The Cardinals' pitching staff can't catch a break. Hunter Dobbins, the right-hander they got from Boston in the Willson Contreras trade, is headed to the 15-day injured list with tightness in his throwing forearm after exiting his last outing against the Phillies following just one pitch in the 5th inning.
The scary part is where that tightness showed up. Dobbins already had Tommy John surgery on his resume, so any forearm discomfort is going to make Cardinals fans hold their breath. He reportedly told the team the sensation felt different from his TJ symptoms, which is the best-case version of bad news, but St. Louis isn't taking chances with a 15-day stint anyway.
Before this, Dobbins had actually been a quiet bright spot for a Cardinals rotation looking for stability. He'd posted a 3.67 ERA with a 22.5% strikeout rate across 54 innings this season, solid production for a guy who missed the back half of 2025 with the Red Sox after tearing his ACL. He'd worked his way back through a minor league rehab assignment at Triple-A Memphis and had settled in as a legitimate rotation piece. Losing him now, in the middle of a playoff push, stings.
This isn't happening in a vacuum, either. Andre Pallante landed on the IL just a day earlier, marking the first rotation injury the Cardinals had dealt with in close to 2 years. That's forced St. Louis to already scramble, recalling Quinn Mathews to start against Philadelphia, with Cooper Hjerpe and Brycen Mautz waiting in the wings at Triple-A as depth options if things get worse.
For a Cardinals team trying to hang around down the stretch, back-to-back rotation losses is exactly the kind of stretch-run turbulence that can sink a season. St. Louis is now leaning on unproven arms to fill starts that were supposed to belong to guys they trusted, and how those replacements perform over the next couple weeks may end up mattering more than anyone expected a week ago.