Andre Pallante makes a return to the roster to start finale

Andre Pallante started his career in 2022 with the St. Louis Cardinals after a breakout Spring Training following playing for the club's AA Springfield affiliate.

During that first season, Pallante made ten starts for the Cardinals. After his ten starts, he transitioned to a long-relief role. He pitched in 47 games that first season, 108 innings, and struck out 73 batters.

In 2023, he was primarily a relief pitcher. It could be argued that he was used too much as he threw 68 innings over 62 games pitched, but he did walk fewer batters. He walked 40 batters in 2022 and 30 in 2023. As he started the 2024 season, his relief role was quickly shut down after nine performances in which he threw ten innings and compiled a 6.30 ERA. He gave up seven earned runs, a home run, and five walks.

With the pitching staff getting off to a rough start in April, the Cardinals quickly shut down the players with the most problems, including Pallante. The organization decided to allow Pallante time to stretch out to become a starter.

The Cardinals have not successfully moved a pitcher between a starting and relief role—think Matthew Liberatore and Zack Thompson.

Human beings are creatures of habit. Knowing your role and following a plan to stick with it is essential. The Cardinals have fallen into a bad habit of doing this to role players over the past few seasons, allowing a player to get comfortable in one role and then getting moved around. In some cases, this happens multiple times.

That kind of treatment can grow tiresome and frustrating for anyone, especially a young baseball player trying to find his place on the team and contribute.

Pallante will now get another shot at becoming a starter for the Cardinals against the Reds on Wednesday.

Before being sent to Memphis, Pallante used a mix of a four-seam fastball, a sinker, and a slider. He began using a knuckle curve as his putaway pitch. Hopefully, the young arm got some time to perfect the pitch he developed over the offseason.

Here's hoping Pallante has a successful outing against the Reds, which makes it impossible to consider moving him back to the bullpen.