St. Louis Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina came out of Monday’s Game 3 in the 6th inning after re-aggravating the strained ligament in his left thumb while swinging the bat.
“Don’t know yet,” answered Matheny on Molina’s status moving forward. “For him to come out, I think people who follow our team closely realize that’s significant as far as what it must feel like. We could tell a little bit in how he was catching today and definitely when you saw the one particular swing, but watched him in all the warm-ups and watched him in BP–he looked good.”
Molina missed the final 13 games of the regular season after injuring the ligament applying a tag to Anthony Rizzo sliding into home on September 2oth.
“You just never know with that particular injury if there’s a ball that gets fouled off or a swing that doesn’t quite feel right, it could set him backwards. We’re going to let our medical guys get their hands on him–part of the messaging with him was let’s try and get ahead of this before it goes any further to where we have to rule you out altogether. Let’s see what they can do, see if they can once again support that thumb in a way that he can continue to play and just see if maybe getting him out a little early can help us as we move forward.”
photo credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
