One of Cardinals' few remaining healthy top pitching prospects is dominant this year

With a majority of the Cardinals' top pitching prospects dealing with various injuries this season, the organization was in much need of a success story in the pitching prospect department.

They are getting just that with one of their top arms in their system in Chen-Wei Lin after he came back from an injury last month and made his season debut in May. After coming off the IL on May 4th, Lin has made 5 starts between Low-A and High-A. The 23-year-old threw a scoreless two-inning start for Palm Beach before getting moved up to Peoria, where he has made 4 more starts. A very positive note from his first start in Low-A was the return of his high-90s velocity on his fastball, which touched 99 MPH in the outing.

So far in his first taste of High-A this year, Lin has a 1.93 ERA over 14 innings pitched. He has struck out 15 batters and has only walked 5 during that span. He has been showing off the fastball that has touched triple digits this year as well as a hard gyro slider that go hand in hand in piling up the strikeouts he has recorded this year.

While Lin had missed the first month of the season due to an injury, his return has marked a significant step forward for the pitching depth in the minors. He is currently ranked as the 13th best prospect in the system, according to MLB.com, and there are five pitchers ranked ahead of him. Top pitching prospect Quinn Mathews has only made six starts this year. Tink Hence has only made two starts. Cooper Hjerpe underwent Tommy John surgery in April. Sem Robberse and Brian Holiday, who are ranked right behind him, both will miss the rest of the season with injuries.

If Lin can roll his positive month of May outings into June, he could see a rise in the prospect rankings and give the Cardinals a very intriguing arm in the low minors working his way up.