St. Louis Cardinals: Miles Mikolas Heads to IL with forearm strain

St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Miles Mikolas is headed to the injured list with a strained forearm. Mikolas has been through a myriad of injuries since his last start in the 2019 playoffs. The 32-year-old missed all of 2020 with injuries and faced another setback in his first bullpen session of 2021. He is headed to Dr. James Andrews, on Wednesday, for a second opinion on his injury.

St. Louis Cardinals lose Miles Mikolas just as he returns

The former Texas Ranger is in the second year of his four-year, $68 million contract which has yet to work out for the Cardinals. Mikolas was an All-Star with the Cardinals in 2018, his first year with St. Louis. The righty posted superb numbers while eclipsing the 200 innings pitched mark, maintaining a sub-3.00 ERA, and striking out 146 while only walking 29.

In 2019, Miles Mikolas struggled a bit but was still considered a top half of the rotation starter. His issue in 2019 as he was leaving balls elevated which resulted in more than one home run allowed per nine innings. Despite that, Miles Mikolas strikeout to walk ratio remained almost identical to his breakout 2018 season.

In his place, the St. Louis Cardinals have called up fellow pitcher Junior Fernandez from Triple-A Memphis. Fernandez, a right-handed pitcher, has spent some time in the majors in each of the last three seasons but has never been able to stick around. Over 17 games and 15 innings, Fernandez has allowed three home runs and sits with a very pedestrian 18/10 K/BB ratio.

The Cardinals made a change with Fernandez this year. Instead of being rolled back and forth between starter and reliever, he has exclusively worked in a reliever role. In five relief appearances for Memphis, Fernandez has garnered a respectable 3.38 ERA. More importantly, his control has improved dramatically as evidenced by his 10/1 K/BB ratio in 5.1 innings of work. Despite one terrible outing in 2021, the Cardinals still have a belief in Fernandez, or else he would not be called back to St. Louis.

Fernandez throws his fastball 46.3% of the time, his go-to pitch. His fastball velocity has fluctuated over the last three years but it has generally sat right around 96 miles per hour. The reliever also features a change-up which clocks in around 88 miles per hour followed by an 87-mile per hour slider which he throws 22.5% of the time.

In 2019, his first year in the majors, Fernandez utilized all three of his pitches compared to 2020 and 2021 which has seen a staggering drop off of slider usage. In 2019, Fernandez threw his slider 26.6% of the time followed by only 13.1% in 2020, and, with only one appearance in 2021, the slider has been thrown about 11% of the time. In exchange for throwing his slider less, Fernandez has leaned on his fastball and has seen a 19% increase in fastball usage. It would not hurt Fernandez to mix up his pitches as he did in 2019 to keep opposing hitters off balance.