Willson Contreras to undergo surgery on broken arm

In Tuesday night’s home game against the New York Mets, St Louis Cardinals catcher Willson Contreras tried to catch a delivery from Miles Mikolas when JD Martinez hit Contreras on the wrist of his catching hand with the bat.

Contreras immediately howled in pain and ran to the side of the field, clearly in distress. He was taken out of the Game and X-rays revealed that the forearm was broken.

In a controversial move, the Cardinals have moved Contreras up in the catcher’s box so that he can “steal” more strikes, a reference to the catcher framing a borderline pitch so that it encourages the umpire to call it a strike rather than a ball.

The result is that Contreras is one of the catchers in MLB with the most interference calls against him. In this case, the pitch was indeed ruled catcher’s interference, but the broken arm makes it horrific.

Iván Herrera will step into the breach and become the Cardinals’ backstop for the foreseeable future. Contreras told reporters after the Game that he will have to undergo surgery, expecting to be out for six to eight weeks and hoping to return around the All-Star Break.

The Cardinals have not confirmed this timeline as yet.