St. Louis Cardinals: What to make of Paul Goldschmidt’s injury situation

The St. Louis Cardinals are up and running in spring training and Paul Goldschmidt is dealing with some elbow soreness. Should we be worried?

This past weekend was fantastic. The St. Louis Cardinals joined the Blues and the Battlehawks in action and it was a great reminder of why spring is the best time of the year.

The Cardinals didn’t lose this weekend while playing the Mets twice. There were plenty of things to overreact to as well. Sadly though, one player was not at full strength like the Cardinals would hope for this early in spring.

Paul Goldschmidt played in just one of the games due to elbow soreness and did not play first base in that game.

Although it’s very early, this is never good news. About two weeks ago, Miles Mikolas had “just soreness,” and now he’s out for at least a month. A first baseman doesn’t need to have his arm in any way close to a pitcher, but it’s still important.

It’s comically early to draw any sort of conclusions from spring training games, but Goldschmidt went 0-1 with a walk in his first game. On Monday, Goldy is back in the lineup at DH which makes sense.

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For the Cardinals and their 32-year-old superstar, there’s no reason to push anything. There is still more than a month until the Cardinals open their season in Cincinnati on March 26th and there are a lot of games he’s going to be able to play in.

The Cardinals drastically need Goldschmidt to play at his career norms in 2020 and this isn’t a great start to this year. There’s no reason to overreact but it is a situation that the team will be watching closely.

If Goldschmidt does play limited all year, it isn’t a big deal as long as it doesn’t limit his swing. First basemen don’t throw enough for this to be dangerous. If for any reason Goldy would have to miss time, Matt Carpenter or Austin Dean would be the clear choices to replace him, which wouldn’t be the end of the world as Tommy Edman could slide in at third base.

Don’t overreact if Goldschmidt has a terrible spring offensively, he’s never been a quick starter. What matters is how he talks about his health in interviews. That is where we will be able to tell whether or not he’s going to start the year healthy or not.