(Jupiter, FL) While the majority of pitchers only played long-toss or rested on Thursday, the plan has changed for St. Louis Cardinals prospect Tim Cooney.
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“He was just a little achy,” described Mike Matheny. “We always talk about how we get the trainer’s hands on them–and they just found some things that just didn’t feel like the strength was right there. Didn’t respond great. It’s February, we pump the brakes.”
Since they began two days ago, Cooney has not participated in the pitching practice sessions against live hitters.
“We do those extensive tests,” added Matheny. “In all the physicals that we’re doing most of them are just trying to find some weaknesses. Maybe there’s not an issue yet, but we’re kind of predisposed to it so let’s get ahead of it. And that’s a little bit of what we’re seeing with Tim.”
The left-hander suffered from appendicitis last July, which wound up ending his season instead of being a September call-up. In the six starts he made for the Cardinals, Cooney went 1-0 and allowed 12 runs in 31.1 innings pitched with 29 strikeouts.
“He’s actually very strong through his core and lower half,” pointed out Matheny. “There’s some things we think can help doing the upper half maybe a little differently to help stabilize and prevent, that’s really where we are. We’ve got an opportunity to maybe prevent something popping up. We’ll just kind of slow down and strengthen and try to get the base back under us.”
–Carlos Martinez said he had another “good” bullpen session on Thursday. The right-hander shared he threw about 25 pitches and smiled that everything was still “feeling good” as he follows his rehab plan.
–Stephen Piscotty was in attendance early on Thursday, but did not participate in workouts do to being sick.
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