Breaking: Cardinals key man set for a possible return ahead of…….

Fans of the Cardinals recently received some fantastic news when injured catcher Willson Contreras informed reporters on Friday, including Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat, that he was cleared to return to baseball play following the results of a CT scan, which showed positive results for his surgically repaired forearm. Right-hander Andre Pallante’s bullpen has already been utilized by Contreras, who started batting again on Saturday. Contreras told reporters that “it won’t be July” when he returns, indicating that he intends to be back in big league action by the end of the month.

Contreras, who was once predicted to miss ten weeks of activity following a bat swing from J.D. Martinez that struck his forearm back in May, has had an extraordinarily remarkable comeback. really, he was able to return to baseball exactly one month after the accident and seems to be picking up speed really rapidly. Contreras’s return would come just six or seven weeks after the injury if he returned before the end of June, but manager Oli Marmol put a stop to any idea of a speedy comeback when speaking with reporters, including those at MLB.com.  Marmol stated that in order to establish a more precise return date for Contreras, the team would keep an eye on his progress during the next several weeks and rely on the team’s medical personnel.

Contreras is going to be a big help to the Cardinals whenever he does return. The 32-year-old slugger was leading a struggling Cardinals club that finished the day with a 15-21 record, and he was batting an amazing.280/.398/.551 with a 171 wRC+ in 128 trips to the plate at the time of his injury. St. Louis has rebounded toward.500 and now has a 30-33 record, one game behind the last NL wild-card berth, while their catcher has been recovering. In an attempt to position themselves as contenders before the July 30 trade deadline, St. Louis might further change their offense if they can hang around in the wild-card race over the next few weeks and Contreras continues where he left off upon his return.

Not only is Contreras getting closer to making his Cardinals comeback this month, but veteran southpaw Steven Matz will also be making his way back from a lower back strain that disabled him at the end of April. On Tuesday, Matz will make his second rehab start at Double-A. Matz is scheduled to throw 40 pitches during his next rehab start, according to MLB.com’s Injury Tracker, but there may be some time before he makes it back to the major league team. Before Matz returns from the injured list and rejoins the big league rotation, the Cardinals apparently intend to stretch him out into the 75–80 pitch range. If he keeps putting in the same amount of work, this will probably keep him out of the lineup until close to the end of the month.

The Cardinals have struggled to find a fifth starter to replace Sonny Gray, Lance Lynn, Kyle Gibson, and Miles Mikolas in Matz’s absence. In the weeks after Matz was placed on the disabled list, the team has used both lefty Matthew Liberatore and right-hander Andre Pallante to replace that quartet; however, the pair has combined for a 7.11 ERA over five starts without Matz. Due to these difficulties, Marmol has been hesitant to say who will start when the fifth spot in the rotation is due up against the Rockies on Sunday. However, as noted by Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Marmol has stated that the starter will be chosen from “options already on the roster,” suggesting that they won’t be looking toward other options just yet beyond Pallante or Liberatore.

Sem Robberse and Adam Kloffenstein, right-handers who are currently on the club’s 40-man roster, may be options to round out the rotation should St. Louis ultimately decide to make a move. However, both of them lack big league experience and have ERAs of 4.46 and 4.50 at the Triple-A level this year. Fans of the Cardinals are undoubtedly hoping that at some point this season, they’ll witness right-hander Tink Thus, the team’s top prospect who has dominated the Double-A level throughout his age-21 season, make a mark on the big league team.