Jose Martinez and Andrew Knizner are the only batters which makes sense as the team’s recent lineups have been doing just fine lately so a supplemental player like Martinez and a rookie like Knizner are good choices to soak up the playoff push and help where they can right away.

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Rangel Ravelo, Randy Arozarena, and Edmundo Sosa have all earned the late-season promotion to the bigs after strong seasons at AAA. For Arozarena, there seems to be no point in yelling that he should play because 1) if he didn’t play when he was on the 25-man roster, he definitely won’t when there are 33 players and 2) the current lineup has been getting it done lately.

The team has had one of the best bullpens in baseball this year, but every year, no matter how much use it’s gotten, bullpens need some more bullets. The returns of Genesis Cabrera, Daniel Ponce de Leon, Mike Mayers, and Junior Fernandez should all find innings down the stretch where they can contribute, even if they aren’t high leverage situations.

For all of these players, this is their last chance to prove they deserve a spot on the team next year, especially Ponce and Mayers who was already DFA’d once this year.

The only two names that some might have expected to come up were Dylan Carlson and Justin Williams who has been on fire recently. Carlson is slated for the AFL and will be fine if he gets some time off to relax before then.

There is nothing too big to get excited about with these players coming up, but it does signal one thing: less than a month left in the regular season. The Cardinals have plenty of history with no-name players coming up and producing and all you can hope is that these players make the most of their opportunities.