At the thought of a Yadier Molina injury, most St. Louis Cardinals fans' baseball lives flash rapidly before their eyes. Tuesday night, though, they'll probably have a more specific image in their head: The ugly, unnecessary collision at home plate that occurred in the second inning of the Cardinals' loss to the Pirates, when he found himself barreled over by an elbows-up Josh Harrison. It couldn't have looked more like a concussion, and Mike Matheny more than anybody else must have been worried, but the Cardinals' Twitter announced in midgame that he was day-to-day with an even more hyphenated upper-back-left-shoulder-neck-strain.
Well, that's about everything but a concussion, so inasmuch as anybody could be lucky in this kind of situation Molina and the Cardinals appear to have dodged a bullet. Tony Cruz would start if Molina is forced to miss any time; if he's sent to the disabled list the Cardinals would call on offense-first minor leaguers Bryan Anderson or Steven Hill—or, once rosters expand, both.
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