St. Louis Cardinals News: Daniel Ponce de Leon hits IL with injury

The St. Louis Cardinals just can’t figure out how to stay healthy. On Wednesday, Daniel Ponce de Leon became the most recent injured player.

With each day that passes, it feels like there are three guarantees in life: death, taxes, and the St. Louis Cardinals placing another pitcher on the injured list.

Once again, that was proven correct.

The Cardinals placed pitcher Daniel Ponce de Leon on the injured list with right shoulder discomfort and recalled right-handed pitcher Seth Elledge from Triple-A Memphis. The news comes just 15 hours after de Leon exited the Cardinals game against the Detroit Tigers in the fifth inning with trainer Adam Olsen. He admitted after the game to reporters, including Jeff Jones of the Belleville News, that it was similar to the shoulder soreness that put him on the IL in April.

“Just kinda been hanging on there and it finally got back to me,” de Leon said.

It’s yet another blow to a Cardinals pitching staff that has been decimated by injuries, with starters Jack Flaherty and Miles Mikolas also on the injured list. De Leon, TK, had pitched both in relief and out of the rotation for the Cardinals, most recently in a relief role, putting up an uninspiring 7.03 ERA and 17/13 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 24.1 innings. His 6.12 FIP paints a similar picture and it’s fair to wonder if the lingering shoulder soreness had an impact on his numbers, considering he had produced ERAs in the 2.73 to 4.96 range throughout the first three seasons of his career.

If that is indeed the case, the Cardinals would be wise to keep de Leon on the IL for more than 10 days, which would give them further reason to add more pitching. They have talked to the Minnesota Twins and Texas Rangers about their pitching and we recently explored how the Detroit Tigers could be a team to watch at the trade deadline.

Either way, the de Leon injury is yet another setback for the Cardinals pitching staff. And if they don’t either 1) get healthy soon or 2) add more pitching, they could soon find themselves even further back in the National League Central.