St. Louis Cardinals News: Tyler O’Neill to IL, Thomas and Oviedo up

Following his removal from Saturday’s game, Tyler O’Neill has been optioned to the IL, pulling Lane Thomas up to the St. Louis Cardinals.

The start to the season hasn’t been great for Tyler O’Neill after being one of the best St. Louis Cardinals’ players this spring. At times, he’s looked overmatched at the plate, striking out nearly 50% of the time.

On Saturday, O’Neill stepped to the plate with two runners on and nobody out in the bottom of the second inning. After taking one of his better at-bats in the last few days, he hit a rocket up the middle. Sadly, the Brewers played O’Neill perfectly and had second baseman Jace Peterson perfectly positioned up the middle there to make the play.

The Brewers were able to turn the double play as O’Neill wasn’t running hard out of the box. After the inning, O’Neill was pulled from the game with groin tightness. Sunday morning, the Cardinals made the move to put O’Neill on the 10-day IL.

As the tweet above mentions, Lane Thomas has been pulled from the taxi squad and will be starting in center field on Sunday.

The swap of Woodford to Oviedo is also notable. Woodford has thrown 4.0 innings for the Cards so far this year, allowing two earned runs. Replacing O’Neill in left field is Austin Dean to start. Dean hit a three-run homer Saturday, easily earning him another start.

With two outfielders now on the IL, the Cardinals need the players they have to step up. Carlson sliding to right should make the defense in the outfield even better, but Dean is a step down from O’Neill in left.

There hasn’t been a recent update on Harrison Bader and when his return is expected, but the outfield (outside of Carlson) has been pretty bad so far at the plate.