Cardinals prized asset goes down with injury just weeks before trade deadline

The Cardinals kick off the second half of the 2026 season tonight in Arizona. Unfortunately, they'll be doing so without their best left-handed reliever, as JoJo Romero has been placed on the 15-day injured list with appendicitis. No updates have been provided yet on how he is doing. In corresponding moves, the Cardinals have added reliever Scott Blewett to the 40-man roster and designated Yohel Pozo for assignment.

It's been widely expected that the Cardinals would be open to moving Romero at this year's trade deadline, with Romero being in his final year of club control and St. Louis likely looking to sell this season. With their strong start to the season, that has complicated those plans, and now his injured-list stint will as well.

Romero's injured list stint will be backdated to July 14th, meaning the earliest he can be activated is on July 29th, just five days before the deadline. Assuming he can return that quickly, that's still not much time to show opposing teams that he is back to normal, and appendicitis can cause weight loss and a period of getting back to full strength that often times takes longer than a few weeks.

Romero, if healthy, should have plenty of suitors at this year's deadline, as relievers are always in high demand and he'd likely be one of the best left-handed options available. On the season, Romero has a 3.35 ERA in 44 appearances while striking out 23.1% of the batters he has faced. His home run to flyball rate has spiked back up this year after he held it to just 4% last season, which is playing a big role in why he's letting in more runs this year.

The Cardinals may have been trending toward holding onto Romero anyway, but this news at least complicates that decision and could have a negative effect on his value.

Scott Blewett gets his chance to impact Cardinals bullpen

Blewett, 30, activated the opt-out clause in his contract the other day, meaning the Cardinals either had to let him hit free agency or add him to the Major League roster. With Romero's appendicitis popping up, it made sense to add him to the roster for now and see what he can do.

The Cardinals bullpen has struggled a ton this year, but so has Blewett in Triple-A. While he has struck out 28% of the batters he's faced and walked just 8%, opposing hitters have posted a nasty .425 batting average on balls in play against him. That lines up with the. 45.6% hard hit rate he gave up and having sub-50th percentile xBA and xSLG against him.

Even so, there had to be some regression coming when it comes to balls in play, so Blewett will have the chance to see if he can stick with the Cardinals bullpen. If not, I don't think they'll hesitate to part ways with him and try out another arm in their mix.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow