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ST. LOUIS — When St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Masyn Winn exited Friday night’s game against the Phillies with back spasms, the domino effect led to the unique sight of seeing catcher Pedro Pagés on the dirt as the second baseman.
With Thomas Saggese shifting to cover for Winn at short and Brendan Donovan less flexible in the early innings due to his status as the designated hitter, it made for a rare lineup quirk.
The Cardinals were no worse off for it, winning the game over Philadelphia, 2-0, but the jokes about Pagés borrowing Donovan’s gold-plated glove wrote themselves.
After the light-hearted angle surrounding Pagés settled, the attention turned to the ramifications of Winn’s ailing back on the Cardinals roster. For his part, Winn expected to be unavailable for a couple of days, but didn’t anticipate the need for a stint on the injured list.
But after discussions with team personnel and management Saturday morning, the injured list is exactly where Winn ended up.
“In talking to him this morning, going on the IL—and making sure we feel good coming out rather than just monitoring it day to day—made a lot more sense for April,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said Saturday.
Based on the precedent the Cardinals can reference with Winn’s history of minor back issues—he dealt with them dating back to spring training in 2024—Marmol labeled the timeframe as being in the range 4 to 6 days before Winn is back to feeling like himself again. But guessing at whether this instance would end up on the front side or the back end of that projected timeline played into the Cardinals’ decision to ease off the gas with the 23-year-old shortstop.
“Are you limited in what you’re doing pregame in order to feel good enough to play in a game during that window?" Marmol said. "That’s where it, for this early in the season, doesn’t make sense to push through that.”
While the Cardinals could have allowed Winn to keep trying to thread the needle in managing the situation, Marmol acknowledged that the standard method for attempting to play through a nagging injury—to limit repetitions during a player’s pregame routine in order to ensure he’s saving enough to get through the game itself—isn’t a helpful strategy for Winn in the grand scheme given his value to the Cardinals over the long haul this summer.
“That’s not advantageous for him in April.”
Calling Winn an “ultra competitor” who “wants to be out there,” the Cardinals manager also stated that his shortstop understands the impetus behind the team’s decision to play this situation on the conservative side so early in the campaign.
Thomas Saggese was in the starting lineup at shortstop Saturday with Marmol also mentioning Brendan Donovan as another candidate to see some time there during Winn’s absence.
The corresponding roster move to Winn hitting the shelf was the return of Nolan Gorman, who Marmol said Saturday morning had been nearing his readiness to return from a hamstring injury. Even before Winn’s injury, Gorman was adamant about his preference to get back to the St. Louis roster without the need for a rehab assignment in the minors.
Since those were the nature of the conversations with Gorman based on his conditioning work and batting work in the cages at Busch Stadium prior to the development with Winn, the Cardinals felt plenty comfortable with bringing Gorman back Saturday to provide additional coverage for the infield depth as Winn works through his stint on the IL.