Cardinals first baseman Matt Adams went under the knife on Friday to repair a right quad tear, and while the surgery was successful, GM John Mozeliak said the 26-year-old is likely to need roughly four months to recover after the surgeon found a complete tear of Adam’s quad. The injury, suffered while rounding first base on a double during Tuesday’s game, is likely to keep Adams off the field for the rest of the regular season.
Adams was originally expected to be sidelined 3-4 months, and Mozeliak told Brian Stull of St. Louis Baseball Weekly that an adjustment has been made to Adam’s timetable:
“We’ll just see,” he added. “See how rehab goes and not ruling anything out today, but based on what I’ve been told it’s probably going to be longer rather than shorter.”
On the possibility of Adams returning late in the season or potentially the postseason, Mozeliak told Jenifer Langosch of MLB.com that it’s simply too soon to tell:
“It’s really premature to understand what that that would look like, but our hope is that he has a full and complete recovery. Obviously, we expect Spring Training to be normal. In terms of whether we’d be able to have him available for late September or if we were to be playing in October, time would tell.”
Both Mozeliak and skipper Mike Matheny reiterated to Stull that Mark Reynolds, signed over the offseason to a 1-year, $2 million contract, will get a chance to serve as the club’s everyday first baseman moving forward.
Internal first base options at AAA Memphis include Xavier Scruggs and 35-year-old veteran Dan Johnson, who has played parts of nine seasons in the big-leagues, as well as outfielder Stephen Piscotty, a former college corner infielder who could work some at first. The club also has plenty of options to spell Reynolds at first base for the occasional off-day at the major-league level, such as Yadier Molina, Pete Kozma, Matt Carpenter, Tony Cruz, and even Jon Jay, but the team would be in trouble if Reynolds were to be sidelined for an extended period of time.
Feature image used under Creative Commons from Keith Allison. No changes made. Creative Commons License.
