Mitchell Boggs, the first man to take the St. Louis Cardinals’ closer’s role in the wake of Ryan Franklin’s meltdown, was sent down to the minor leagues to make room for a returning Skip Schumaker Sunday night, and his route their was complicated by news he would join the Memphis Redbirds’ starting rotation.
Boggs, a starter through the minors, struggled with his control on his first exposure to the Major Leagues before rejoining the club as a hard-throwing reliever who touched 97 on a fastball that once sat around 93. His fastball-slider repertoire seemed perfect for the role, but he’s never seemed to fully earn Tony La Russa’s trust as a reliever, and Dave Duncan has never met a hard-thrower with low strikeout rates he didn’t want to move into the rotation.
His demotion is likely a temporary one, part of a roster crunch that saw the young right-handed relievers squeezed on one side by Brian Tallet’s return from a broken hand and on another by Ryan Franklin and Miguel Batista’s guaranteed-contract ineptitude, but it remains unclear just how far this stint in the starting rotation will be taken.