The St. Louis Cardinals hope to usher in a new era with the promotion of one of their top prospects, while the Los Angeles Dodgers welcome back a veteran outfielder who they might not be able to incorporate in their current outfield rotation.
One of the Cardinals' top prospects, Stephen Piscotty, will get the call from Triple-A Memphis this week, according to Rob Rains of STLSportsPage.com. The team's No. 3 prospect heading into the 2015 season will make his MLB debut on Tuesday when he joins the team in Chicago for their upcoming series against the White Sox.
Piscotty is primarily an outfielder, but has played his last six games at first base as the Cardinals might be looking for someone to replace Mark Reynolds, who is batting just .229/.297/.386 with 20 runs scored, 8 home runs and 33 RBIs in 82 games. Piscotty was slashing .272/.366/.475 with 54 runs scored, 11 home runs and 41 RBIs in 87 games with Memphis before the promotion.
"The Cardinals also will be able to use a designated hitter in the two games in Chicago," Rains writes.
"The Cardinals have struggled at first base since regular Matt Adams was lost for the season because of a torn quad muscle."
In Los Angeles, the Dodgers will welcome back Carl Crawford before Monday's game against the Atlanta Braves. The veteran has been out since late April with a torn oblique muscle, but due to the logjam in the Dodgers' outfield, it doesn't look like he'll be getting his starting job back immediately.
"The plan is to keep the starting outfield intact and use Crawford as a pinch hitter and to give Andre Ethier, Joc Pederson and Yasiel Puig occasional days off," writes Mark Saxon of ESPNLosAngeles.com.
"I see times when both Carl and Andre[Ethier] play," Dodgers manager Don Mattingly told Saxon. "We've got a chance to do some things and we'll see where it goes. Carl's been swinging the bat good and, obviously, 'Dre's been swinging the bat really good. The first two games here, I don't think anybody has swung the bat better than Andre. He's squared up everything he's swung at."
We touched upon this a little while back because of Ethier's consistent and solid play. After a disappointing 2014 season, Ethier rebounded in 2015 and took advantage of his playing time when Crawford went down and owns a .287/.371/.480 stat line with 36 runs scored, 10 home runs and 33 RBIs in 84 games.
Either way, Mattingly is faced with a tough decision because Ethier and Crawford are among the team's highest-paid players. If anybody, those two are likely subjected to partial playing time considering Pederson and Puig are the other outfielders.
We'll see how Mattingly utilizes Crawford tonight.
