St. Louis Cardinals: Early Spring Returns on Pitching

It’s early in the year. Very early. Too early. But, nevertheless, the St. Louis Cardinals are already receiving intriguing results from their young pitchers.

Coming into Spring Training, the only given on the St. Louis Cardinals’ pitching staff was that Jack Flaherty would start on Opening Day. Besides that, questions abound. Who will close? Who handles the 7th and 8th? Can Carlos Martinez and Adam Wainwright stay healthy?

Other questions present themselves in terms of production. Can Miles Mikolas return to his 2018 form? Can Dakota Hudson cut down the walks? In a worst-case scenario, and all of these questions come out negative, who steps up and fills these roles and gives the St. Louis Cardinals much needed innings.

Already, the pitching staff has dealt with injuries to Mikolas and Andrew Miller, and there will no doubt be more injuries to deal with before spring training ends. Although it’s still very early in spring, there have been a handful of pitchers who have stood out to me while watching games.