Cardinals southpaw undergoes shoulder surgery

St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Drew Rom.

Cardinals left-hander Drew Rom underwent arthroscopic surgery on his throwing shoulder last week, manager Oli Marmol told the team’s beat, via Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat. Marmol said the team is still hopeful that the 24-year-old could return at some point this season.

Rom was one of three players whom St. Louis acquired from the Orioles at last year’s deadline in the Jack Flaherty trade. As an upper-minors starting pitcher, Rom was a logical target for a team that wanted to reload on the pitching staff and push for contention. St. Louis called him up for his major league debut three weeks after acquiring him. He took eight turns through the rotation but didn’t perform well enough to put himself in the mix for an Opening Day job in 2024.

The 6-foot-2 southpaw was tagged for an 8.02 ERA over 33 2/3 innings. He had a modest 18.8% strikeout rate, walked more than 11% of batters faced, and gave up seven home runs. While it’s clearly not the way Rom wanted to start his major league career, he entered 2024 as a depth starter who’d likely have factored into the MLB staff at some point throughout the season. Rom has logged 134 2/3 innings at the Triple-A level going back to 2022. His 4.75 ERA in that time isn’t great, but he has punched out an above-average 26.6% of opposing hitters.

Injury will keep that from happening, at least for the near future. Rom battled what was initially announced as biceps tendinitis during spring training. He opened the season on the injured list and was transferred to the 60-day IL when St. Louis selected Kyle Leahy onto the MLB roster last week. The team revealed at the time that Rom was visiting a specialist and that surgery was on the table. He’ll clearly be out well beyond when he’s first eligible to return at the end of May. Rom will collect major league service and be paid the $740K MLB minimum salary for whatever time he spends on the injured list.

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