(Busch Stadium) After his start on Monday night, Michael Wacha was forced to come to grips with reality–the shoulder inflammation and scapular issues of two years ago have returned.
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“Yeah, same kind of symptoms type deal of 2014,” admitted Wacha this afternoon. “I’m not very happy about it. I was hoping it was just a little inflammation or something in there that was causing it to have that pain.”
As a result, the St. Louis Cardinals have placed Wacha on the 15-day disabled list and he will visit with a specialist this weekend in Chicago to try to understand why the condition has returned.
“He’s definitely been struggling with command for some time and if there’s a correlation between the two then it’s been going on a while,” said General Manager John Mozeliak. “In terms of us feeling that it was time to get him looked at, certainly felt after last night’s outing this made sense.”
Besides the pain, the right-hander’s command has also been affected by condition.
“It would cause me to cut some balls off and not get through them with the extension out in front,” explained Wacha.
Trying to gauge a workload that won’t cause the irritation for Wacha will be less than an exact science. Last year, he threw 181.1 innings with the same mechanics and had no issue. This season he’s at 131.1 innings.
“I can’t really pinpoint when I started feeling it,” said Wacha. “I get sore after every start–it’s kind of hard to tell if it’s in that scap or it’s in the shoulder because I still get shoulder soreness but that stuff goes away before the next start. It’s just the irritation and stress reaction that causes that pain, I guess.”
Changing mechanics or a move to the bullpen are both possibilities in the future, but the immediate focus is try and narrow down the cause and root of the problem.
“For us, it’s let it quiet down but when you’re looking at really trying to solve the problem, I think we’re going to have to roll up our sleeves and try to figure this out,” said Mozeliak.
“I don’t think there’s any surgery that can fix this,” said Wacha. “It’s just rest and let that bone heal.”
Alex Reyes has been promoted to take Wacha’s spot on the 25-man roster and Luke Weaver will be promoted on Saturday to fill the hole in the rotation.
photo credit: Bill Greenblatt/UPI
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