St. Louis Cardinals: What if Jack Flaherty didn’t get hurt?

After Jack Flaherty’s dominant outing on Friday night, everyone in the St Louis Cardinals organization is wondering: What if he didn’t get hurt?

The St. Louis Cardinals’ season got off to a roaring start this season, leading the National League Central by 0.5 games on May 31. Then Jack Flaherty suffered a significant oblique injury and everything changed.

When Flaherty returned 73 days later, the Cardinals sat 11 games behind the Milwaukee Brewers in the division. Their postseason chances sat at less than two percent. And Flaherty dominated against the Kansas City Royals, throwing six shutout innings and allowing two hits while improving to 9-1 on the season, leaving everyone asking:

Where would the Cardinals be had Flaherty not gotten hurt?

It would be tough for the Cardinals to go 9-1 in 10 more Flaherty starts, but it’s very likely that they would have won at least seven of those games, if not more. And while that would not put them in the lead in the NL Central, it would make them a whole lot more competitive now and resulted in far more interesting months of August and September – and far greater postseason chances than the 3.6 percent FanGraphs pegs them at entering Saturday.

The Cardinals’ trade plans likely would have changed, too, with the organization pursuing more prominent upgrades for the rotation and lineup. They could have made a bid for Colorado Rockies shortstop Trevor Story, who would have been a clear upgrade at shortstop over Paul DeJong. Instead, they made incremental additions with Jon Lester and J.A. Happ, both of whom are unlikely to be with the organization beyond 2021.

There was a noticeable boost in morale in the clubhouse with Flaherty back on the mound, something players noted after the game. They won in convincing fashion, 6-0, in his first game back and looked like a different team with their ace healthy and heading a rotation that operated with Adam Wainwright, Kwang Hyun Kim and scraps for over two months.

If the Cardinals didn’t realize just how important Flaherty is, the last 73 days provided a reminder. Perhaps that influences their thinking when it comes to future contract extension talks in the future. For now, however, it leaves the whole organization wondering what might have been had Flaherty stayed healthy.