Early Exit for Heyward

St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Jason Heyward had an abbreviated stay in centerfield on Monday night, leaving the game in the 3rd inning with tightness in his left hamstring.

“We’re gonna have to wait and see,” said Mike Matheny after the game. “He came out and just felt a little tight. It didn’t seem like it was anything more than that from what we hear. They’re going to keep getting their hands on him and give him every test that we can get and see where we are.”

Heyward had issues with dehydration and cramping earlier this season, but that wasn’t the exact circumstance tonight.

“Not necessarily a cramp as much as he just couldn’t get loose,” furthered Matheny. “We sent him upstairs to get it stretched and it just didn’t get to a point where it felt like it was loosened up like he would expect it to, so we had to make a move.”

Tommy Pham, who was recalled from Memphis earlier in the day as Randal Grichuk was placed on the disabled list, replaced Heyward in centerfield.

“We’re just going to pause here–we’re not going to jump into anything right now. Let’s wait and see,” said Matheny about the possibility of another outfielder headed to the sidelines. “I felt like we were being cautious today. Jason wanted to go back out there and play defense and see how it loosened up. He said there’s been days where one thing or another was tight and he was able to go and figure it out. We made the proactive move of just getting him out when we could and hopefully that pays off.”

Prior to the game, Heyward spoke at length about looking forward to the challenge of moving over to get some innings in centerfield.

“You can see the whole field for the most part,” he began. “I’m always moving anyways, but centerfield I feel like you always have somewhere to be, backing somebody up. Something goes down–the ball going to right field, left field. Infielders–if you can get there, you can call them off because you’ve got priority. So that’s the funnest thing about centerfield.”

Prior to moving over after Grichuk’s injury, Heyward last played centerfield in 2013 when he manned the spot for 20 games in Atlanta.

“You do something that’s new, it’s going to take repetition,” said Heyward of the move. “You just try to keep it as simple as possible. Keep it as real as possible, understanding sometimes the safer play is going to be a smarter play when you’re not as familiar with it. But to me, if I can catch the ball, I’m going to try and catch the ball. I feel like a big thing is going to be throwing the ball in and hitting cut-offs and making sure those are taken care of because that’s going to be big in centerfield to keep guys from taking extra bases.”

photo credit: Jeff Curry-USA Today Sports