Cardinals need these 4 players to step up during Ivan Herrera's injury absence

The St. Louis Cardinals teased fans with an opening weekend sweep of the Minnesota Twins but have quickly fallen into a tailspin after a series loss to the Angels and an embarrassing sweep at the hands of the Red Sox. To make matters worse, Ivan Herrera, who had been their hottest hitter to start the year, will be out at least four weeks after a bone bruise suffered in the first game of a doubleheader in Boston.

At the time of his injury, Herrera had popped four homers, including a historic three-homer game, to go along with a team-leading 11 RBIs over his first 21 at-bats. The rest of the offense was also humming, with Lars Nootbaar reaching base in every game he has played this season, Nolan Arenado having a 15-game hitting streak to start the year that ended Tuesday, and Masyn Winn showing signs of turning it around after early struggles. The pitching, however, has struggled mightily since the calendar turned to April. If the current arms cannot alter their pace, the offense is going to continue to have plenty of pressure to score runs just to keep the team in the game.

With Herrera out of action for at least the next month, who needs to step up?

Willson Contreras

First baseman Willson Contreras would be the answer to many questions regarding the Cardinals' offense, as the slugger is fighting through a massive struggle at the dish since heading north from Jupiter. After torching the ball in Florida, Contreras has not gotten things going since the games have started counting. Of most concern is his strikeout rate which is hovering around an abysmal 40% which is almost 10% higher than what Nolan Gorman experienced last season that got him demoted and moved to a bench role.

Contreras currently looks lost at the plate, also sporting a miserable 41% chase rate, and he has not necessarily hit the ball hard with enough consistency to make us think he is close to breaking out. To the viewer, it looks like his pitch recognition is off and he is caught guessing too many times. He tends to chase pitches out of the zone and take too many hittable pitches. A quick look at Contreras' Baseball Savant page shows a lot of blue, and blue is bad. And this is not just a little bit of blue that is hovering around league average. He ranks near the bottom in important peripheral stats like exit velocity, barrel percentage, expected batting average, and whiff rate, which shows that he is not just hitting into bad luck but is truly struggling to the point where the rest of the lineup has to constantly pick up the pieces behind him.

Manager Oli Marmol has continued to hit Contreras in the second spot in the lineup, a spot that I was all for with his hot spring and the power potential while hitting in front of run producers Brendan Donovan and Nolan Arenado. However, his tough start to the year has made that spot a near-automatic out and has left Nootbaar or others stranded on the base paths. So far, 24 of Contreras' 42 at-bats have been taken with a runner on base, with 12 of those with at least one runner in scoring position. With runners on base, Contreras has a total of 3 hits, further highlighting the need for a quick shift in order for his bat to be a major part of this offense.

Without Herrera, even more pressure is going to be put on the shoulders of the burly first baseman. In the game that Herrera was injured, Marmol moved Contreras to the fifth spot in the order, but since the injury, he has been back in the two hole. He did put up two hits in the last game in Boston, but that was lost in the 18-7 shellacking that took place on national television, so even his first multi-hit game of the year did not mean much to the overall offense.

Contreras' move to first base was made in an effort to keep him healthy because the lineup was cooking last year before his fractured forearm put him on the shelf. This position change appeared to pay early dividends when Herrera took off as the primary catcher, but without that big bat in the lineup for the future, Contreras will need an extremely quick turnaround. There is a near-zero chance that he will be asked to gear up again for the Cardinals, as the team trusts Pedro Pages to take over the starting role until Herrera's return.