Jordan Walker makes the Opening Day roster; Miles Mikolas will start - A Hunt and Peck

Mar 27, 2023 - 6:00 PM

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Miles Mikolas pulls up the collar of his Levi’s Sherpa-lined denim trucker jacket around his neck. The weather is just starting to warm up this time of year, but when the sun goes down the small bite of cold still nips at any exposed skin. He looks down that baseball in his hand, the one that mysteriously appeared in the pocket of his jacket at the end of the day. He instinctively closes his fingers around it in his slider grip and the words he read earlier reappear:

5 starters in a rotation on the mound
26 players will be in the dugout
9 players on the field will be found
1 pitcher starts the Opening Day bout
In the Land of St. Louis in front of the Arch
One start to begin them all, one start to define them
One start to open baseball and may victory find them
In the Land of St. Louis in front of the Arch.

Opening Day is just three days away and the Cardinals have announced their Opening Day rosters. Some of the big news is that it will be missing veteran pitcher Adam Wainwright as it was reported last week that Waino suffered a groin injury during a training session and will likely miss several weeks. That will push Miles Mikolas up to start Opening Day, which is a particularly exciting occasion as Mikolas recently signed an extension for 2 years and $40 million. The rest of the Cardinals rotation will shake out like this, per Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post Dispatch:

Here is the rest of the roster breakdown, courtesy of Jeff Jones of the Belleville News Democrat:

Some other notable roster inclusions are Taylor Motter in the infield for the injured Paul DeJong, Packy Naughton and Zack Thompson as the lefties the Cardinals went with in the bullpen, and oh yeah, Jordan Walker has made the Opening Day roster. He will reportedly wear number 18.

Here is the moment he found out:

This is going to be fun.

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